To: Wim and anyone interested in social progress
From: Rog
WIM:
I don't want to risk second
thoughts on your part because of my elaborations.
ROG:
I reserve the right to change my mind at any time... I find it is an
essential element in intellectual progress. Your elaborations will help me
grasp your position better.
1. How to define the path of a society toward absolute quality (social
progress)?
By the quality produced at all levels across the greatest span and depth. The
path cannot be defined in advance, but our past experience and current
knowledge can help us to identify some of the higher quality likely paths.
1a. By what method should we define that path?
Empirical experience.
1b. What path follows from applying that method?
The path of dynamic experimentation and constant striving for better quality.
The preferred path needs to be able to lock in past successes yet remain
open to continuous creative design and redesign.
1bI. What is the best intellectual pattern of values with which to judge the
balance between stability and versatility of a social pattern of values?
Empiricism -- by the results that the pattern creates and by our experiences
with its adaptability and resilience.
1bII. How can that balance of a given social pattern of values be enhanced
(more than without our intellectual intervention)?
By setting up systems that are free and dynamic and that strive to progress.
To me this is an intellectual intervention, though of a subtle kind. It is
an acknowledgement that distributed control is needed as well as central
command. It is an acknowledgement that cooperation is needed as well as
constant higher-level competition. It recognizes that win/win (mutually
beneficial) interactions lead to self organizing systems of higher quality at
progressively higher emergent levels. The intellectual intervention is needed
to ensure that the system doesn't get limited in its dynamic potential
(similar to regulations against stiffling monopolies in an economy).
2. Is society making progress along that path?
Yes. Almost every measure of social and biological quality (health, wealth,
democracy, freedom, education, lifespan, yield of nutrition per acre) has
gone up in virtually every continent -- especially in the last 50 years.
Intellectual progress has been even more dramatic -- at least in the
direction of science. There is of course no shortage of problems still
needing to be adressed, and many of these problems are as a result of
progress. Environmental stress, overpopulation, overly rapid change, an
absence of meaning as religion is discarded and not replaced, inequality,
weapons of mass destruction, 3rd world cultures with first world technology.
These need to be solved next, but we need to acknowledge that solutions
inevitably lead to new problems and new unrealized opportunities.
3. How to assist people in other parts of the world to make progress along
that path?
We must focus on those systems and patterns that are in common in progressive
cultures and we must identify barriers prevalent in less functional cultures.
The former includes democracy, human rights, free enterprise, property
rights, rule of law, freedom from exploitation, education, open competition,
etc. The latter include totalitarianism, exploitation, and pretty much the
opposites of the first list.
A problem here is that many societies that are nonprogressive are this way
because they are resistant to change. They are overly static. They actively
fight off dynamic freedom. As such, their cultural immune system is their
own worst enemy. Some of these cultures want the rewards and qualities of
progressive societies without adopting the necessary changes -- this may very
well not be possible. Others flat out reject the direction that progressive
cultures have taken. They don't see the emergent problems as being worth the
progressive gains. These may stagnate too. On the other hand, perhaps they
will find a better way to progress -- a new path.
3a. What change does that require in our patterns of values?
I see the need for clarity on the issue. I also see the need to stop
propping up crony dictatorships. The other solution is global capitalism. I
believe that competing corporate entities help establish new, practical
"cooperatives" that break people out of the geographic, nationalistic,
racialistic tribalism. The more groups that people belong to the more their
groups overlap and the less hostile they are to non-members (he may not be in
my religious group, but he is in my community or in my work group).
Capitalism of course needs disciplined rules and regulations and systems and
constraints. We need to help establish these in any culture that is
interested.
3b. Which types of global inequality between what entities should be reduced
to what extent and how to enhance the balance between stability and
versatility of the social pattern(s) of values that operate(s) on a global
scale?
As I have remarked, I have few concerns with inequality in advanced
societies. The US, for example, is very dynamic, with people extremely prone
to gaining and losing status over time. As for inequalities between
societies, the solution is to focus on freeing up the less functional
societies so they can join the ranks of the progressives. Those choosing to
resist the recipes for progress must be (gently) allowed to fail, but as
humanitarians, we need to offer assistance (safety nets) to the people in
need. We also need to protect their neighbors and their environment from the
follies of static or disfunctional cultures. (Israel is an example here --
the shame and ineptitude of disfunctional and frozen theocratic Arab States
is channelled by the leaders away from internal progress and diverted to
exterminating the neighboring model of progressive democracy.)
Those are my thoughts on the topics. Please help me refine, correct and
improve them.
Smooches,
Rog
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