Key points to me;
"...One of our most basic psychological needs is for status – to feel that we are a valued member of our tribe. We evolved in small, very egalitarian tribes of hunter-gatherers, and have only lived outside them for a few minutes in evolutionary terms. So when we feel our status is threatened – or there is no way of becoming respected by the rest of the tribe – we begin to malfunction in all sorts of ways.
Indeed, almost nothing makes humans more anxious than panic about our status. Endless clinical trials show what happens to our bodies when we feel we are going to lose our status"
...
"Our systems flood with a hormone called cortisol."
...
"...Yet we have built our societies on exaggerating this status panic, and we have been ratcheting it up over the past 30 years. The more unequal a society is, the more intense it becomes. Even if you slip to the bottom in Sweden, it's not so very different from the top. But when there is a long social ladder, and the bottom rung means humiliation and poverty, everyone at every rung feels a sweatier need to cling to their place – and the society starts to go wrong. This isn't left-wing speculation: it is an empirical fact."
...
..."How can this be? Permanent status panic is an unnatural state for humans. High cortisol levels corrode our insides and massively increase the risk of heart-attack. We eat more – and our bodies store fat differently. It hugs them to our middles, rather than storing them lower down, in our hips and thighs. We look for ways to soothe ourselves – like drug addiction. We are far more likely to break down into depression or mental illness, or to snap and attack somebody. "
...
"James Gilligan, the psychiatrist running the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School, explains that acts of violence are "attempts to ward off or eliminate the feeling of shame and humiliation – a feeling that is painful, and can even be intolerable or overwhelming". He adds that he has "yet to see a serious act of violence that did not represent an attempt to undo this 'loss of face"
...
"Our élites have adopted an ideology – the extreme inequality of market fundamentalism – that simply doesn't suit our species. It doesn't have to be this way. By democratically taxing the rich and using the money to lift up the poor, we can make life better for all of us. Of course there must be some income differentials, but nothing like our own grotesque rates. Plato suggested the richest person should be allowed to earn five times the wage of the poorest person, which seems fair to me. "
5 comments:
To get the discussion started that I know we'll be starting anyway, let me ask two questions.
They don't really contradict the author's points I think; but they're two aspects of what he says that I find important.
1) The author points out that "imposing equality" did not work all too well in the so-called former Communist societies. If that is so, then what other way to achieve such equality does the author see? He never says that, but for instance proposing that "the richest person should be allowed to earn five times the wage of the poorest person", or in any case hinting at proposing this, he in fact calls for salary levels to be set by some central instance, organization, body... - probably a government. Isn't that exactly the same? Bit of Big Brother or, in a ostensibly optimistic manner of speaking, Brave New World?
2) Japan and Sweden are the two examples that we are granted, okay. I would love to know what other places have this correlation between a form of "society happiness" and "a certain level of equality". Because I would love to see if the whole picture is not a lot more complex than this, as much as I do actually enjoy the author's thoughts. What other factors are there, realistically?
Climate and the way it shapes/-d human behavior in a particular region, which is a part of the background of what we tend to call "culture"?
The 'common history', meaning past events that have shaped a society and through the societal influence shaped a person?
The 'individual history', personal experiences?
Perceived threats, perceived reality, perceived safety, perceived opportunities, which are connected with outside influences such as neighboring countries, and again with the history bit mentioned above?
Talk "Turkish identity crisis", for example. Equality alone wouldn't solve this one, which probably can be seen as one reason for some particular difficulties Turkey has (now everybody has difficulties, but I am not certain whether they could be solved everywhere to a similar extent by just improving the monetary equality).
And isn't maybe the author himself pointing at another issue that is easily ignored, but that might (!) play a significant role: The size of the "tribe". No matter the degree of equality within a tribe, once a tribe gets very big, I doubt you'd still perceive yourself as an important part of the collective, because you become aware of your own irrelevance. It's getting interesting here to my mind, because I do think it's an important factor. In the example of Sweden, you can argue with the relatively small size of the "total tribe", and the fact that Swedish cities tend to be rather small. That's obviously not the case in Japan. Is it just the economic equality that makes one feel to be important in one's tribe? To my mind, that'd be a terrible vision.
In Japan's case, I'd suspect some additional influence to originate from the society model itself (Shinto? Buddhism? Confucian background?)
Oh, and let me throw in one important link.
It's the definition of the Gini index, a rather useful simple way to measure and express the equality or inequality of income distribution in a society. This nice Wikipedia article even comes with a map, which is very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
couldn't they find colors that are more blinding for that map?
regarding your comments - especially in the anglo saxon world, the leftist generally is labeled as individuals who romanticize problems and tend to design irrational solutions around different kinds of ideological utopias from time to time.
while i had to chance to observe this firsthand in my own family, i have strong doubts that rational thought alone can lead us to the light. especially when you think that humanity's horrible criminal record - in some circles it is also called "history" - is mostly an output of rational thought.
I agree with you that the idea is not very well structured or adequately explained. However I found the point of view interesting.
the classical capitalist answer to communism is that it is against human nature, a view which is similarly not well founded. I believe this article tries to voice an alternative view there where it is claiming what actually capitalism is promoting is against human nature.
In my view, an ideology doesn't get created overnight. It is like a big pot let to simmer though centuries and generations with different contributions put in from time to time. today's dream can well be tomorrow's reality. so regarding your question nr1; he fails to name some concrete actions but i guess the dream is sound - as much as a dream can get sound.
when he is proposing the 1 to 5 ratio, I think he again has the Swedish model on mind which - leaving the outliers out - might approach the actual case.
Regarding nr2, I also thought that the high level of oversimplification he used was at best exemplified by his example selections.
In the case of Scandinavian countries, I believe that the climate plays a very important role creating this tribal thing that you rightly mentioned. a Finnish friend of mine just bought a new house where in the new block all the neighbors were newcomers. they at once get organized to establish a block community as he explained. primary reason: to shovel the snow in winter.
of course it was the most basic unit of ngo. and if you think that this is happening with the most introvert people on earth and also that it would never happen in a country like Turkey where people are supposed to extrovert, it makes even more sense.
of course there are many regional situations where each and every societies at different levels show some unique characteristics. but when you scratch the peel off a Swede and an Ethiopian, they are the same creature - ruled by the same principles that come from evolution.
The course of history is what you can build around these principles without any efforts. But if properly understood and recognized, these principles can be utilized to reach a common good. Then the history wouldn't repeat itself.
Japan is a dangerous example btw. I always thought that the Japaneses culture has a very sharp view on winning and losing as well as the dominance as a concept exemplified by some really bizarre actions from the history and ... well, Japanese porn movies. so maybe rather than the Confucius it is the bukkake?
Post a Comment