The Virtual Crowd

 

Social media and the Internet enable the formation of virtual crowds. Crowds may always be, or become, dangerous.

A friend recently asked me to explain why such large numbers of people – in this case Americans – have come to accept the same body of extreme beliefs. In my mind, this meant the extreme white nationalist and anti-government sentiments that erupted on January 6, 2021. I immediately thought of Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. For Freud, society rests on the coercive agency of the Superego (das Uberich) implanted as the child faces its dependency on the world beyond it. This explained for him the peculiarities of crowd psychology – the ready response to Leaders, the need for authority and the eagerness to use or accept repression.

For Freud, the Leader defines the crowd (Masse), taking the place of the internal agent of outside authority (the Superego) left behind by childhood. A crowd is a collection of people mobilized not around a common interest or purpose per se but around a stand-in for the father, be it a collective Superego (ideology or belief/faith instrumentality), a Leader, a hero or a personalized god. This state of dependence is based upon shared feelings of fear and guilt that give outlet to the ambivalence the child directs at the father. Erotic ties (Eros) bind together individuals to each other and to the Leader, around whom all revolves.* The Leader serves as the object for this longing and defines, as father-surrogate, the relation in which all are united as "brothers" in submission to him.

The erotic tie between Leader and follower takes the form of an identification that brings the former into the psyche via the Superego, repeating the process that established it through identification with the first parental authority. Individuals in a crowd thereby come to share the same Superego, submitting to it, in like manner, their individual selves. Crowds, says Freud, are made up of "a number of individuals who have one and the same object in the place of their ideal self and have consequently identified themselves with one another sharing the same [surrendered] self (das Ich)." This bond through identification denies the crowd any critical faculties the individuals, as individuals, may possess and leaves them vulnerable to control by "suggestion."

The crowd represents a return to the primitive horde; in both we find "an individual of superior strength among a troop of equal companions." Freud suggests that fear and anxiety are always at the edge of crowd behavior, tending to increase, not decrease, in the face of challenges to the ties that bind individuals together. The individual in a crowd feels a need for authority that manifests in the submission of his self to the Leader. The Leader has this role because in "...the mass of mankind there is a powerful need for an authority who can be admired, before whom one bows down, by whom one is led and perhaps even ill treated."

For Freud, the principle phenomenon of mass psychology is the individual's "lack of freedom." Civilized man has exchanged a portion of his liberty for a portion of security. Submerged in a crowd, people behave like a collective neurotic. Freud saw such behavior as symptomatic of society, with its origin in the repression of desire and the consequent implantation within each individual of a Superego serving as the internal agent of that repression. The individual is directed toward submission to a Leader or to the over zealousness of compulsive morality continuing the infantile relationship to authority. Over a lifetime, the individual's character and identity are built, largely unconsciously, around that ready submission. The exercise of consciousness is never fully developed and the self is never free to author its rational being.

Culture's reliance on repression (and the other forms of psychic defense) and its extraction of surplus control subjects the individual to an ever increasing burden of guilt even as actual control of desire diminishes. As culture – especially in its Western, capitalist guise – affords humanity more and “better” ways of gaining satisfaction, it creates a larger and larger realm of potential satisfaction it must control. Control inevitably weakens and results in a situation where the erotic drives are only weakly held in check. The aggressive drives, always hard to restrain, become ever more difficult to control as they are increasingly deployed to master the erotic drives. The individual, trapped in this escalating conflict and spiral of anxiety, suffers increasing existential unease (Unbehagen). For we Americans – with a shallow history, a consumer-oriented culture and relatively vast riches unequally distributed – many are ready to "break loose" at any time.

I’ve taken this dive into Freud to get to my further point. In the age of mass social media, crowds may now form virtually. Without direct face-to-face contact, people can come to share a collective consciousness built around submission to some shared beliefs personified by a Leader. The social media niches where such virtual crowds mingle can intensify these beliefs into extreme forms. When the members of these groups actually do come together, they are vulnerable to the Leader’s suggestion and to the apparent dictates of their shared belief system, rational or mostly not. Then all hell can break loose.

* For Freud, Eros is more than sexuality, it’s a longing for something we do not have, for completeness, for other, for beauty, for the good.

Reflections on Annaka Harris' "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind"

Annaka Harris' fascinating book makes the case that consciousness may be an inherent property of all matter and for the possibility of modern theories of panpsychism.  However, she suggests that the concept of the self is an illusion and cannot define consciousness.  Consciousness may well be — I believe is — a fundamental property of the universe.  But I do not believe that the concept of the self is an illusion.  Rather the self is a construct arising from the complex information processing in our brain that allows experiencing.  Harris follows Thomas Nagel in defining consciousness as "being like something," i.e. having subjective experiences.  But seems to me that there can be no “being like something“ without a self to be like.  (A rock has no self.)  Consciousness may be everywhere and in everything but to become an experience, it needs language — to tell its story — and gives birth to culture.  Culture is perhaps the most powerful result of consciousness.  Culture includes science, politics and social ordering and is the basis of civilization.   

