Society from an Indigenous Perspective

Recently a friend of mine, who also happens to be a member of the Aymara community from Bolivia,  introduced me to her culture's way of thinking of life. I think what she said would be very useful to share here.

The indigenous people conceive of four communities: (1) the community of humans, (2) the community of the spirits, (3) the community of nature, and (4) the community of the ancestors. These four communities should exist in balance. But when we use any one of them as an object, when we use them as an instrument for our own end, then we produce imbalance, and societal problems.

She gave monoculture as an example of this imbalance. When we don't respect the natural plant diversity found in nature, then we cause problems by exhausting the soil too quickly. Europeans, using over-exploitative farming techniques, rendered their land fallow by the 1800s, so much so that they had to import guano from South America in order to replenish the soil. The Europeans' dependence on guano led to desperation and conflict: both Bolivia and Peru fought and lost wars, orchestrated by European powers, over control of the guano trade.

I see in this four communities idea a powerful framework for synthesizing the contributions of different schools of social thought. Some thinkers have emphasized the objective—that is, the role of economic and the political structures. Others have emphasized the subtle and the subjective, questions of identity, and belonging, and spiritual fulfillment. Others still have emphasized the need to ground social organization in philosophical terms, in terms of justice and the rights of humanity. The four communities framework can embrace all these approaches. It has room for both the overt wrong in slavery (using humans as objects, and disrespecting the first community) and the wrong in appropriating history for selfish gain (which would be, I think, an example of using the community of the ancestors as objects).

This framework also provided me with another takeway. In it I see how dependent we are on the nourishment and sustenance from all the four communities. We rely on our human community to raise us and support us; we rely on the  spirit community to anchor us in a sense of purpose, to give our life meaning; we we rely on nature to provide us with a hospitable habitat, resources for our use, food to eat; and we rely on the ancestors to provide us with wisdom. We like to think of ourselves as independent and self-sufficient, but we're not.

Learning about this perspective has been a salubrious breath of fresh air to my thinking, just because it's so different.

Experimental Political Philosophy

For centuries, political philosophers have been on a quest to figure out the best way of organizing society; and, needing no resources to further their research other than their own brains, they have come up with a plethora of theories.

Most of the time philosophy deals with the "ought to." But in political philosophy we also find some testable hypotheses. Marxist communism is, for example, a testable hypothesis, as well as the idea that property rights will encourage owners to be more productive. From Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, I got the idea that anarchy is inherently unstable, that governments naturally emerge out of it; that too is a testable idea.

Of course, political philosopher don't usually go around testing their theories because they consider it immoral to play with the lives of other people like that.

But I think political philosophers have overlooked an obvious place where experimental political philosophy is already taking place: nation building!


An experiment in democracy in Afghanistan

With the war dragging on, and American support waning, I'm sure the Pentagon is eager and open to suggestions about how to finally make stable, legitimate governments in Afghanistan and Iraq as quick as possible. They've already spent so much time and money—I'm sure they won't mind trying something unconventional if there's a possibility it could work.

Political philosophers, this is your chance! Time to see your theories come to life!

Social Obligations, Or How You Can Back Into Paternalism Without Trying

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick argues an anti-paternalist position. That is, he says we cannot prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection. But he also says that we have the right to prohibit other people from engaging in activities which impose an undue risk on ourselves. I believe these two positions are inconsistent. [As reviewers have pointed out, I'm not showing there's an inconsistency; and there isn't one. Rather, I'm concerned whether there's an aspect of social life that Nozick didn't seem to consider which could undermine the analysis.]

Nozick's argument assumes that the individual is the basic unit of social life. However, as I have argued elsewhere, I think it's more useful to take the household as the basic unit instead. We are born into families, and we tend to grow up, live, and die in them. Even when we reject our families and all family ties, we still naturally form "households" in our new homes. College roommates, gay couples, touring rock bands—these are all examples of how even when we don't live in traditional family structure, we still have a penchant for community living (the anthropologist is always quick to point out that "the household" is socially defined). It's an essential part of being a social human being.

Whether we like it or not, this communal living creates obligations on us. Parents obviously have duties to their children. We believe roommates should take care of each other. Figuring out the exact nature of these "family/community living" duties is difficult, but we can't deny there are duties.

