tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post1554520919770258410..comments2024-03-15T17:06:31.642-05:00Comments on The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: Hegel's RabbleEric Reitanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-28708428247115307192012-10-12T12:52:03.483-05:002012-10-12T12:52:03.483-05:00This is a good point. What Hegel seems to think ab...This is a good point. What Hegel seems to think about this is that the societal structure with the family mediating between society and individual is an earlier stage in the evolution of society, more suited to an agrarian economy with a high degree of self-sufficiency among family units. The rise of the Corporate structure is related, for him, to the rise in industrial production and (more significantly, I think) to specialization of labor and the greater interdependence that comes with it.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-82717688400664211582012-10-12T12:45:12.019-05:002012-10-12T12:45:12.019-05:00Please let me know when you do write that series. ...Please let me know when you do write that series. I'd be very interested in reading it, as I've always appreciated your thoughtful and challenging perspective. <br /><br />I look forward to checking into your website.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-81685677461790155072012-10-10T11:21:12.445-05:002012-10-10T11:21:12.445-05:00One thing about Hegel's worldview as contingen...One thing about Hegel's worldview as contingently true but not necessarily so: the idea that Corporations exist as intermediaries between individuals and society. But societies could (and have in the past) be structured such that Corporations are intermediaries between families and society or such that families are intermediaries between individuals and society.<br /><br />Any given family can support within it a mixture of prominent citizens and "rabble," provided the rabble are given roles within the family to make up for their lack of role within broader society. In fact, by supporting the family's citizens, they <i>are</i> be given a secondary role in society, and so are not truly be rabble anymore. They can be given even greater dignity if their role in the family is given precedence within the family to balance the citizen's role being given precedence within society.Jarodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10657747266291733478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-24840724734011582882012-10-09T20:39:02.785-05:002012-10-09T20:39:02.785-05:00Burk
I've finally got a website up and runnin...Burk<br /><br />I've finally got a website up and running, and have recently added a post on quantitative easing that might interest you. It's at bernardbeckett.org<br /><br />Eric, I hope one day to write a series titled 'An agnostic talks to his children about God', just as soon as I work out what I want to say to them. Whatever it is, I know conversations on this site will have contributed immensely. Thank you.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-31107580222481668032012-10-09T08:49:15.347-05:002012-10-09T08:49:15.347-05:00The following research article came up on reddit t...The following research article came up on reddit today: A study in adaptability: Why do we change our beliefs? (http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-beliefs.html)<br /><br />In short, the researchers not only proved that changes in belief comes in three stages (belief, uncertainty, new belief), but also that the part of the brain that does the changing is the medial prefrontal cortex.<br /><br />When the rats seemed certain which handle they should pull, activity in the medial prefrontal cortex was relatively stable. But during the crucial moment of the onset of uncertainty, when the rat reverted to pulling both handles, 'the activity abruptly and markedly changed and then remained more variable for the duration of the period when the animal sampled both options,' Karpova says. 'It's as if those neurons were the ones searching for the animal's new model.'"<br /><br />(The actual function of the medial prefrontal cortex is still in dispute, but it seems to be strongly associated with predicting whether an action will be associated with a good or bad outcome.)<br /><br />How all that applies to the rabble is this: even if you engender certain beliefs in them, if the actual outcomes demonstrate those beliefs to be inoptimal in terms of reward, then they should be expected to enter a stage of uncertainty. And we should expect that in this stage they will be open to new beliefs.<br /><br />A belief that I believe is shared pretty much in common on this blog is that humans hate uncertainty. Why wouldn't we? Uncertainty is the feeling that we aren't on the optimal reward track. I expect the rabble jumps right back into the beliefs engendered by Corporations just as soon as they are given enough evidence of their truth. But if that evidence is just random or carefully timed error, and the beliefs are still lies, they will become uncertain again over time.Jarodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10657747266291733478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-73396450709793238762012-10-08T12:57:47.917-05:002012-10-08T12:57:47.917-05:00Eric-