Harris also discusses the "combination problem" of panpsychism raised by David Chalmers.  (How could the many little bits of consciousnesses attached to everything come together to form one consciousness like ours?)  But there is no combination problem in a fundamental approach to panpsychism because consciousness is simply a potential or tag-along property of matter, perhaps available to or forming a higher level self.  (Might a star — possessing vast complexity — have an experience of self, of being a star?)  When connected to processing capable of forming a self, that bit of consciousness “pinches off” from the sea of consciousness (and perhaps from a higher order of complexity).  (See my The Cosmic Design and the Designer.) 

Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 30

For episode 29, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The moderns

XXX. Liberalism Modernized
 A. "Collectivism" as a spontaneous defense against social
     destructiveness of industrial revolution began to replace
     economic liberalism.
 B. Liberal theory had to meet realities of industrialization.  
 C. John Stuart Mill on Liberty
         1. Mill's philosophy, in a broad sense, is an effort to modify
           the empiricism in which he was bred by taking into
           account Kantian philosophy.
       2. Granted differing degrees of pleasure in moral qualities,
           thus departing from greatest happiness standard.
       3. Abandoned egoism and saw moral goods as good in
           themselves apart from contribution to greatest good.
       4. Argued for popular government and liberty not as merely
           efficient means but as producing and giving scope to a
           a high moral character.
       5. Saw that behind liberal government there must be a 
           liberal society.
       6. But while arguing for individual freedom, the area for such
           freedom -- must have no effect on others -- is reduced to
           insignificance.
       7. Mill never clarified what the individual ought to decide for
           himself and could not appeal to a notion of natural rights.
       8. Abandoned laissez faire in economics.
       9. Mill's liberalism:
           i. added respect for human beings to utility
           ii. accepted political and social freedom as good in themselves
           iii. liberty is a social good as well as an individual good
           iv. the function of a liberal state in a free society is positive
               not negative
 D. Mill saw that Bentham had neglected role that institutions play
     between individual psychology and concrete elements of given
     time and place and did not recognize historical development.
 E. Auguste Comte hoped to make concept of society not speculation
     but science. 
       1. Proposed existence of general law of "development" of
           societies.
       2. The "comparative method" of examining societies became
           "science".
 F. Mill tried to incorporate Comte into utilitarian tradition enlarging
     "empirical" from basis in individual psychology to include the
     study of social institutions and especially their growth.
 G. Herbert Spencer
       1. Also came from philosophical radicalism tradition.
       2. Blended utilitarianism ethical and political ideas with the
           new conception of organic evolution.
       3. While Mill went back to Bentham's empiricism, Spencer
           went back to rationalist tradition of classical economics
           using evolution to reconstruct system of natural society
           with natural boundaries between economics and politics.
       4. In his Synthetic Philosophy, he tried to set up a rationalistic
           system spanning whole range of human knowledge with
           progression from energy to life, from life to mind, from mind
           to society, from society to ever more complex civilizations. 
       5. Saw moral improvement of social well-being achieved through
           the survival of the fittest. 
       6. The state would wither away as society grew more complex 
           through an extension of laissez faire.
       7. Legislation mars this move towards perfection that nature
           itself tends toward via survival of the fittest.
 H. In response to the growing claim of labor to more than subsistence
     existence, and public support for this claim, liberalism needed
     revision to give positive role to government.
 I. Oxford idealists -- T.H.Green, Josiah Royce and John Dewey --
     provided this revision in the late 19th Century.
       1.With Hegel, they shared the general idea that human nature
           is fundamentally social.
       2. Brought to liberalism the problem of the mutual dependence
           between the structure of personality and the cultural
           structure of its social milieu. 
       3. Green saw deprivation as not only economic but also moral.
           i. with the Greeks, saw politics as essentially an agency
              for creating social conditions that make moral
              developmemt possible.
           ii. posited concept of positive freedom to enjoy something
              worth doing or enjoying -- as opposed to Bentham's
              negative freedom from legal restraint -- as freedom must
              include actual possibility of developing human capacities
           iii. requires a genuinely increased individual ability to
               share in goods produced by society and a greater ability
               to contribute to the common good
           iv. consistent with the core of liberal philosophy, the idea of
                a general good capable of being shared by everyone and
                providing a standard for legislation
       4. Green's two elements of rights:
           i. claim to freedom of action in acquiring subsistence as
              part of an individual's impulse to realize his own inner
              powers and capabilities
           ii. general social recognition that this claim is warranted
               and that the individual's freedom really does contribute
               to the general good 

"A moral community from Green's point of view, therefore, is one in
 which the individual responsibly limits his claims to freedom in the
 light of general social interests and in which the community itself
 supports his claims because the general well-being can be realized
 only through his initiative and freedom." 732

