Language, Hunting and Bezos

Language makes us human and different from all other of earth's creatures. With it, we can think, plan and act. Other animals communicate with each other through various means (bees do it through dance). But only we have words and grammars, with which we can great structures of meaning. With language comes society, culture, science, technology, and history.

But from whence comes language? Perhaps from group hunting. Social carnivores such as wolves and lions do not have language but still coordinate hunting. Between early learning – cubs practicing innate skills and watching adults – and basic vocalizations, they can surround prey and attack in unison. Some whales coordinate their approach to circle their prey and drive them into a concentration that allows a dense feeding ball. But these creatures come with their weapons built in, fangs, teeth and claws or huge mouths.

Primitive humans did not have built-in weapons or thick hides. Out on the savanna, they were easy prey for other carnivores and would be poor hunters against anything big enough to satisfy the group’s hunger. They needed to make artificial weapons and, working together, use them to kill their prey.

At some point in human evolution, some series of chance mutations increased the brain’s capacity to process and organize information sufficiently enough to move beyond simple grunts and other calls towards a structured use of vocalizations. This would have provided a huge evolutionary advantage. Humans could begin to coordinate more elaborate approaches to prey animals.

Language – as it became more elaborate – would serve many other purposes, such as passing on learning about making weapons and which plants were good to eat and where to find them. But it may have been most useful at first in hunting. Homo sapiens even hunted the huge mammoths into extinction. The first leaders in human society may have been those most capable of using language to coordinate hunting.

Language allows the possibility of free-flowing thought. With words and grammar, individuals can recall the past, examine the present, probe accumulated human experience, and imagine a future to be pursued to advantage. Throughout human history, those that do this best made the best “hunters” and captured the biggest “prey.” They drove human development by finding new ways to exploit others and the found environment. As society superseded family, they also thought of monopolizing what they “captured” to turn temporary advantage into permanent advantage. Great war leaders might seek to become kings, great inventors owners of ever expanding conglomerates. Jeff Bezos seeks to own the core exchange mechanism of 21^st Century economy.

The drive to seek and maintain profit has provided a positive dynamic in human civilization. We cannot and should not seek to prevent the hunters from seeking new prey. Bezos and Amazon clearly show the advantages of the e-approach to economic exchange and it has become very useful during the current COVID-19 crisis. Bezos has even prodded old line hunters like Walmart into more effective ways. But allowing the best hunters free reign only works for the group when they share the meat.

A number of “tech giants” have now become the focus of attention for their efforts to monopolize their hunting style and for using it mostly for their own gain. It is reasonable for the rest of us – who also do our part to maintain the social and economic order – to look to limiting their ability to seek only self-enrichment. This doesn’t mean doing away with successful hunters – even if we could – but helping them share better through truly progressive taxation, less exploitative practices and perhaps breaking up their enterprises to create room for more hunters.

COVID-19: The Great Equalizer

By now, the human species has been altering the natural order for some 11000 years. It started with the advent of agriculture and went through urbanization and industrialization which transformed the surface of the earth and began changing a host of natural systems including the climate, animal life, forests and oceans. We humans have known about this for a while. But most of us – especially those of us in the advanced economies and not living too close to the rising waters – could see the impact of our disruption of natural systems as something that would affect other people – future generations, the poor, those living in low-lying island nations – and not so much us in the here and now. COVID-19 has altered that by bringing to all of us the results of our changes to the earth. It has equalized the impact of the destruction of natural environments (which stresses what lives in them thereby making them more prone to diseases that can jump to us), the way we use animals (including how close we live with them and the antibiotics we use to fatten them) and the close quarters (in large numbers) in which we live. Add to this the way we use hydrocarbons to travel and transport, the interconnectedness of our ways of life and economies and the varying shortcomings of our political systems. We should not have been surprised by the current bio-crisis. It’s not that any one of these caused the virus but that the total impact of what we have wrought was largely hidden until now though very much operative.

