Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
Careful... that barbecue can be fired up really easily!
No worries, mate. If that happened, it would just be another piece of proof. As Peters noted in the article that Steve Metz referenced

For countries and cultures that not only restrict but actively reject information that contradicts governmental or cultural verities, even a fully industrialized society remains an unattainable dream.
Given the current state of the US Manufacturing economy, what more do I need to say ?

On a somewhat more serious not, let's just take a look at Peters list.

  • Restrictions on the free flow of information.
  • The subjugation of women.
  • Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
  • The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
  • Domination by a restrictive religion.
  • A low valuation of education.
  • Low prestige assigned to work.
There are a few things in it that I agree with and a lot that I disagree with - mainly because it, and the article itself, reminds me of the old saw about "If it's good for General Bullmoose, it's good for the USA" writ on the international scale (Steve M., I don't suppose you would like to comment on what form of government, exactly, Henry Ford thought was best? I'll gve you a hint, it wasn't liberal democracy).

1. Restrictions on the free flow of information.

Any society that does not restrict some flow of information will, given todays technology, probably disappear in a blinding flash of light. Certain types of information are too dangerous to be spread around, and by "dangerous", I mean either to the physical or social well being of the society and its members.

The real indicator should not be whether or not there are restrictions on the free flow of information, but a) what areas or topics are restricted and b) how well are / can those restrictions enforced.

2. The subjugation of women.

In principle, I agree with this but I have a lot of problems with how "subjugation" is defined. More on this later, since it is only one half of the equation...

3. Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.

This is a very interesting one and, again, while I agree in principle, Peters and I happen to share the same base culture (the Anglo Culture Complex) which places a fairly high premium on the individual (for it's roots, see Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; online or amazon).

Now, here is the problem I have with it. In order to "accept responsibility" you have to have two things: a model of causation and a distinction between that which can be controlled and that which cannot (Malinowski used the terms "science" and "religion" to refer to these distinctions with the applied terms being "technology" and "magic" respectively). "Responsibility" can only be taken for actions that are culturally perceived as being in the realm of science / technology, i.e. things that an be controlled.

Often, the model that is emplaced by an institution for responsibility has little bearing on the actual, post-facto, untangling of the event. Furthermore, different models of causation lead to different forms of social application of responsibility. For example, in cultures with a strong locus of causation placed on individuals (e.g. US, Canada, Australia, etc.), we find that individuals will be found, if they are not readily apparent, to fulfill the required role - think of the old saw "Some one has to be blamed!". In cultures with a collectivist sense of causation (e.g. China), we find institutions being "blamed" rather than individuals, while in other cultures with an exteriorized sense of causation (The Aztecs spring to mind as do certain evangelical sects), "failure" is always the judgement of an external being, usually a deity (but not always - the Invisible Hand, Historical Inevitability and other non-theistic deities come to mind), and the "blame" for the failure is placed on either the collective group of "believers" or on an "other" that has angered the "deity" (BTW, Peters Parameters article comes close to this line of argument).

4. The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.

As a rough and ready rule of thumb in the modern world, this one isn't too bad. As a statement of a social "law", it is just plain wrong. For example, Greece, Rome and early modern Britain all operated on an extended family model of social organization. The US, in the 19th and early 20h centuries, did as well, although a air amount of it was via para-kinship networks such as the Masons.

He is quite correct when he notes that "family networks provide a safety net in troubled times, offering practical support and psychological protection". They also act as a source of capital accumulation and access to capital (e.g. Britain pre-1853) which can reduce individual risk and spur investment. But, if we look at the rest of this sentence - "they do not build the rule of law, or democracy, or legitimate corporations" - I find myself in a quandary. Democracy, and by that I mean the very word comes from the Greek "demos" or tribe. Rule of law? Which law? Salic law, which led to Saxon law and British law comes out of a tribal society, as does Hebrew law and the Code of Hammurabi. "Legitimate corporations"? What does he mean by that? The Romans had the legal concept of corporations, including limited liability corporations!

5. Domination by a restrictive religion.

This one I agree with, although I suspect that we use totally different definitions of religion. The one I use comes from Clifford Geertz and includes non-theistic "ideologies".

I mentioned in point 2 on the subjugation of women that I would have more to say, and this is where I will say it. What Peters is missing is that it is not just the subjugation of women, it is the subjugation of people by both beliefs and physical means. Again, the exact definition of "subjugation" is hard to come up with, except in the very broad sense, but it can be loosely defined as "systems of thought, action and belief that hinder the growth and development of individuals in such a manner they cannot reach or realize their full potentials and they are aware of these restrictions."

The reason why I chose that wording is that awareness is central to the problem of stability. If you are not aware that you are limited, hen phenomenologically you are not limited. Or, somewhat more crudely, if you can't see the chains you ain't gonna be pissed.

6. A low valuation of education.

Again, this is a god rule of thumb, but a terrible "law". All too often, "education" is confused with information, knowledge and wisdom. Education, in and of itself, is merely training in culturally accepted and accredited ways of thinking / doing. A better formulation wold be "a low value on learning", which does not imply accreditation, but even that falls short of the goal (no wisdom implied).

7. Low prestige assigned to work.

Once again, a decent rule of thumb but a bad "law". It really all hinges on the conceptualization of "work", and Peters is assuming a Weberian definition of this. Let's be radical, as in go back to the roots, for a minute. The English word "work" comes from the Old German word "Werg" - to "fashion" something (connotation of transformation). Originally, this transformation or fashioning could be applied to anything (art, weapons, cultivation, consciousness, etc.). The modern, Weberian meaning is much more restrictive and applies only to "products" that can be sold (even though Weber himself did not like it). "Work" must be "productive" (i.e. salable); it must be "meaningful" work where the sole criterion for meaning is the value of the product as a commodity. This is a highly limited and restrictive focus, one that was dominant in the Industrial Age, but is of limited applicability in the Information Age.

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Okay, I've been working on this post for an hour, what with fighting my ISP, and I'm done for now.

Marc