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?

Neo Poppers

During the boring eighties when economy slowed down there developed a new youth segment in Germany as answer to the nihilist punks: the popper.

The popper was everything the punk wasn’t: clean, shaved, with neither too long nor too short hair (actually the favorite male popper haircut looked pretty much like the favored style of the Hitlerjugend), addicted to conservative luxury and brand cloth, apolitical, listening to mainstream pop-music; in short a popper looked and breathed the middle-upperclass kid. Poppers were the nightmare of the family budget, due to the kid’s demand on brands and a red flag in the eye of any political leftist group.

The segment dissolved into mainstream before long. Recently I feel there is a revival in Western society which is quite surprising. I don’t know if there is a new term for the phenomena, I’ll call it Neo Popper.

The Neo Popper is young, beautiful and rich. And he loves it- more so, it becomes his reason for living.

Being rich in former times in Western societies was frowned upon by Christianism. In Catholic dogma the poor was nearer to the kingdom of God and in Protestantism you could be rich out of merit but you were not supposed to boast about it or to expose it too much.

I know of noble families where estates and servants were kept but rest of candle-wax collected out of chandeliers and molten into new candles- not because out of financial need but because of the sin of waste. And I’ve seen several specimen of old European noblesse walk around in cloth patched and torn that even a beggar would refuse, again a sign of horror to waste. French bourgeoisie traditionally walks around in excellent brand cloth, but they are worn long beyond their fashionable life, as a matter of fact they often are chosen because beyond fashion. New things were frowned upon- they looked suspiciously nouveau riche. And nouveau riche meant you had no culture and that you would be ignored by the establishment ( see Molière’s bourgeois gentilhomme on that)

Until the Neo popper. The Neo popper is luxury advertising come alive. Imagine somebody jumping out of an advertising for Vuitton or Chanel , trying to live every second of his life as if he/she were a living example of publicity dreams come true. It is almost as if the luxury industry had invented this clientele to keep their market alive.

Maybe some people who dispose of lots of money have always looked down upon the less fortunate, but this time the sole reason to despise the less rich is money. To have or not to have banknotes is a sign of distinction for the Neo Popper- an important sign. My daughter recently showed me a blog whose owner is obsessed with the quantity of luxury goods he buys or with the money he is offered as pocket money. It is interesting that this guy needs to constantly rub it into his readers as far as photographing the produce or the money he is talking about and questioning constantly- do you have the same? Apparently the Neo Popper is a kind of Vampire- for his existence he doesn’t need blood but envy.

A bestseller out is called ‘Hell’ and tells the story of a Neo Popper: luxury as only value, no limits- apparently a life as living advertisement can be hell.

Fault of the parents or mirror of society? The popper syndrome in former times revealed aspirations of belonging – it was predominant in social spheres that dreamt of ascension the youth of the middle classes and in upper-middle classes from developing countries. Parents that supported the exterior signs of belonging secretly hoped that it would lead to a better standing of their offspring. Contrary to the criminal ghetto youth scene that tries to cover their inferiority complex by flashy or sportswear luxury brands, the Neo Popper rather uses consumption as statement: I consume luxury therefore I’m special and rare.

Today the youth harboring neo popper attitudes seem to be more cynical and very aware of their privileged position. In a world of constant change where nothing stays the same and the admired of today are blamed tomorrow the Neo Popper needs to hold on to the illusion that he will always be on the winning side, because he possesses what apparently is the ultimate value- money.