The recent news in science is the dethronement of the gene. Whoever wanted to have his genome decoded can spare his money. Apparently our genes aren't graved in marble, they are more like Lego- proteins can log on and modify activation. Wonder what Darwin would make of this.
The bad news is that this makes us much more responsible of who we are- the food we eat, the environment we live in, the challenges of life- all will take its toll. (For holistic medicine, this isn't news)
So far for the physical part.
Intelligence too, it seems, can be shaped by education ( so far for liberalist ideas of leaving markets and societies to themselves and that the best will win..) Or, let's say, the way you deal with your intelligence. Whoever took an intelligence test must have realized that most of them are pretty mathematic, and that anybody trained in similar exercises will have better results (and I'm not even talking about the problem of language and instruction, different logics etc.)
So we can train to think. But what do we want to train at? For most of us our world today isn't shaped by the question of accessibility to information, but by the value we attach to that information and by the time and money we are willing to invest to digest this information. This is a large quantum leap from last generations who still had to take information in the moment they were confronted with it.
Actually, this choice has always been valid. Intellectual information might have been scarce in former centuries, but environment information was always too abundant to be completely decoded. Humans are the species that has the most choice as to what information shapes its thinking.
Contrary to most animals, babies are born unable to cope alone and they stay this way for a long time. Their capacity and desire to learn is proportionate to their dependency. ( interesting question: does dependency condition learning targets?). And their primary focus for learning is the person who is vital, the feeder and carer. With growing independence they look around and take in their environment- but here too they are influenced by the caretaker: The people who have physical power over a baby have also the power over the environment it is exposed to.
And the baby learns by imitation, it chooses to imitate the caretaker and thus its world is defined by the caretaker.
Later in life other people become important- family, friends, schoolmates, teachers, all people that our youngster chooses to attach attention to. And in school the kid learns to imitate the teacher- even if he/she is asked to develop her own reasoning- the independent reasoning is allowed in a framework constituted by culture and customs.
The more the growing child discovers society, the more he/she decodes the important inherent messages that are vitally important for him/her to be part of or at least to interact with society. Questions of rank are dealt with: Who is considered important, by whom and why? What are the contradictions concerning society in what is said to be as compared to reality? (Whoever talked to a child above 10 will notice that these subtle hidden distortions are a frequent subjet of observation and critique).
In Occidental societies it is also vital for the adolescent to answer the question: who am I? detached from answers that social, race or family belonging could give.
The mind deals with these questions through observation, evaluation (often conditioned by the values acquired through imitation in younger ears) and choice. Choices, especially in teenage years, tend to be black and white. I am this and I aint that.
How many careers have been shaped by an admired teacher or by a convincing role-model!
That leads to a specific behavior: Imitation of those who represent what I am (or what I aspire to be) and differentiation from those who represent what I am not. Groups are chosen, give clear, visible or hidden signs of clanship and thus shape the identity of their members. With the choice of group comes the attitude towards society. Even groups that 'refuse' mainstream trends have strong clanic identification codes.
Interestingly, the values and attitudes that come with these groups aren't static. They are usually influenced by group-leaders and who becomes a leader represents an ideal archetypal representative of what the group stands for and its values. But this only works as long as the individuals in the group are projecting their individual need for self-esteem on a leader. If the individual is given a proposal that seems more attractive to his need of self esteem change can be quite sudden. Societies that have lost a war adapted to the winner's culture quite fast, underdeveloped countries tend to adopt external signs of value of developed countries.
But human species has an inbuilt capacity to integrate learning and change. When an individual becomes aware of conditioning, of his own unwanted limitations or of the hidden unwanted limitations of society, he/she tends to rebel against this frame. If he/she can attract a sufficient amount of imitators that agree with these ideas the group will form a clan with its own values, rituals and external signs. Gradually,if this group is sufficiently important, its specificities will influence mainstream with the help of leaders of mainstream opinion( people, publicity etc.) who are always on the look out for new element to profile themselves (the human attention is only given to new as opposed to usual- hence the need for constant renewal). Of course this taking over can also happen in a negative way, in refusing the specificities in order to limit mainstream from the influence, especially if the group is judged to be too dangerous (understand: threatening values and customs of mainstream too fast, or challenging the social order of mainstream society)
Which way influence will take depends largely on the capacity of the group to be aware of their own conditioning. That takes information and a lot of courage, since peer pressure will always go in direction of the established opinions of the group.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
this is a man's world ( and it's going right down the drain..)
