Agnotology and Power

[Ego]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

....is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt.

Doubt breeds fear. And fear....

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/ ... y-flourish

In a broad sense, this research gives us a picture of how dominance, in the abstract, works to sustain itself. If you’re at the top of a very hierarchical society and are absolutely determined to stay there, then you want three things. First, you want people to fear your power, so that they’re unwilling to risk toppling you. Second, you want to occupy people’s minds—and potentially, their bodies—so thoroughly that they’re mentally exhausted and oriented more toward hierarchy and authority than toward equality and justice. Finally, you want to make sure that those you dominate are unable to meaningfully communicate—or that, if they can, they are loath to trust one another in the long run. Division is your ally. Power wants the powerless to be scared, thoughtless, and alone.

[Dragline]

Or as 19th Century robber-baron Jay Gould was reputed to have said: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."

[7Wannabe5]

The trick is to try to behave more like a bonobo and less like a chimpanzee or a gorilla, even though the genetic evidence is that we have behaved more like chimpanzees in the past.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... y-2006-06/

Sexual arousal, excitement, aggression, fear, pain. Like a fuse box of ancient tangled wiring found down in the sub-cellar. If you give another person a direction and they follow it, your testosterone level will go up and their testosterone level will go down. That is why men often will not ask for directions. Testosterone is a bright happy ambitious chemical unless/until it breaks down in an ugly fashion, so it's hard to not want to engage in behavior that will likely churn you up some more. OTOH, submissive behavior seeks praise which when received stimulates the striatum which is also a pleasant sensation. A "good" or high-functioning dominant will elicit fear of retribution or punishment and desire for reward or praise in measured fashion.

[Dragline]

The author of that article, Frans de Waal, has done some exceptional work, but I agree he's wanted to bury or at least minimize the connection between humans and chimps and the inherent violent tendencies of both. In the original version of his seminal work, Chimpanzee Politics, he intentionally left out the critical epilogue of the story where two of the dominant males ganged up and ripped the testicles off the third, who was the leader at the time, leading to the death of the latter and usurpation of his position. The envy, conspiracy and retribution displayed were practically Shakespearean.

He kind of switched over to studying bonobos in the 1990s, and sometimes seems to be hoping that bonobo behavior is also normative for humans, which might appeal to Rousseau, but hasn't really panned out very well most of the time.

[Ego]

The prospect of getting Groucho ripped off would be a good reason to be afraid. I once watched a silverback gorilla defend his troop (and the half-dozen stupid humans who hiked up to see them) as a juvenile male tried to take away one of the young females. The struggle had been going on for days and he was exhausted by the ordeal.

The fear and overwhelming aspects of the flight to hierarchy are part of our nature. We know they are trying to make us afraid with zika and brexit and isis. And we know that life can, at times, be overwhelming. But it is the atomization that we control most. The separation from others.

My hope is that people might use this thread to mention ways we are being made to be afraid, exhausted and, most importantly, encouraged to isolate from one another.

[7Wannabe5]

Dragline said: ...but I agree he's wanted to bury or at least minimize the connection between humans and chimps and the inherent violent tendencies of both.

Right, and the author (with the last name Khan!!!) of the New Yorker article Ego posted attempts a discussion of issues related to dominance and hierarchy within primate species using gender neutral language and no reference to sexuality (????.) Within primate species, inherent dominance is generally well-correlated with relative size of adult males to adult females, which is also well-correlated with tendency towards polygyny. According to this scale, a dominant human male should have control/access to 1.6 females on average. The genetic record verifies fewer patriarchal lines than matriarchal lines. Genghis Khan had over 80 sons and his patriarchal lineage is found throughout a measurable percentage of the modern human population.

This made me think the situation was pretty hopeless for humans, until I remembered/realized that, like bonobos but even more so, human females are not only sexually receptive during narrow windows of fertility. Therefore, human beings should be capable and motivated towards sharing with each other. In the hugely biased, but also quite interesting work "Voodoo Eros:Ethnological Studies In the Sex Life of the African Aborigines", one thing that becomes clear to the modern reader is that the middle-aged prostitute is the happiest, most-treated-as-equal woman in the village. In the article on the practice of polyamory among modern affluent individuals that was published in the Atlantic, the author reveals that although the men were the partners most likely to be initially interested in the practice, the females ended up benefiting more, but everybody was happier overall. I am or recently have been partnered with 3 silverbacks with varying tribal affiliations. Rural working class upwardly-mobile white Republican /Urban working class upwardly-mobile social liberal fiscal conservative African-American /Wealthy, ultra-liberal white Democrat. Last night I was talking to one of them on the phone after having dinner with another, and he said "Damn it! He's taking you to better restaurants, isn't he?" and we both started laughing. The personal IS the political.

Anyways, it is likely that I am not explaining very well, but I think if you posted one of those anonymous survey things on this thread, you would find a pretty strong correlation between either likelihood of voting for Trump or viewership of the "Homeland" series and lack of access to attractive sexual partners (which has something to do with our corporate overlords taking control over most of the life energy of most females in the late 1970s, leading to the obesity epidemic etc. etc.) For instance, it seems that young Zalo has access to a good many attractive sexual partners, and he is also motivated to travel the world working towards resource equality.

