Protecting people "like us" from people "like them"

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by S.A.M., Jan 12, 2011.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I remember a thread once about friendship, and how to break up with someone.

    And you said there you simply ignore the person, don't respond to their emails, phone calls etc. That they should "get the message" by your ignoring them.

    I was quite surprised you said that, and I am a bit surprised now that you posted this thread and that you are asking the questions that you are.

    By ignoring them the way you do, even though they are trying to get through to you and get some kind of closure, you are dehumanizing them, and you find this socially acceptable.

    Groups and nations are doing the same thing, on a larger scale.
     
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  3. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    If you like, sure.

    It's more that it enables organization (at some particular scale) in the first place, but close enough.

    It's a mutually-reinforcing circle. You develop an in-group identity, and set up a polity around that, and this naturally derrogates the Others, thereby reinforcing in-group identity and cementing the polity, and so on.

    But the political benefit is, in some way, key. Absent that step, there's a crucial link missing in the chain of incentives. That doesn't mean such conceptions don't happen, but they don't tend to become entrenched, permanent features of the society. There has to be a political pay-off, for that.

    Analogously to biological evolution: fitter specimens proliferate at the expense of the less-fit.

    Often, yes. The point is increased power, organizational capabilities, resources, etc. These are the factors that directly cause one society to thrive, often at the expense of others (geopolitics being something of a zero-sum-game in that sense). Maintaining in-group identity and loyalty is fundamental to large-scale political organization. So, to the extent that dehumanizing and degrading Others contributes to the factors determining fitness, sure. To the extent that they do not, no.

    There is no such thing as "more evolved." There is such a thing as "more fit."

    But to the question: not necessarily. If a society can achieve higher fitness through greater benevolence and safety, then that's great. And there are cases where greater organization is achieved by subsuming smaller, competing groups into a larger identity politic - which necessarily involves discarding the old divisions between their respective former identities. But that will still leave some other, larger out-group. And there are general, systemic reasons that the whole undertaking tends to favor in-group loyalty and out-group oppression, in most times and places.
     
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  5. bluebird Registered Member

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    We are culturally predispositioned to search for a biological reason for the "other" syndrome, just as we are for every issue in american culture. If its not bio its not real! I think there is an important fact to be faced: We have an immense power to shape our reality through culturally relative thought processes. I think it would be much more accurate to place the formation of ethnocentrism in the realm of the culturally constructed, than the genetically destined.
     
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  7. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Supposing you're talking about France, you've got it exactly backwards. The women in question are already Others, and the legislation against the single most overt, public, salient signifier of such (the veil) is exactly a (possibly misguided) attempt at resisting that state of relations. It's a very difficult matter for French people to Other people who speak and look French. It is not a very difficult matter for French people (or anyone else) to Other people who only appear in the context of symbols of outsider status that are not only obvious, but also totally conceal most salient features of that person's identity. You can't walk down a French street wearing a chador, and expect to be anything but an Other - you're making sure of that when you conceal your identity in favor of a generic, overt symbol of non-membership in the in-group.

    Look, I realize you don't approve of said laws, and frankly I don't, either. But it does nothing for your supposed program of analysis to get them so blatantly wrong, to miss the obvious implications: the entire point of the veil amongst immigrants to Western societies (most of whom are from places where the veil is not common practice) is exactly to resist inclusion into the relevant in-group identity, and in a public, politicized way at that. It's overt purpose in that context is to absolutely ensure that Muslim women are viewed and treated as Others. That being why the penalties for coercing a woman into veiling are vastly stronger than those for the woman wearing the veil - the women in question are mostly pawns of a subversive program run by male immigrants, to challenge French identity and carve out their own niches of power and privilege. It shouldn't take much imagination to see the dangers presented by such an undertaking.

    And while I might agree that the French are perhaps a bit too severe about the whole secularism thing on the individual level, there are reasons for this as well. There's been no shortage of warfare between religious communities in French history, and the particulars of laicite are a response to that. The wearing of overt symbols of religious affiliation evokes a lot of ugly things in French history, and the fact that the immigrants in question might be totally oblivious to that is no relief. An understanding of the dangers of such programs, and a foreswearance of such out of solidarity with your fellow Frenchmen, is a key part of French national identity. And, perhaps most pointedly, by definition not an attribute that can be dropped or exempted in order to accomodate sectarianism.
     
  8. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    quadraphonics,

    Your responses in this thread are extremely well thought out and articulated. Is this a field of study for you?
     
  9. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Only in an amateur sense. When it comes to real-deal studying I tend to favor things that pay better and allow more creativity

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    But, yeah, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about this over the years. It's kind of fundamental to a whole slew of different political phenomena at a variety of levels, so it tends to come up frequently, and be worth understanding. You can't even really read most post-colonialist criticism without having a grasp on this. It's right up there with Male Gaze and Orientalism (in the sense of Said) in that way.
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Two more:


    Amartya Sen: Identity and violence
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/books/review/14yoshino.html


    The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning (Holyoak, Morrison, ed. 2005): Part VI: Paradigms of cultural thought. Thinking about people: Theory of mind.
    Apparently not all cultures have the same kind of distinction between self and other - not every culture has a notion of a point of view.
    (This is a comprehensive reference book, with overview of existing research.)
     