Few people doubt that we are facing a major shift in society- a quantum jump or so to say. Everybody feel that things can’t really go on like they do but somehow there doesn’t seem to be a clue how to jump. Too much at stake and not enough instability jet. So we seem to fall what in Spiral Dynamics (http://www.spiraldynamics.com/book/LESMsmry.html) is described as a Meme trap- frantically doing more of the same to dig our hole deeper instead of jumping.
There are whole fringes of population who have so far surfed on the waves of doom who perfectly know that the times of abundance won’t be forever but: Hey, while we’re at it lets surf on the edge and take what we can. Investors and financial experts who should have learned a substantial lesson are back to business as usual and sometimes make you wonder if they really believe in what they say or are just hoping that it will transform into self fulfilling prophesies by way of spreading the word.
One thing that isn’t integrated into spiral dynamics ( no wonder because it wasn’t the meme of the time- Graves did his theory in 1946, and science hadn’t come up with the discovery of neuroscience and hormonal biology) is the subtle interaction of feminine and masculine memes.
What are masculine and feminine memes? Mainly stereotypes of behavior and thinking often triggered by hormones and enhanced by circumstances of culture of the two complementary parts of the higher forms of life- males and females.
The idea of a male is of a fighter, aggressive and astute( physically or verbally), assertive, who will conquer and defend his territory and his social position. From a caveman’s point of view this made evolutionary sense: in order to survive you had to defend your horde against other tribes and compete for the chance to reproduce . Nature favored their analytical skills, strength and expert intelligence, that is the capacity to learn from past experiences. The hormone favouring such behavior and present in larger quantities in males is testosterone
The idea of a female is that of reproduction/ creation ( beauty being closely linked to fertility) and of care and of culture/ social nets. In the stone age, fertility, health and care for the newborn as well as social cohesion were essential for the survival of the horde. Nature favored empathy, feelings driven and intuitive intelligence, that is the capacity to decode signs in an unconscious automatized way. The hormone favouring bonding and empathy and present in greater quantities in females is Oxytocin.
The stone age is a long way off our times and in between there have been changes of memes in history. With agriculture it seems that female memes became more important, cities tended to more male memes of hierarchy .
Christianism established a dominancy of male memes in Christian societies which was mainly not due to its origins but to its instrumentalisation and interpretation in the early centuries .
The dominant meme of the last century is that of mercantilism- money rules the world. The idea of trade and exchange in itself seems rather a female meme because it is based on social contacts. The idea of the conquest of markets, of the competition for profit on the contrary definitely belongs to the masculine memes. We can even ask if mercantile aggressivity and business success aren’t a substitute for the need for war in order to conquer, secure territories and supply and to clarify hierarchy. ( Or in a more cynical way: if commercial wars didn’t add a modern variety to the age old game of war).
Through commerce and communication these values of economic and individual success, of gaining markets and self esteem have spread throughout the world and its attributes of success are commonly accepted and valued as such even in cultures that officially condemn its originators.
In line with the increasing virtuality of communication the conquest of markets and new territories has become a game that isn’t won not in the production halls of companies all over the world but on the virtual floors of financial markets. Where in former times the expected future profit and the part of profit that was given to shareholders ruled the prices at the financial markets, theses are today more and more influenced by probabilities of price rises or falls and bets on these. And that is the trap of the meme of our time. In a world dominated by male memes, decision makers dig their own holes in reinforcing the male side .
Back to Spiral dynamics: More of the same digs a hole and makes the system unable to do the necessary quantum leap- ie do things radically different. When we observe financial markets- which have become the backbone of our society- we notice that decisions are made on more and more complex mathematical models ( which apart from their inventors most specialists don’t understand) based on complicated calculations of probabilities and extrapolation of past experiences. Except that in the end all decisions are based on humans and behavioral science teaches us some new insights:
1. After the fall we distinctly remember that ‘we knew it all along’- memory is proven to cheat on us to give us the impression that we can master hazard
2. The more complex a system is the more elements in it carry small risks. The sum of a multitude of small risks isn’t a small risk.
3. Humans tend to use up the capital of increased safety, when risks are reduced in taking up more risks ( Taxidrivers with ABS brake systems drove more dangerously, consuming the increased safety)
Translated into the financial system this means that any complex combination can carry a systemic risk that can crush the whole construction. Any attempt to secure the system will lead to increased recklessness that will consume the advantage. People, especially those who are convinced by their own intelligence will carry own in believing that they can forsee and master pending doom.
I’m not even mentioning the fact that complexity and innovation continuously recombined possibilities in this world into new situations that cannot be compared to former ones- extrapolating for entirely new circumstances isn’t only of no avail but a system that is based on extrapolating will only look out for known clues and discard those it considers of being without any importance. Which is a typical problem of hierarchies.