Now imagine we see a father drinking too much. The anti-paternalist would say we do not have the right to interfere if he is fully aware of the risks of his actions: not drinking may be in the father's own best interest, but we have no right to stop him. However, because the father has a child, and because that child is so dependent on him, the drinking affects the child too. A drunkard father may raise his kids well, but he will probably not. In Nozick's language, that's an "undue risk," which the child has the right to prohibit. The child, not being at the age of reason, has the right to have other family members intervene on his behalf.

We cannot, then, cleanly separate the father's best interest from the son's interest. The child's best interest is having his father in the best shape as possible, since the child is dependent. This dependency means that our actions no longer concern just ourselves. We are obligated and liable to our family members, and the dangerous actions of one family member (even if they're only directed at themselves in a narrow sense) end up imposing risks on all other members. This means, generally speaking, we may prohibit others from actions against their self-interest because their self-interest is itself vital to our self-interest.

When we embed the individual in a social context, we see that he is trapped in a web of social obligations (at the very least familial obligations) and that these provide the grounds for interference by other family/community members. These social obligations may be unasked for, but they are still binding nonetheless. The only one who can be free from paternalistic pressures of any kind is the lone wolf, who does not live in any mutually supportive/dependent community. But those people are very rare.

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Endnote: I see how the risk-prohibition line of reasoning can get out of hand quickly. If we are to stop all people who impose risks on us, then are we to prohibit driving? Nozick's principle of prohibition does not resolve the core issue, which is determining which kinds of risk are acceptable and which are not. Still, I think there's merit to the idea of prohibiting actions that impose undue risk to ourselves. Even if there weren't, Nozick still argues an inconsistent position, for having a family member impose risks on us is just as bad as having indepedent agents impose the risk of unreliable justice procedures.

Update (Feb. 15, 2011): I've made small changes to make sure I more accurately convey my positions.

Orwell and Huxley

This may be a comic strip, but the analysis is very, very, very astute. I think it's right on the money:

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

On a related note, I've heard that one of the hardest things to learn in life is when to stop.

Uselessness

Yesterday I stumbled upon a book by Richard Sennett, an American sociologist, called The Culture of the New Capitalism. In it, Sennett looks at how our constantly evolving economy shapes the way we live—how we attempt to manage the constant uncertainty; how we try to adapt to a life of "migrating from job to job, task to task, place to place;" how we make efforts to live up to a new cultural outlook on talent and merit and ability; and how we fail at all these things.

One of Sennett's most engaging ideas is what he calls the "specter of uselessness." Depression-era photos still disturb us, Sennett argues, because the specter of uselessness still continues to haunt us, though it's character is different in the modern age. Now the uselessness we face takes the form of the jobs that are being shipped overseas; or the hyper-intelligent automation systems that are making human labor cost-ineffective; or the emphasis on fresh skills and new talent versus experience and seniority that threatens the job security of the ageing.

Stated after the fact, it almost seems like common sense. After all, our higher education system is built entirely around innovation and discovery; our politicians constantly talk about "remaining competitive" and "staying ahead;" our TV shows are all about finding the next star; our companies are always racing to outdo each other...and while everyone is marching ahead, how will there not be anxiety about being left behind?

But I think that this "specter of uselessness" is not just peculiar to modernity, but rather a part of the human condition. I think Adi Shankaracharya put it best (that is, starkly and plainly) in his Bhaja Govindham:

यावद्वित्तोपार्जनसक्त्तस्तावन्निजपरिवारो रक्त्त:।
पश्चाज्जीवाति जर्जरदेहे वार्तां कोऽपिं न पृच्छति गेहे।।
As long as there is the ability to earn and save so long are all your dependents attached to you. Later on, when you come to live with an old, infirm body, no one at home cares to speak even a word with you!

I don't read this verse as a lament, but rather as a sober recognition of the way relationships work. Humans relations involve give and take: we give our attention, our affection, our time, and our effort; and in return we expect money, affection, wisdom, love, intimacy, interesting conversation—something. There comes a time though when we no longer have anything to give, and at that point these relationships naturally dissolve.

In this spirit, I have heard that our job in life is to learn to enjoy our own company, to be at peace with ourselves, to figure out what to do with ourselves before the world has no more use for us. The specter of uselessness will always loom, but it becomes less scary when we confront it directly.