 J. Green accepted the state as a positive agency to be used where
    legislation could contribute to positive freedom.
 K. Problems arose in dispute between two of Green's disciples,
     Bernard Bosanquet and  Leonard Hobhouse.
       1. Centered around two ethical relationships:
           i. between individual and community, and 
           ii. between society and state
       2. Bosanquet argued the more Hegelian view of a "social
           self" as what a person would be if fully moral and fully
           intelligent when not impeded by one-sided give-and-take
           with society in charge. 
       3. Hobhouse attacked metaphysical usage of the term "state,"
           introduced to English usage by idealists because it could be
           used to justify illiberal political regimentation or social
           stratification.
 L. Green was also compatible with liberal socialism such as the 
     Fabians.
       1. The Fabians seek to regulate the economy because of the
           bad effects of unregulated ones, not because of class
           struggle.
       2. Extended the critique of economic rent to the accumulation
           of capital.
 M. Liberalism has two usages now, both with valid historical
      background.
       1. As a midpoint between conservatism and socialism, 
           favorable to reform but opposed to radicalism. 
       2. As equivalent to what is popularly called democracy as
           opposed to communism and fascism.
           i. liberalism in this sense means the preservation of
              democratic institutions
           ii. can be identified with whole Western civilization while
               the first meaning can be identified with the middle class 
 N. In the aftermath of WWI, fascism and communism set up
     transcendent collective entity based on race, nation or community.
      1. Conflicted with core elements of liberalism: individualism
          and the moral nature of the relationships between individuals
          in a community.
      2. The moral nature of society inevitably came to be expressed
          as some version of natural rights.
       

Next week:  Marx and Dialectical Materialism            
      

Westworld’s Consciousness Riff

The HBO remake of Westworld is superior TV in a number of ways. But its most intriguing aspect may be its foundational riff on what makes up consciousness. The basic premise is that recursive experience plus an emotional occurrence that anchors memory – especially an episode of painful loss – ignites (self) consciousness. Intriguing, yet not finally convincing. The ability to experience emotion itself requires consciousness – one must be aware of feeling such-and-such. Westworld’s premise begs the question of where that awareness comes from.

There seems to be no a priori reason to suppose that machines cannot be intelligent. It may be useful to think about intelligence as existing in more or less distinct forms. Generically, intelligence might be defined as the ability to acquire, process and apply knowledge. (Animals have varying degrees of this kind of intelligence and so may plants.) Machines have the ability to store and process information. Machine intelligence is the orderly processing of information according to governing rules (software). Both the information and the rules are externally derived and stored within the machine. The machine itself may be contained in discrete units or widely distributed (the cloud). Machines can learn – by adding and elaborating rules based on previous cycles of processing – but they can’t process information without instructions stored in memory. Cloud intelligence is machine intelligence taken to a higher level by accessing massive information from many data sources using more and many powerful processors and sophisticated software with built in “learning routines.”

Human intelligence is what we human beings have. It is what we know as manifested in thought and action. Our knowledge is stored in two places, our heads and in our culture. Culture is contained in language, traditions, techniques, art and artifacts, beliefs and whatever else carries collective knowledge across time and generations. The basic unit of human intelligence, however, remains the individual mind, which itself can be thought of as an organically based “machine.” But there seems to be a ghost in the human machine that we experience as consciousness. Mere machines cannot feel emotion – or pleasure and pain – no matter how massive the memory and computing power. And the movies Matrix and Terminator aside, machines do not inherently strive for self-preservation. Machines are not alive nor do they have “souls.” Whether because humans are organic life forms evolved over hundreds of millions of years after having crossed-over somehow from an inorganic strata or from deeper principle of the universe, we feel and experience pleasure and pain. Why is the unknown. Westworld, for all its brave speculation, sidesteps this question.

Games

Why do people, certainly guys, take so fundamentally to computer games? What does it tap and what did people do with that part of themselves before the computer age. Was TV a transitional mode, a passive way of preparing for the shift from attentiveness in the real world to attention to the unreal?

Walking through the woods of Washington DC one winter day, I wondered what Indians would have done during that season. Certainly they would have been warm in their houses while it was cold outside. They would have told stories, sang songs and maybe played games. These stories, songs and games were communal things, passed down over generations, played communally and adding to the cohesiveness of the community. Game software is communal too in that it is created by and part of a context supported by a community and the Internet allows multi-play. But we generally interact with computer games in a solitary way.

Yet we play. Can it be as simple as an urge or need to hunt? Testing oneself against the environment, to damage it or win victory? If this is true, one conclusion to draw might be that it is advantageous for men and boys to play games for recreation. It channels what may be a dangerous, anti-social part of ourselves into safer outlets (since we, as a society, don’t earn our living hunting anymore). In Freudian terms, at least for males, these games – including ones that you don’t actually kill things (like puzzle games) because the urge to do violence may diminish with age as boys become old men – provide for sublimation in the service of culture. And maybe in this age of virtual rather than actual interaction, computer games also provide a service for civilization in providing expertise in interaction via computer that goes well beyond the keyboard or the linear?