So COVID-19 shows us that the bill won’t wait to be delivered and that everyone must pay. The rich may be able to retreat to their enclaves and private transport. But their world will change as ours does. The species as a whole will survive. But this is the wake up call. The future disrupted world is upon us now. Returning to “normal” – whenever and whatever that turns out to be – may well be just a breather before the next episode. We need to take the next step in our evolution – remake our economies and politics, restoring nature even if gradually and treating each other more equally – and start now or the humanity that makes it to the 22^nd Century may be unrecognizable.

Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 31

For episode 30, see here

The Theory of the Nation-State: The Moderns

XXXI. Marx and Dialectical Materialism
 A. Marx transformed Hegel's struggle of nature into a struggle of
     classes thereby taking away nationalism, conservatism and
     its counter-revolutionary character and becoming a powerful
     form of revolutionary radicalism. 
       1. Marx accepted dialectic as a logical method.
       2. For both the driving force of social change is the struggle
           for power.
 B. Marx perceived the importance of the rise to political self-
     consciousness of the industrial working class. 
 C. Saw the French Revolution and the resulting rise of natural
     rights in politics and economics as a prelude to social 
     revolution. 
 D. Marx and Hegel provided cause greater than oneself as the
     only reward to individual.  
 E. History (with a big "H") takes the place of God for Marxist
     revolutionist because Historical necessity provides cause and
     effect, desirability and moral obligation.
 F. Marx studies Hegel at the University of Berlin under materialist
     Hegelian, Ludwig Feuerbach.
 G. Economic materialism sees that social development depends
     upon the evolution of the forces of economic production.
 H. Marx tended to equate "materialism" with "scientific." 
       1. Also implied radical rejection of religion.
       2. Materialism and dialectics suggested a new and far-reaching
           revolution by giving materialism an ethical dimension:
           economics as the root of social inequality.
 I. Marx's belief that socialist society would extend political liberty
    never depended on analysis of socialism but only on a priori
    belief that in a developing society, nothing of worth would be lost.
 J. Understood through the dialectic, economic determinism did not
    mean cause and effect but through economic factors operating
    as semi-personalized agents of creative energies.
 K. The individual counts mainly through his membership in his
     class because his ideas reflect the ideas generated by class.
 L. Marx's theory of cultural development:
       1. A succession of stages each of which is dominated by a
           typical system of production and exchange of goods.
           i. The system of production forces generates its own
              characteristic and appropriate ideology including;
           ii. law, politics, morals, religion, art and philosophy
       2. Whole process is dialectical with its motive force supplied
           by internal tensions created by the disparities between a
           newly evolving system of production and the persisting
           ideology of the old.
       3. The forces of production are always primary as compared
           to the secondary, ideological consequences.
       4. Dialectical development is an internal process of unfolding
           or of vitalistic realization.
 M. Marx and Friedrich Engels rejected the idealist interpretation of
      dialectic as self-development of thought, saw instead the self-
      development of nature itself reflected in thought.

"The notion that ideology may in some cases affect what figures in a
society as a standard of truth has, however, produced the rather large
body of theory now known as sociology of knowledge."

 N. "Ideology," "economic determinism," and "class struggle" are
     core theoretical concepts of Marx's social philosophy from
     which two divergent political strategies emerged:
       1. Evolutionary party socialism.
       2. Revolutionary communism.  

Next week: Communism
     
 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 29

For episode 28, see here

To start at the beginning, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXIX. Liberalism: Philosophical Radicalism 

"The history [of philosophy of natural rights] was an example of the paradox of which Hegel was so fond, that a philosophy is fully developed in its details and

applications only when its main principles have come to be taken for granted

and to that extent have become retarded in their speculative development." 669

 A. Liberalism of the 19th Century was reaction against the excesses of the

      Revolution and on reliance on "self-evident" axioms.