If the usual male-meme procedure of analysis and planning how to get from point A to point B based on expert intelligence is obsolete what is there as alternative? What can enable us to make the necessary quantum leap?
There are whole fringes of population who have so far surfed on the waves of doom who perfectly know that the times of abundance won’t be forever but: Hey, while we’re at it lets surf on the edge and take what we can. Investors and financial experts who should have learned a substantial lesson are back to business as usual and sometimes make you wonder if they really believe in what they say or are just hoping that it will transform into self fulfilling prophesies by way of spreading the word.
One thing that isn’t integrated into spiral dynamics ( no wonder because it wasn’t the meme of the time- Graves did his theory in 1946, and science hadn’t come up with the discovery of neuroscience and hormonal biology) is the subtle interaction of feminine and masculine memes.
What are masculine and feminine memes? Mainly stereotypes of behavior and thinking often triggered by hormones and enhanced by circumstances of culture of the two complementary parts of the higher forms of life- males and females.
The idea of a male is of a fighter, aggressive and astute( physically or verbally), assertive, who will conquer and defend his territory and his social position. From a caveman’s point of view this made evolutionary sense: in order to survive you had to defend your horde against other tribes and compete for the chance to reproduce . Nature favored their analytical skills, strength and expert intelligence, that is the capacity to learn from past experiences. The hormone favouring such behavior and present in larger quantities in males is testosterone
The idea of a female is that of reproduction/ creation ( beauty being closely linked to fertility) and of care and of culture/ social nets. In the stone age, fertility, health and care for the newborn as well as social cohesion were essential for the survival of the horde. Nature favored empathy, feelings driven and intuitive intelligence, that is the capacity to decode signs in an unconscious automatized way. The hormone favouring bonding and empathy and present in greater quantities in females is Oxytocin.
The stone age is a long way off our times and in between there have been changes of memes in history. With agriculture it seems that female memes became more important, cities tended to more male memes of hierarchy .
Christianism established a dominancy of male memes in Christian societies which was mainly not due to its origins but to its instrumentalisation and interpretation in the early centuries .
The dominant meme of the last century is that of mercantilism- money rules the world. The idea of trade and exchange in itself seems rather a female meme because it is based on social contacts. The idea of the conquest of markets, of the competition for profit on the contrary definitely belongs to the masculine memes. We can even ask if mercantile aggressivity and business success aren’t a substitute for the need for war in order to conquer, secure territories and supply and to clarify hierarchy. ( Or in a more cynical way: if commercial wars didn’t add a modern variety to the age old game of war).
Through commerce and communication these values of economic and individual success, of gaining markets and self esteem have spread throughout the world and its attributes of success are commonly accepted and valued as such even in cultures that officially condemn its originators.
In line with the increasing virtuality of communication the conquest of markets and new territories has become a game that isn’t won not in the production halls of companies all over the world but on the virtual floors of financial markets. Where in former times the expected future profit and the part of profit that was given to shareholders ruled the prices at the financial markets, theses are today more and more influenced by probabilities of price rises or falls and bets on these. And that is the trap of the meme of our time. In a world dominated by male memes, decision makers dig their own holes in reinforcing the male side .
Back to Spiral dynamics: More of the same digs a hole and makes the system unable to do the necessary quantum leap- ie do things radically different. When we observe financial markets- which have become the backbone of our society- we notice that decisions are made on more and more complex mathematical models ( which apart from their inventors most specialists don’t understand) based on complicated calculations of probabilities and extrapolation of past experiences. Except that in the end all decisions are based on humans and behavioral science teaches us some new insights:
1. After the fall we distinctly remember that ‘we knew it all along’- memory is proven to cheat on us to give us the impression that we can master hazard
2. The more complex a system is the more elements in it carry small risks. The sum of a multitude of small risks isn’t a small risk.
3. Humans tend to use up the capital of increased safety, when risks are reduced in taking up more risks ( Taxidrivers with ABS brake systems drove more dangerously, consuming the increased safety)
Translated into the financial system this means that any complex combination can carry a systemic risk that can crush the whole construction. Any attempt to secure the system will lead to increased recklessness that will consume the advantage. People, especially those who are convinced by their own intelligence will carry own in believing that they can forsee and master pending doom.
I’m not even mentioning the fact that complexity and innovation continuously recombined possibilities in this world into new situations that cannot be compared to former ones- extrapolating for entirely new circumstances isn’t only of no avail but a system that is based on extrapolating will only look out for known clues and discard those it considers of being without any importance. Which is a typical problem of hierarchies.
If the usual male-meme procedure of analysis and planning how to get from point A to point B based on expert intelligence is obsolete what is there as alternative? What can enable us to make the necessary quantum leap?
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