[7Wannabe5]

IOW, if you are interested in establishing a more peaceful, egalitarian society, you should first ask yourself under which circumstances you last shared your funds, food or females with another adult male? When people just say that access or opportunity should be equal or fair then they are just talking about the funds, food or females that are currently under the dominance of somebody else.

[Dragline]

Right, and the author (with the last name Khan!!!) of the New Yorker article Ego posted attempts a discussion of issues related to dominance and hierarchy within primate species using gender neutral language and no reference to sexuality (????.) Within primate species, inherent dominance is generally well-correlated with relative size of adult males to adult females, which is also well-correlated with tendency towards polygyny. According to this scale, a dominant human male should have control/access to 1.6 females on average. The genetic record verifies fewer patriarchal lines than matriarchal lines. Genghis Khan had over 80 sons and his patriarchal lineage is found throughout a measurable percentage of the modern human population.

Where these articles do not go is how humans have used culture to suppress and channel violence from individual to group violence against selected foes/victims, enabling them to build larger and more complex societies than other primates. The archaeologist/historian Ian Morris has a lot to say on this, and how agricultural societies were the most hierarchical, but we have retreated from that in the modern industrial age since we don't have to rely so much on human labor. In essence, alternative energy sources have allowed forms of equality to break out all over in the past couple hundred years.

For more on that and my own nonsensical ravings and observations: http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... d-violence

[Ego]

Right, and the author (with the last name Khan!!!) of the New Yorker article Ego posted attempts a discussion of issues related to dominance and hierarchy within primate species using gender neutral language and no reference to sexuality (????.) Within primate species, inherent dominance is generally well-correlated with relative size of adult males to adult females...

Perhaps Khan is trying to head off criticism from his fellows in one of the other (delusional?) ivory towers down the street.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-ge ... der-prison

The solution is not to reify gender by insisting on ever more gender categories that define the complexity of human personality in rigid and essentialist ways. The solution is to abolish gender altogether. We do not need gender. We would be better off without it. Gender as a hierarchy with two positions operates to naturalise and perpetuate the subordination of female people to male people, and constrains the development of individuals of both sexes. Reconceiving of gender as an identity spectrum represents no improvement.

[Dragline]

I think these essayists who take the position that "the exception ought to be the rule" are generally pretty wrong-headed and are essentially indulging in utopian fantasies. Reminds me of that article (or was it a podcast) we talked about some months ago where the thesis was "we should get rid of human empathy." Essentially arguing that "the problem with human beings is that they are human beings and the solution is to change some of their basic features." Well, alrighty then!

You see a lot of this in highly intellectualized circles.

[Ego]

I feel like I've been seeing examples of this kind of fallacy more often lately, perhaps because it attracts eyeballs. They argue that the consequence of an idea is undesirable so that undesirability is proof of the falsification of the idea. I think it is the appeal to consequences fallacy but I may be wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences

[stoneage]

viewership of the "Homeland" series

Wow, that seems so wrong right now. I feel like a bad person.

[jennypenny]

Groucho??

[7Wannabe5]

Gender as a hierarchy with two positions operates to naturalise and perpetuate the subordination of female people to male people

Eh, I think upper body strength pretty well had that covered in the olden days. A bride-of-the-right-hand was one you snatched up from enemy camp, as opposed to a bride-of-the-left-hand whom you acquired through civil contract. OTOH, when it comes to high human cultural levels of envy, conspiracy and retribution, Lady Macbeth and Salome clearly might be in need of a trip to gender-role normalization camp.

Dragline said: In essence, alternative energy sources have allowed forms of equality to break out all over in the past couple hundred years.

Interesting. So, where are we heading in terms of equality as we run out of fossil fuels? At a social gathering recently, I suggested that maybe Trump was a preconscious isolationist move towards hoarding of North American bread basket. I was informed that this was not likely because nobody besides me believes we are going to run out of enough food to feed the world population in our lifetime. Culture is a thin veneer that can break down almost completely when bread prices rise. I don't believe that any amount of self-sufficient-prepping can stand in the stead of knowing how to find your place in whatever social hierarchy develops in a moment of crisis. These recent Hollywood movies that show young women kick-boxing their way out of dangerous situations are like scenes where people outrun explosions. Nobody likes to think about it, but the reason why most primate females are submissive is because that is the behavior that best assures their survival. Of course, dominance, power and status are not synonymous. For instance, Kim Basinger is a high status submissive. I teach little 5 year old girls from all over the planet, many of whom barely speak English. They all want to be Elsa, and Disney is not even directly to blame for this. In one of the kindergarten classes there was a little black girl who started out the year as one of the brightest and the only child who could jump rope. By the end of the year she was frequently crying because the only other black girl in the class was developmentally delayed and none of the other girls would play with her. People are so primitive. White shirt/Black shirt. Racial identity. Team affiliation. This is what atomizes us. We pretty much completely suck at being nice to each other.