 B. Defined classical liberalism, in essence a program of legal, economic and

      political reforms connected, as they supposed, by the fact of being all

      derived from the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest

      number.

 C. Chief ideas that actuated the Philosophical Radicals:

       1. Greatest happiness principle as a measure of value.

       2. Legal sovereignty as an assumption necessary for reform through

           the legislative process.

       3. A jurisprudence devoted to the analysis and censure of the law in

           light of its contribution to the greatest happiness.

 D. Four dimensions of pleasure or pain (for calculation):

       1. Intensity.

       2. Duration.

       3. Certainty it will follow given kind of action.

       4. Remoteness from the time it will occur.

 E. Greatest happiness principle useful in stripping away 'fictions' and 

      recalling that real individuals are affected by law and government

      actions. 

 F. Allocation of pains and pleasures by good legislation brings about most 

     desirable results.

       1. Utility only reasonable grounds for such legistation and obligation

           to obey.

       2. Property rights justified by the need for security and certainty of the

           results of our actions.

 G. Jeremy Bentham's liberal humanist feeling caused him to temper the

      greatest happiness principle (efficiency) by holding equality of men in

      calculating happiness.

 H. Classical economics grew alongside Bentham's social philosophy 

      from the same roots in Adam Smith, via David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus 

      and the French successors to François Quesnay and the Physiocrats. 

       1. Laissez faire theory

       2. Economics and politics mutually interdependent with 'law-like'

           economic behavior.

       3. Embraced two diverse points of view:

           i. natural order as inherently simple, harmonious and beneficent

           ii. belief this order is devoid of ethical attributes and its laws have 

               no relation to justice, reason or human welfare

           iii. the first assumption corresponds to a static social free-market

                that will produce most cheap harmony of interests 

           iv. the second corresponds to the social dynamics of distribution 

                of the total product of that market through economic classes 

                where what one gets depends on which class one is in

       4. At odds with utilitarian principle which requires a harmony of

           interests which is not natural but must be produced by legislation.

 I. Malthus proposed two laws:

       1. In general, population increases faster than production of food.

       2. Law of rent -- food is the product of land and land is peculiar in

           that it is limited in amount and differs in productivity. Rent is the

           difference between productivity of any given piece of land and that

           of land which at prevailing food prices would just fail to pay the

           cost of use.

        3. Rent therefore contributes nothing to production and landlords

           are economic parasites. (Ricardo), and;

           i. increase in food prices brings less fertile lands under cultivation,

              increases rent and increases population which increases prices

           ii. implies law of wages -- except for temporarily, wages cannot

              rise above or fall below subsistence level 

           iii. total product of industry in general distributed as rent, wages

               or profit with profits falling as rent increases

           iv. does not mesh on theoretical level with a neutral free market

               but on practical level led to policy of free trade

           v. Marx had ready made picture of exploitation of labor (profit was

               economic rent paid to the holders of the means of production

 J. Bentham saw that Liberal government need not be defended by accepting

     its inefficiency.

 K. James Mill

       1. Shared Hobbesian view of men driven by desire for power which

           institutional limitations cannot check.

       2. With Bentham rejected any conception of balancing of powers.

       3. Saw middle class as "wisest part of the community" which lower

           classes would follow. 

       4. Unified egoistic theory of individual motivation and belief in the 

           natural harmony of human interests.

 L. Philosophical Radicalism had great practical effect in 19th Century

     England.

       1. Had no positive conception of a social good and a passive view 

           of government.

       2. Left need for some conception of social good and positive government.

Next week:  Liberalism Modernized

     

 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 26

For episode 25, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVI. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Rediscovery of Community
 A. Great gap between Rousseau and his contemporaries.
 B. Was a deeply divided personality, noble vs base, ideal vs real.