The Stag Hunt

Last week I was at the local grocery co-op buying some avocadoes and tomatoes. At the checkout line, the cashier, a Jamaican man with dreads, started making some small talk. What do you major in, he asked. Oh, economics? Hey, what do you think of the Fed?

I don't know much about the Fed, really, so I said I didn't wade much in political debates (which I don't) and that I thought they employed decent enough people. I prefer going through life assuming the best in people, assuming that the world isn't rigged against me, I said. The Jamaican man turned serious: But sometimes things are rigged. Sometimes things are rigged, and you have to fix them.

Hm. In my conversation with the Jamaican man, I got the sense that he believed things (the economy, the state of the world, etc.) were messed up only because someone was there to mess it up; that he felt that if only people were cooperative (i.e. "give peace a chance"), the world would be a great place. And this seems a really natural position to take, since, after all, our problems are human-made. But it turns out that our society doesn't work like that. The startling and fascinating conclusion of game theory is that we can end up in sub-optimal outcomes even if everyone would like to cooperate.

How is this possible?

The story behind the game goes back to Rousseau. Imagine, he said, a group of primitive people who had a choice between hunting stag and hunting hare. Hunting stag would, of course, be the best option because it would yield lots of rich meat, but the problem is that it requires everyone to work together to take the stag down. On the other hand, they could hunt hare individually, but the reward wouldn't be as great. In game form the story looks like this:


The numbers in the boxes represent how the players (in this case, an individual vs. the rest of society) value the outcome. Thus everyone hunting stag is the best outcome (3), both hunting hare is second (2), and getting screwed is the worst (1), because you not only waste your time running after the stag, but you don't even get any food.

In other words, these people are as cooperative as you're going to get: They would like to work together and they don't like to take advantage of each other. And yet it's still possible for these primitive people (and us possibly less primitive people) to get stuck in a Hunt Hare/Hunt Hare equilibrium!

The catch here is that it matters not just what players want to do, but what they think others will do. Everyone would like to hunt stag, but only when everyone else hunts stag. So if people think others are inclined to cooperate, they'll cooperate too; but, on the flipside, if everyone is scared of getting screwed over, then they're likely to not cooperate.

Notice that the basic fact that all these people are cooperative hasn't changed. It's just that they don't know that they're all cooperators. And this uncertainty causes all the problems: cooperation is risky, it leaves you vulnerable, and people aren't willing to gamble too much. [Indeed, this game is also called an Assurance Game, because if players were assured that the other was a cooperator, then they would cooperate too.]

This is my long comment to the Jamaican man's remark. Yes, Jamaican man, sometimes things are rigged. But sometimes we can end up in all sorts of social problems even when no one is at fault.

For more information on the Stag Hunt and cooperation and such, see Brian Skyrms' book: The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure.

The Gravity of Goals

Newton formulated a theory of gravity where the attraction between two objects depends on their masses and the distance between them. Normally this theory is only applied to matter, but I think it is also relevant to the way we choose between goals.

The "Gravity of Goals" equation would reformulate Newton's model like this: my "attraction" to a goal depends on the amount I value the goal (mass) and the amount of time it will take to satisfy it (distance). The longer it takes to satisfy the goal, the less likely I will pursue it. The more I value a goal, the more likely I will pursue it. Faced with multiple goals, the goal I pursue will be the one with the highest payoff (measured by subjective calculations of combined "mass" and "distance").

Imagine an asteroid hurtling through space, irresistibly pulled by a number of planets, some larger than others. That's pretty much what we are, just in a more subjective way.

Fairness in Economics

One of the first things you learn in a social science class is the difference between positive and normative analysis. The two are considered kind of like opposites: positive analysis seeks to understand how things are, whereas normative analysis seeks to figure out how things should be. Another way of putting it is that positive analysis is value based, whereas normative analysis is not. Positive analysis can inform normative analysis, but the two are kept decidedly separate.

Recently in my political philosophy class, the professor was discussing how economists view fairness. He cited surveys of economists about fairness where the economists did not understand how to answer the question; they could not understand what "fairness" meant, or what it was (and those with a background in Pareto-efficiency will have an inkling for why that is). He also talked about a book that goes on for pages and pages only to conclude that fairness is a preference--like your taste for wine or where you buy your furniture. Somehow, said my professor, it seems they're missing the point.