What a great topic. I would comment on how ...Eric-<br /><br />What a great topic. I would comment on how narratives have real effects on our economic lives. The prosperity gospel convinces people to part with their all-too-scarce cash. And the "ownership society" mantra combines with fraudulent lenders to create a real-estate bubble laden with suckers more eager to live the dream than their resources allow.<br /><br />The cultural narrative (i.e., the "Joneses", the American dream) is an important mechanism by which expectations are raised and then, in the recent phase, met by credit instead of income. This credit/debt becomes a toxic load, immiserating the poor further, as the elite make its consequences more severe (eliminating many bankruptcy protections, like keeping student loans out of bankruptcy altogether). The traditional term is debt peonage.<br /><br />So I agree that the rabble is not entirely inevitable.. it is an organized consequence of great concentrations of wealth. This played out even more dramatically in ancient Rome, where the patricians stole most of the public and small-holder land of Italy, then employed slaves to farm it. They relied on the narratives of elite (Republican) virtue, and the all-around Imperial greatness of Rome. Likewise with Nafta, where the US destroyed the small corn farming sector of the Mexican economy (via efficiencies and subsidies to US producers), leading its workers to migrate to the US, etc..<br /><br />One of the greatest narratives is that money is virtue and just desert. Nothing succeeds like success, as Reagan used to say. We have a strong instinct to look up to those who are successful / rich as the rightful leaders of the social system. This is almost the entirety of Romney's campaign, indeed. That plays a large role in keeping such systems stable- a form of Stockholm syndrome.<br />Burkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11158223475895530397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-15320021006127204642012-10-08T09:58:25.598-05:002012-10-08T09:58:25.598-05:00Bernard,
Your point about the psychological damag...Bernard,<br /><br />Your point about the psychological damage to persons cast into the "rabble" underclass is well-taken. I suspect that this damage can be intensified by the unwise and untimely promulgation of narratives whose message is that everyone can succeed in society if only they apply themselves, and those who don't have only themselves to blame. If this message is pushed at a time when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around, the message will clash against reality in destructive ways.<br /><br />First, there are those who will believe the message, act on it, and become disillusioned. When economic conditions improve and real opportunity is restored, they may suffer from a kind of "boy who cried wolf" syndrome and not believe the message anymore, even now that it is finally true.<br /><br />More significantly, they may continue to believe the message but regard their failure as a testament to their own inadequacy as human beings (this is especially likely if the conditions of underemployment persist for a long period). The shame of extended social exclusion, of needing to beg for scraps, becomes magnified by the belief that they are capable of nothing better, that they really are somehow less than fully human.<br /><br />And, as you note, this kind of internalized message can be inherited. If one's parents have no sense of their own dignity as human beings, where is one to learn it? This question may not be wholly rhetorical, since one can imagine societies that take the problem seriously enough to commit themselves to solutions--perhaps in public schools. But even if a society develops mechanisms for restoring a sense of dignity to those with a family legacy of marginalization, these mechanisms will be working against contrary forces and will certainly be less than perfectly successful.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-78256682125631428172012-10-08T03:16:26.279-05:002012-10-08T03:16:26.279-05:00Hi Eric
I think the idea that unemployment does i...Hi Eric<br /><br />I think the idea that unemployment does its damage on a number of levels, including this notion of exclusion, is very important. A great mistake we certainly made in my country was to expect people to be much more resilient than they actually are in the face of upheaval. Many economists were surprised to find that when the economy did pick up again after a long period of brutal adjustment, the excess workforce wasn't ready to retrain and jump back in. In fact the psychological damage, much of it intergenerational, represented a massive disinvestment in human capital, which is all too often left out of the initial calculations.<br /><br />The idea that Hegel's rabble is in some sense inevitable is, I think, demonstrably wrong. There have been sustained periods of effectively full employment in various pockets of the globe, so his mechanism of overproduction is, I suspect, oversimplified. <br /><br />That said, there are many now who argue that our current mechanisms for generating employment are too resource hungry to be sustainable, so whether resource limits will put a ceiling on participation in the paid workforce is perhaps an open question. <br /><br />One trap that seems very common is to use the hope that full employment will exist again one day as an excuse not to address the human cost of the current failure. Proposed solutions are often dismissed as 'not solving the real problem of generating new jobs' but given how very bad many western societies have been at doing that in recent years, perhaps the better path is to both strive for employment growth and seek ways, in the meantime, of addressing the costs Hegel identifies.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.com