     "More than most men, Rousseau projected the contradictions and maladjustments of his own nature upon the society about him and sought an anodyne for his own painful sensitivity. (Sabine, 577)"

 C. Used contrast between the natural and the actual not as appeal to reason 
      but to attack reason.
 D. Against intelligence, growth of knowledge and Enlightenment progress,
      he set amiable and benevolent sentiments, good will and reverence.

     "What gives value to life is the common emotions, perhaps one may say instincts, in respect to which men differ hardly at all and which he imagined to exist in a purer and less perverted form in the simple uneducated man than in the enlightened and sophisticated."

 E. Based his values on "realities" of everyday life.
 F. Intelligence and science are dangerous because they undermine 
     reverence and faith.
 G. Pulled philosophy away from union with science and implanted 
      distrust of intelligence.
 H. Rejected systematic individualism and self-interest as virtue.
 I.  Took from Plato a general outlook.
       1. Political subjection is essentially ethical and only secondarily a
           matter of law and power.
       2. Community itself is chief moralizing agent and represents the
           highest moral value.
       3. Therefore fundamental moral category is citizen not man.
 J. Saw rights not as against community but within it.
       1. Natural egoist is fiction, some kind of community is inevitable,
           society is purely instinctive.
       2. Community has corporate personality, a general will.
       3. Government is agent for this will (could be radical or conservative).
       4. General will is the source of law and morals.
 K. The General Will
       1. Saw city-state as the best example of venue for the general will.
       2. Contract useful device even though government has no
           independent power; citizens exist as members of society,
           individuals have no rights except as members of the community.
       3. General will is the collective good of the community which is not
           the same as the private interest of its members.
       4. Men become equal within a society not because (per Hobbes)
           their physical power is substantially equal.
       5. Absolute authority of general will vis-a-vis indefeasible individual
           rights.
       6. When one is forced to obey general will, one is being forced to
           be free because one doesn't know his own good.
 L. Rousseau originated romantic cult of the group contrary to rationalist's
      cult of the individual.  
 M. In adapting the model of citizenship within the city-state to modern
      modern nation-state, Rousseau helped to recast it in such a form
      that national sentiment could appropriate it.
 N. Rousseau's impact
       1. Idealizing moral feeling of the common man led to Kant
       2. Full significance of idealizing collective will and participation in the
           common led to the idealism of Hegel.
       3. Descartes split reason from custom, Rousseau tacitly set it aside,
           Hegel tried to reunite them.
       4. Burke supplied missing content to "general will" by giving
           corporate life of England (custom and tradition) a conscious reality.

Next week:  Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke










 
 


 
 




 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 9

For episode 8 see here

 The Theory of the Universal Community

 IX. Cicero and the Roman Lawyers

  A. Known [Western] world soon to be under single political rule like
       Mediterranean
       1. Melting pot became single community
       2. No politically self-conscious nations 
       3. Stoic ideas of world-state, natural justice and universal citizenship
           became common property of all educated men
       4. World ruled by God, father to human who were therefore brothers
  B. Development of these ideas followed two lines
       1. embedding of "natural law"into Roman jurisprudence
       2. development of religious implications of law and government rooted in
           plan of Divine Providence
       3. little political theory done systematically
  C. Cicero not original but very widely read
       1. Wrote to bring Rome back to Republican virtues but failed
       2. Most important contribution was to give statement of Stoic doctrine of
           natural law universally known in the West through the 19th century
       3. Natural law arose from fact of God's providential government of the
           world and from rational and social nature of human being which makes
            them akin to God
           i. In light of this law, all men are equal