These economists seem to have come to understand the H. economicus model so well that they actually are starting to think it, to incorporate its values, to live it. Remember that H. economicus was meant to be a strictly positive model. Whether we like it or not, people are result-oriented (which is part of what the model says)--but that by no means implies that we should be that way. The model should fit you, not the other way around.

These economists, however, are going the other way around, converting themselves from H. sapiens to H. economicus; or, in other words, they are understanding their positive model in a normative way.

There are, broadly, two possible explanations for why this is occurring. First, it could be that H. economicus-type people self-select themselves into the economics discipline, so the study itself has no effect on them. Second, perhaps economists have trained themselves to think in the H. economicus direction for so long that it has in fact rubbed off on them, so that is all they see.

If so, that mindset needs to end. Fairness should be central to economics. What's the point of having wealth if various factions are going to waste it all fighting over it?

Update: I spoke too soon: it turns out that theories of rationality must necessarily contain normative notions--and H. economicus is a model of rational action. However, I stand by my broader point that fairness matters in economics, and it seems economists don't take it seriously enough. Intuitively, it seems that fairness is not only something people do care about, but should care about.

From Rights to Duties

Recently there has been a lot of brouhaha over the belligerency and unruliness at health care town hall meetings. Often these disruptive people yell slogans about their rights, which they take to mean "entitlements to do whatever you want"—including bringing automatic weapons. This sentiment has surfaced in a really garish way right now, but it's always been there, if only latently. David Sedaris, for example, has a funny story in Me Talk Pretty One Day where he mentions a man at a Chicago movie theater who refused to turn off his transistor radio. When the usher was called, he started arguing about how we live in a free country.



I think these anecdotes signal a general sentiment that confuses rights with complete license; freedom with impunity. Scholars will no doubt point out that these people are completely misunderstanding the concepts, but even still I think these misunderstandings arise out of the very language of rights themselves:



Rights are essentially an egocentric concept: with rights, you take for granted the entitlements society extends to you while ignoring the work everyone else is constantly doing to uphold those rights.

In other words, the problem with rights is that they obscure the fact that one man's right is everyone else's duty. If I have the right to free speech, it is only because everyone else in the community takes it upon themselves to refrain from silencing me, especially when they do not like what they hear. If we are a freer people, it is only because everyone is working harder at fulfilling their duties to themselves, their family, and their neighbors.

The concept of duty presents a better way of understanding how we should structure our social relations. However, this switch in thinking is not as radical as one might think. Rights and duties ultimately both represent the same values, like two sides of the same coin: if everyone is fulfilling their duties, then everyone’s rights are being respected. The difference between the two is that rights focus on how the individual receives respect from everyone else, whereas duties focus on how the individual gives respect to everyone around him. 



It's a small switch in thinking that makes a number of key differences. First off, it makes us more concerned about other people. In this new paradigm, instead of asserting rights (and thus focusing on my needs over everyone else's), my mind will turn to fulfilling duties (considering what I need to do help others satisfy their needs).

To be sure, I’m not talking about subordinating the needs of an individual for the sake of the collective. Rather, I’m speaking to the fact that a person can control only whether or not he fulfills his duties towards others, not whether others fulfill their duties towards him. An individual, on his own, has no power to defend his own right; he can only try to persuade others to respect his right. And if these former right-violators decide to change their right-violating ways, then what they are really doing is sacrificing their personal interests for the sake of maintaining society’s broader moral ideals—a principle commonly known as duty. Thus, even rights (a very individual-centric concept) contain within them notions of duty, making it difficult to say that a duty paradigm does not respect the individual.


The second benefit of the duty paradigm is that it makes more explicit the idea that social balance is only the result of work, and is fragilely maintained. Unlike rights, which seem to exist automatically until violated, duties are left undone until they are fulfilled. The Declaration of Independence can say what it wants about inalienability and God-guarantees, but history shows that it is only humans who protect the rights of others, and humans can as easily trample rights as they can uphold them.



What this shift to duties will not do, however, is make our moral problems any easier. Just as we try to understand what rights apply to what situations, we'll have to try to understand what duties apply to what situations. But I do think we will be working with a more socially responsible system of struggling through moral problems.