Hello Rog,
You are definately an optimist. There probably is not a lot of room for
disagreement between our views, but... Although I do think that advancements in
complexity can be seen as evolutionary progress in some sense, I don't think this
necessarily means an advancement in terms of values. For instance, You say "Our
tendencies toward immorality are controlled much more effectively in quality
societies such as Taiwan, Australiia, Great Britain etc." What are we comparing
this with? Do you mean as compared to less developed nations in the world?
Well, if so, then I think it might be possible that the foriegn policy of these
"qaulity societies" contribute to the absence of quality in the other countries.
Or do you mean that these "quality societies" have advanced over time? The great
Britain of today may have more control over tendencies of immorallity today than a
century ago, but this may only be beause the US has assumed the role of the global
police force from them since WW II.. Likewise, Australia might have controlled
forces of immorality due to the fact that there is no longer an indigenous force
to contend with within their sphere of influence.
Or you say, "the size of the group considered socially protected has grown from
village to nation to universal (Enlightenment values) over the past three thousand
years." I think that along with the growth of the size of the socially protected,
the size of the socially unprotected has also increased. Perhaps, at an even
greater rate.
And I don't agree with, "We have developed governments that are much more
effective at resolving conflict and at minimizing exploitation as revealed by the
transition from divine ruler, to monarchy to divided representational democracy."
I don't consider dropping tens of thousands of bombs on a country a more moral way
of resolving conflict, although it may arguably be more effective.
Representational democracy has produced two presidents from the same family in the
past twenty years. The most recent was not even elected by a majority of voters.
Voting rates are declining in the US. A increasingly smaller minority population
has gained an increasing share of the political and economic influence over global
society and most local resources. I cannot see this has an advancement in quality
for the majority of global citizens.
Finally, "We have further empowered half the human species with equal opportunity
across gender. We have eliminated slavery and are well on the way to rooting out
systematic racial discrimination."
There seems to be a matter of opinion that separates us. I am sure I could come
up an overwhelming amount of statistics and commentary that would refute this last
view as you could to support it. The main point is that there will never be
enough eveidence to support the view that human morality or quality has advanced
in the social level unless we consider complexity to be of higher quality than the
simple lifestyles that characterized hunters and gatherers--which I think you do.
We should keep in mind that we use our morality to judge other societies as either
"quality" or lacking of. Lets not forget the costs of the large complex social
networks that hold todays modern global population of humans together. Carbon
content in the atmosphere is on the rise and all scientific indicators point to
alarming warming trends. Global Armament trade increases every year and civilian
deaths due to warfare are also increasing each year. Weapons of mass destruction
are being produced at increasing rates. Species extinction rates are estimated to
be at levels that are only rivaled by other mass dieoffs in the Earths global
history. On and on..... Are these trends considered improvements or advancements
in morals, values or quality?
And as far as good vs bad competition. In evolutionary theory competition is
considered to be a rivalry between organisms and groups of organisms (both within
and between) for scarce resources necessary for survival and reproduction. I
don't know how to put a value on that. Obviously, there is not as much harm done
to society by games and sporting events as murder and mayhem. But, we can see the
US role in the world as a major military power is a result of "competition" for
the worlds scarce resouces, particularly oil. Would this be an example of "good"
competition? I am not sure if the citizens of the oil producing nations in the
world would agree, although we can always ascribe the description of "poor
quality" to their society and this would give our influence in these regions ample
justification.
What I am saying is that it appears you are making some leaps from some
evolutionary trends (previously both biological and social, but now just social)
to support the MOQ. I am not sure that there is anything there. I don't think
Pirsig knew what he was grasping for. I think he sensed that there was something
wrong with using SOM to describe complex systems such as society. Rightfully so!
But, in my opinion, his MOQ has many problems and should be open to some revision
or change if it going to be of any use. This would be the role of dynamic
quality. I have only been a member of this discussion group for a short period of
time, but I have yet to conclude whether this group plays the role of static
quality or dynamic quality within the MOQ that pirsig presents. I am leaning
toward the former, although I am still not sure if this is necessarily a the wrong
direction for such a group.
