Hi Scott:
First, a warm welcome to the group. I've been around since the
beginning and always look forward to new blood in the veins of MOQ-
discuss.
Second, I whole-heartedly agree with your views on the collective as a
purely fictitious think-burger, but have one small comment on
something you wrote:
> One could even argue that the collective is an utter
> rejection of the individual/intellectual in favor of
> the biological. Read Nobel laureate, F.A. Hayek's
> "The Fatal Conceit", in which he argues that
> collectivist values are really tribal/primitive (i.e.,
> biological) values. The altruistic sharing of
> resources was a matter of biological survival in
> hunter-gatherer bands (people who spent most of their
> time in pursuit of the biological), the primary social
> unit of humans throughout the vast majority of the
> evolutionary development of our species. One
> individual's decisions could very well mean life or
> death for the entire group. Ergo, you act with/for the
> group or you are out! Collectivism, pure and simple!
> While this works well for small groups (i.e., the
> hunter-gatherer band who are heavily dependent on
> group cooperation), it does not for groups composed of
> literally millions of people, where systems of
> exchange and division of labor have spontaneously
> developed. F.A. Hayek's (same book) "spontaneous
> human extended order" is exactly that, social
> institutions (markets, etc.) built on DQ!
IMO those tribal/primitive values you speak of are social level values,
not biological. Humans formed the social level to overcome the threats
of extinction from the biological level. In other words, the social level is
a static latch developed by humanity in order to dominate the lower
biological level--the lions, tigers and bears that like to eat tasty
humans. It's true that survival is a biological level force. But for
humans, a social level is required in order for that force to be carried
on within individuals. Without group cooperation, the lions win.
Similarly, modern societies, although considerably larger than the
hunter-gatherer groups, also use social level values to protect
individuals from the threat of extinction from competing humans who
use the biological forces of rape, pillage and murder to take over
territory and/or goods. Without national cooperation, the Nazis,
Commies and terrorists win.
The reason we have a social level at all is that we need other
productive people to survive--and "need" is a value. But, besides
protecting individuals from physical harm caused by germs, both the
natural and the human kind, the role of society is to encourage
individual responses to DQ by guaranteeing basic human rights (the
subject of another thread that I hope you will comment on).
Platt
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