  11. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all. Why did it become unacceptable to draw and quarter unacceptable people?

    And if they were being burned in the colonies but not in the kingdom, what was the reason why it was unacceptable for one group but not for the other?

    If you look back I asked,

    Why is it that people who were used to seeing women burned or men drawn and quartered, changed their minds on the appropriateness of such punishments? What psychosocial changes brought about this change in perspective where people were "bothered" or "offended" by such actions?

    quadrophonics: well written but that is not what I am asking.

    Signal: thanks for the references. Especially the Sen
     
  12. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    How do you figure? Essentially everything that I've posted in this thread has consisted of direct answers to specific questions from you.

    /eagerly awaits weak evasions
     
  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    This is in the human science forum for a reason. Not in ethics or politics
     
  14. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Really? You sound so sure.
    Question should be asking yourself, perhaps, is if our magnificent brains are overriding our imperatives, or if the parameters are changing.

    See, it's rather odd you use a word such as "reprogramming" and then go on to say we're are making choices.
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    In the 12,000 years since we changed the world around us with the Agricultural Revolution, due to our uniquely long breeding cycle we have only gone through a few hundred generations. That is almost certainly not enough to result in major changes in our instincts. So while we have adapted external nature to our changing lifestyle, we have not quite adapted our internal nature. Therefore we each still have an "inner caveman" who is not quite at ease with this new lifestyle:
    • Living in permanent homes instead of camping in a different place every night
    • Growing our own food instead of chasing it across the landscape
    • Living in harmony and cooperation with anonymous strangers instead of with extended-family members we've trusted and cared for since birth
    • Subjecting ourselves to external authority instead of the patriarch of the clan
    • Spending most of our time on abstract work instead of being connected to the land, searching for food.
    The evidence of this is that occasionally that inner caveman can't stand this unnatural life and asserts himself by returning to Paleolithic behavior: treating strangers as feared and hated competitors for scarce resources.

    Dogs have two breeding cycles per year, so they've had 24,000 generations. As a result, their instincts have changed considerably and are now much different from those of wolves, who are the same species. Dogs have an inner nature that is supremely compatible with the external nature we have built for them. Ironically, they are much better adapted to our world than we are.

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    Well, we really don’t have a good vocabulary for things like this, so we do the best we can.
     
  16. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    I doubt the 24,000 generations for dogs. Just because they can breed rapidly does not mean they have. Their human masters control their breeding rate to a large extent. It is not difficult to separate a female in heat, and keep her away from the males till she is no longer in heat. This is something dog breeders do to this day.

    My own view, expressed elsewhere, is that they are very different from wolves because they have been bred for tameness by those human masters. Just like the following experiment on silver foxes.
    http://www.suite101.com/content/domesticating-the-silver-fox-a68305

    The Paleolithic behaviour described by Fraggle is almost certainly true, and a part of our genetic make up. I usually talk of tribalism, though. Not that Fraggle is wrong. He is quite right. Just that tribalism is still a part of many human societies, meaning we have clear cut examples today.

    Each tribe has its own culture, and one of the problems of immigrant populations is that they bring their cultural values with them. Since those values are alien to the new society they enter, this can lead to conflict. Different cultures mean the us and them syndrome.

    Gang culture is an example of tribalism inside the modern city. The gangs, like tribes elsewhere, regard people outside their tribe as being pretty much non-human, and therefore acceptable as victims for killing, robbing, raping, and mugging. I have seen exactly the same behavioural traits among the tribes of inland Papua New Guinea.
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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  18. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    And I have answered in human science terms, throughout.

    I don't think you really understand what human science is and isn't. There's a reason that numerous posters have recommended you read Guns, Germs & Steel. It's time you took us up on those suggestions, if you want to discuss things in these sorts of terms.

    Or just supply another weak evasion. It's a lot less work than reading and thinking, and doesn't pose any risk of having to admit that you're ignorant and confused. Of course, it also won't get you any respect from anyone, but the choice is yours.
     
  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes, we breed Lhasa Apsos and our bitches are limited to five or six litters in their whole life. But I can tell you've never been to the South. No one controls their dogs' breeding and the shelters are bursting. People here in Maryland go to the shelter to find a dog and they put them through a qualification process almost as severe as adoption of a child. So they give up and drive south to North Carolina. The people in the shelters down there run out into the parking lot and try to stuff two or three dogs into their car before they've even turned off the ignition.

    More importantly, for thousands of years dog breeding was not exactly a science; the first recognizable breeds like the mastiff (livestock guardian) and the Lhasa Apso (midden cleaner) show up around 6000BCE. Dogs bred pretty freely until then.
    All dogs are descended from a handful of wolves. They were probably more curious, lazy, tolerant and gregarious than their fellows, and that's why they decided to try the easy life of eating our garbage. They were already a little "tamer" than the other wolves, who generally avoid proximity to humans and only scavenge from trash when they're starving.

