Comments on: What do you require of me?

By: Wealth Bondage

Wealth Bondage — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 05:53:14 +0000

The Duties of Consumer Citizenship
“H” Interesting questions by Chutney, drawing on Foucault, and building on Peter Karoff’s Three Scenarios for Civil Society 20015 .

By: Wealth Bondage

Wealth Bondage — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 01:29:44 +0000

The Duties of Consumer Citizenship
“H” Interesting questions by Chutney, drawing on Foucault, and building on Peter Karoff’s Three Scenarios for Civil Society 20015 .

By: Curtiss Leung

Curtiss Leung — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 23:09:45 +0000

If that’s the case, you damn well fooled me, and our host. Frankly, I still don’t see it.

I weighed in on these matters of obligation, or social/communal behavior. And you thoughts on them?

By: Alfa

Alfa — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 17:41:08 +0000

whoa hold on.. i’m with you on this remember? i think we are both individualistic and social. i think you, however, put greater stock in us (human beings) being social than i do however. that’s probably the prime differing of opinion i can see.

there are still many questions to be asked. even to the notions you put forth (and mine as well).

so is the nature of our universe…

By: Curtiss Leung

Curtiss Leung — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 15:25:32 +0000

OK, that last comment was a cheap and nasty swipe, but my point still stands: humans beings are social creatures not just in the sense that we like to be together but that as a matter of evolutionary and biological fact we cannot survive unless we live in groups. The basic skills an individual human needs to survive are not part of its instinctual repetoire, but imparted through the social unit it is born into, and even then imparted through language, a medium an individual human develops only in the context of a social unit. (NB: I’m not contradicting Chomsky’s inateness of language hypothesis here, which is probably so well established that it shouldn’t be called a hypothesis anymore. But while he’s correct that in developing language children are not imitating behaviors but formulating rules they have the inate capability to develop, that development only happens in response to a social stimulus.) Fully developed humans can live apart from others–and I mean really, Really, REALLY apart from others, like the Unabomber in this cabin, an example that should give you pause–but the skills that enable them to do so are imparted through culture and language. It is an irony of the complexity of our group dynamics and depth of our group knowledge that it can enable a lone human to strike out apart from the group, but there’s no getting around the necessity of the group for the individual human to survive. Biology is destiny.

The notion that groups are wholy dervivative of the free individuals is that compose them is just flat out wrong. Yet since our group knowledge has developed to the point that individual humans have enormous inner autonomy and that our group structures can be altered, we must deal with those facts as well: individuals and the social groups and structures that enabled them to survive stand in a complex reciprocal relationship. Too complex a situation? One that doesn’t leave room for the comforts of a radical individualist worldview? One that blocks easy, drastic solutions? Too bad; that’s the way it is. If you’d like a computer analogy (I see you’re in the same field I’m in), it’s like legacy software and hardware: it’s old, it’s more complex that it would be if you had to design it from scratch, and if you think you can shut it down to do it over, you’re wrong, wrong, wrong, because that would bring things to a crashing halt. You have to deal with all these unlovely interdependencies and less-than-straightforward processes. Meanwhile, the vendor–God?–has pocketed the money and moved on. Welcome to your new career: a maintenance programmer in the Matrix.

By: Curtiss Leung

Curtiss Leung — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 05:01:38 +0000

"we are at our basic level reliant unto ourselves"

Uh huh. And you spontaneously acquired your language and cultural knowledge absent any outside stimuli, right?

Get a fucking job. Better yet, don’t, and put your naive individualism to an empirical test.

By: Alfa

Alfa — Thu, 05 Jun 2003 21:55:02 +0000

being thrown in jail is still a circumstance. a different circumstance from the hailstorm, but still a circumstance nevertheless.

By: chutney

chutney — Thu, 05 Jun 2003 20:38:18 +0000

The “hailstorm” thinks of itself quite differently. And it will try to find you if you hide.

By: Alfa

Alfa — Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:58:51 +0000

for chutney: your obligations still are to yourself regardless of the circumstances you mention. being thrown in jail is no different really than being caught in a hailstorm. it’s an event that happens and it’s up to you to do something about it. defend yourself as best you can, by convincing your fellows that are confining you you are innocent (presuming you do not wish to be thrown in jail), and seek shelter from the storm (presuming you do not want to risk injury or death).

for leung: i’m not saying humans aren’t social creatures, but we are at our basic level reliant unto ourselves. captains of our own vessels which given the means we are born with take off on a voyage through life within our environments and experiences. plus, you must also remember that all humans are not alike. some require more social interaction than others. if you mean the average human, then yes i agree we tend to social interaction but ultimately it’s for his/her own benefit that one does so.

By: Curtiss Leung

Curtiss Leung — Thu, 05 Jun 2003 00:32:19 +0000

To respond to Chance's questions above, I can only say what I'd hope the obligations might be, and what I fear they might become. Hopes:

that the requirements for production and consumption at least be understood not as the health of the state or economy, i.e., as required of abstract entities that somehow determine the actual lives of people, but as real aspects of social life. The division of labor has made possible great achievements in technology, but it's also made possible enormous confusions. But even if we cannot overcome the division of labor, I don't see why the confusion about the division of labor needs to continue.
the requirement for belief--and since you can only really tell what someone believes by observing their actions over time, this is a requirement for conformity with respect to matters that do not affect the community at all--should be discarded.
same for the requirement to reproduce.
the requirement for health seems to be an aggregate requirement; a certain degree of completely unnecessary (and, from the point of view of the individuals suffering from it, unwanted) ill health is tolerated by the gov't--at least here in the US. The obligation should be reversed so that individuals who need health care should get it, period, end of story, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Fears:

that the aggregate level of health required will drop;
that the relation between production, consumption, and the health of the community is further obscured;
that the requirement to produce increases;
same for the requirement for consumption;
that the requirement to die becomes more frequent;
that the requirement to belief becomes so pervasive that the motto of a new nihilism is EVERYTHING IS TRUE; NOTHING IS PERMITTED (I think I stole that from Chance).