Thanks for the comments,
enjoyed the diamond quote
Andy
RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote:
> Greetings Andy
>
> ROG:
> I read that Scientific American too. I agree with everything you wrote on
> language.
>
> Q. Do you agree that
> mankind has improved in the ability to cooperate (even in socially amiable
> competitive ways*) across larger spans?
>
> ANDY
> We have progressed towards greater and greater complexity in our societies
> over the past 10K years(I choose this date to coincide with agriculture and
> sedentary pop vs. nomadic hunters and gatherers). This can be thought of as an
> improvement if this progression is deemed to be an advance from low to high
> quality (trying to stay within the MOQ framework here-probably
> unsuccesfully). I
> don't agree that this is true. Society has evolved towards greater
> complexity,
> becuase that is what dynamic systems do when they possess the means. With the
> emergence of langauge, H. Sap. possessed the unique ability to begin this
> progression. The "innate" abilities to cooperate and compete have always been
> there from the first H. Saps. The evolution of complexity on the social level
> has used a heathy dose of both. For an entertaining read that gives a useful
> account of the competitive aspect of this progression I would reccommend Jared
> Diamponds "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
>
> ROG:
> Diamond's masterpiece is one of the books on social quality that has been
> most influential to my views (you can see its influence in my previous *
> footnote). I don't really think you are disagreeing with me here. I agree the
> progression is social over this time frame (enabled by prior biological
> improvements such as language). Below are Diamond's recommendation (from a
> conversation in The Edge) on developing successful social organizations...
>
> DIAMOND:
> So what this suggests is that we can extract from human history a couple of
> principles. First, the principle that really isolated groups are at a
> disadvantage, because most groups get most of their ideas and innovations
> from the outside. Second, I also derive the principle of intermediate
> fragmentation: you don't want excessive unity and you don't want excessive
> fragmentation; instead, you want your human society or business to be broken
> up into a number of groups which compete with each other but which also
> maintain relatively free communication with each other.
>
> ANDY:
> You said "I am referring to innate human tendencies toward sympathy, duty, a
> sense of embarrassment, loyalty, honesty, fairness, etc. These are of course
> often at odds with our tendencies toward cruelty, selfishness, dishonesty,
> status, etc. Both sets are well-documented tendencies across the majority of
> cultures. The point is that humans are complex social beings, and have
> evolved
> (granted imperfect) capabilities to exist and thrive as such social beings."
>
> I agree. It is only that I think these innate qualities have not evolved over
> the period that I think we both agree has characterized the increase in social
> complexity. That is why I chose 30Kya if somewhat arbitrarily. We really
> don't
> witness these great leaps in social evolution until the emergence of
> agriculture
> around 10K ya. "Our tendencys toward cruelty, selfishness, dishonesty,
> status,
> etc" maintain a presence in todays society that is equal to any moment in
> recent
> history (30k ya). In fact, these traits along with the other set of
> "desireable"
> traits have played equal roles in the "evolution of complexity."
>
> ROG:
> Again I agree with almost everything you wrote. Where I would differ is that
> the span of cooperation/competition has become larger and more effective (it
> has gained in social quality). Our tendencies toward immorality are
> controlled much more effectively in quality societies such as Taiwan,
> Australiia, Great Britain etc. For example, the size of the group considered
> socially protected has grown from village to nation to universal
> (Enlightenment values) over the past three thousand years. We have developed
> governments that are much more effective at resolving conflict and at
> minimizing exploitation as revealed by the transition from divine ruler, to
> monarchy to divided representational democracy. We have further empowered
> half the human species with equal opportunity across gender. We have
> eliminated slavery and are well on the way to rooting out systematic racial
> discrimination.
>
> I could go on. I agree that the progress is all social or above (there has
> been no innate improvement in biological man), but I do see it as clear
> progress. The span of cooperation/competition has increased in a way that
> maintains and advances the system.
>
> Rog
>
> PS -- I could go on for pages about good competition as opposed to bad,
> destructive competition. But I better not, suffice it to say I have found
> insights in Pirsig's levels in regards to possible types of competition.
>
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