    Dogs are simply more gregarious than wolves. Wolf packs seldom have ten members; feral dogs packs number in the dozens. That tolerance of company extends to other species, including humans, cats, and various other domestic animals. They also have a lower incidence of the alpha instinct so most dogs are happy to let someone else decide what to do. They also have smaller brains, an adaptation to the lower-protein diet of a scavenger, putting them in awe of our ability to run the pack efficiently and prosperously. In addition, their teeth are better suited to chewing carrots than to ripping huge chunks of meat off of a kill and running away with it before the larger predators or scavengers show up and run them off.
    I have often written about our tribal instinct. In the Paleolithic we lived in small extended-family units of people who had trusted and cared for each other since birth. We regarded other tribes with hostility, as competitors for scarce resources in the days before agriculture was invented and created the world's first food surplus. Since then we've had to learn to live in harmony and cooperation with strangers, and it demonstrates the power of our uniquely massive forebrain to override our instincts. Still, the Paleolithic tribal instinct is there and occasionally it bursts out and gets the better of us.

    My main complaint about the Abrahamic religions is that they reinforce that tribal instinct. The fundamentalists of all three faiths genuinely believe that they are a little better than everyone else and look down on us as pathetic outsiders who must not interfere with their plans for running the world. Tribalism in the era of nuclear weapons is a rather frightening phenomenon and any philosophy that reinforces it must not be encouraged.
    Yet, at least in the USA, every immigrant culture has assimilated. Pizza is now America's national food, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo more enthusiastically than any Mexicans outside the state of Puebla, and our people call in feng shui consultants when rearranging their furniture.
     
  20. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    On breeding wolves into dogs.
    If you read the reference to breeding tame silver foxes, you would note that it happened by breeding only the least aggressive.

    If wolves were adopted by a human tribe, say 10,000 plus years ago, then it is reasonable to expect that the more aggressive wolves would not be accepted. The easy way to deal with them was with a hard whack over the head with a stone axe, while still puppies. The wolves with minimal aggression become the survivors. Over time, the only wolves in the human community would be descended from the least aggressive. Like the silver foxes, this breeding would lead to new physical features as well as tameness. That is : wolves become dogs.

    Note that deliberate breeding is not needed. Simply the elimination of more aggressive individuals.

    On tribes.
    The biggest problem I see with tribalism is the suspicion and paranoia that Fraggle mentioned. Members of a tribe frequently value their fellow tribespeople, but regard outsiders as subjects for aggression.

    This quality does not fit within a modern 21st Century society. We are required to mix with, and interact with thousands of strangers during our lifetime. Cooperation is needed. Modern culture emphasizes this, rather than the suspicion of tribes.
     
  21. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The process of degrading others, is a type of subjective magic trick, which makes use of relative reference. If I could rise above another person, I would be seen as being taller. But if I can't rise above, I can create that illusion that I did rise, if I can put the other person in a hole. If I put them in a hole, essentially lower their floor, which, in turn, will makes me appear to rise above.

    Politicians do this with mud slinging. If I put enough mud on the other candidate and get people to focus on the mud, I just lowered the floor. I don't have to come up with any goods ideas, since I look taller due to relative reference. So many people fall for this magic trick, that is is used over and over. It is often done by those who can't rise above it all.

    Picture if mud slinging was not allowed within political campaigns. One could not use the reference illusion to dig a hole for the opponent. To rise above, one would need to actually come up with a better idea than the other. This is much harder to do. That is why mud slinging is so important to many.
     
  22. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Not the aspect I am referecing

    1. How many generations would it take to "change our instincts"?

    2. Also, what does it mean when we say our instincts have changed? What exactly does group change in instinct constitute? Do we breed for less offensiveness? Is a learned behaviour? Is it peer pressure? Social sanction?


    Referring to the above statement on instincts, what factors would play a role in determining why dogs are more gregarious than wolves?

    I find that a very odd complaint, since I know of no Abrahaminic society which is still based on ethnocentrism and excommunication. Most pre-Abrahaminic societies that I know are based on race relations and hold members of their own tribe to stricter rules of breeding marriage and laws than other societies which they consider outside their tribal culture and excluded from their laws.

    Is this how war functions in human societies - or used to? Aggressive individuals eliminating each other?


    I don't think that is correct. Most tribal societies have rules only for their own tribe and seek to be both exclusive and isolationist. They may defend their own territories against outside aggression but they rarely seek aggression with outsiders. What tribes do you know of, that consider outsiders as subjects for aggression because they are outsiders?


    So dehumanising others is a kind of competitive instinct? So what is the reason that what is acceptable at one time, e.g. quartering a man and displaying his body parts in the public or burning a woman at a stake, is considered offensive or degrading at some other point? What is the process whereby these changes occur in societies?
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2011
  23. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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