"Indeed Cicero goes so far as to suggest that it is nothing but error, bad habits
  and false opinions that prevents men from being in fact equal." (164)

           ii. Equality is moral requirement rather than a fact, contrary to Aristotle
       4. State is a moral community, the res publica, or affair of the people 
       5. Membership in the state is common possession of all its citizens, as is its
           advantages of mutual aid and just government.  Thus:
           i. its authority arises from the collective power of the people
           ii. political power when rightfully and lawfully exercised is corporate power
              of the people (and only to be exercised by law)
           iii. state itself and the law is subject to God, in effect to moral or
               natural law
   D. Roman lawyers
       1. Classical period of development of Roman jurisprudence , repetition and
           elaboration of Cicero in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD
       2. Speaking in terms of right and justifiable powers (legalistic argumentation)
           remained a generally accepted method of political theorizing
       3. Positive Law was seen as approximation to perfect justice and
           definition of the right, lawyers seen as "priests of justice"
       4. Emperor's will has force of law because people transfer to him their
           power



Next week: Seneca and the Fathers of the Church


 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 8

Continuing recording here notes made in grad school on A History of Political Theory by George Holland Sabine.  

For episode 7 see here to begin from the start see here

The Theory of the Universal Community

VIII. The Law of Nature

 A. The passing of Aristotle, and the city-states, is the only sharp break in the

      history of Western Political Thought

       1. Continuity since then

       2. Theory of natural law goes from Stoics down to the revolutionary

           doctrine of the Rights of Man

 B. Man cut off from the life of the polis and left to live in a new, enlarged

      and impersonal social union

 C. After Aristotle, philosophies tended to become vehicles for ethical

      instruction and consolation

       1. Took on characteristics of religion

       2. Religious feeling grew

       3. Result of new impersonal world

 D. Distinctions between citizen and other lost usage 

"Political thought had, therefore, two ideas to make clear and to interweave into a common scheme of values: the idea of the individual, a distinct item of

humanity with his purely personal and private life, and the idea of universality, a  world-wide humanity in which all are endowed with a common human nature. (143)

 E. Greek notions (Aristotle) of two essentials of citizenship, relations

      between equals and voluntary loyalty to lawful government, were

      reworked to become part of Western consciousness 

 F. Chrysippus the Stoa gave Stoicism form last quarter of Third Century BC

       1. Idea of concord between Greeks and from the east

       2. Theory of Kingship

       3. Result of Alexander's Empire and its breakup

       4. Divinity of king seen as the best way of achieving unity and

           homogeneity of the state and legitimize his rule

       5. Gave positive moral meaning to idea of a world state and universal law

       6. Made achieving self-sufficiency and individual well-being an ethical

           imperative

       7. Taught self-sufficiency by rigorous training of the will

       8. Virtues were resolution, fortitude, devotion to duty and 

           indifference to solicitations of pleasure

       9. Sense of duty re-enforced by religious training -- the duty of every

           man to play well the part assigned by Divine Providence

          i. Man and nature seen as one

          ii. Man shared in the rationality of God, who animates nature

          iii. Right reason is the law of nature

          iv. All men are equal under God (reason), but most are fools not wise

       10. Saw law of the city as customary law and inferior to the law of the world-

           city which is the law of reason

          i. Customary law of several cities combined under a king became the

           common law

          ii. Law of reason is higher that customary law and a separate standard

             of justice

          iii. Law of reason provided an appeal to equity in the

             elaboration of common law

       11. Resulting in part from criticism by the Skeptic Carneades, Stoicism

          underwent reform at the end of the 2nd Century BC

          i. Went back to Plato and Aristotle

          ii. Became less logical but more urbane in appeal and more attractive to

              Roman aristocrats

          iii. Became a philosophy of self-control and public devotion which

               appealed to the Romans

          iv. Ideal of a world-city was of use to idealize Roman conquest

          v. Reason became law for all men, not only the wise

          vi. Contact between Polybius and Panaetius with the Roman Scipionic

               Circle

 G. Scipionic Circle

       1. Brought Stoic thought to bear on earliest studies in Roman jurisprudence.

       2. Roman Law enlightened by inclusion of ius gentium (common law) that

            grew alongside civil (or ceremonial) law based on good business practice

       3. ius gentium coalesced with ius naturale of the Greek Stoics as translated

            into Latin

Next week: Cicero and the Roman Lawyers