Is tribalism the most enduring heritage from the past?

[spike]

Okay, then, too much emotion and not enough reason.

[Ned]

Okay, then, too much emotion and not enough reason.

Sorry, spike, I don't share your standard for either.

[spike]

Well, I see that you can grin and bear it.

[Ned]

Give it a break, spike, you don't seem to have anything substantial to say on this thread.

Disappointed, actually, because you said something very intriguing earlier about entropy and empathy.

Pity, you couldn't keep it up.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Spike is a good example of the conceptual failure that is represented by "tribalism".
He does not have a balanced view of 'capitalism'.
He has adhered himself to the tribe;"capitalist", and so fails to see the meaning of the Great Depression.
He attends to all points of economics with what historians call "exceptionalism".

[Ned]

Okay, then, too much emotion and not enough reason.

As John Ralston Saul wrote in “On Equilibrium”, talking about reason:

…For every positive claim, someone can match it with a negative….a century of unprecedented physical progress and unprecedented violence. Even progress is a conundrum. It has been used willy-nilly to save lives and to take them, to process information efficiently and to limit citizens’ freedom, to run hospitals and to run death camps.

Reason is a marvellous tool, if used right, in its own place, within its own limits.

Luckily, when reason can’t help us, we have other qualities to fall back on.

I am aware of many human qualities besides reason that are important sources of knowledge: intuition, imagination, ethical sense, spiritual insight all play an important role (all of them based on some form of an emotion).

Reason alone can only give us some probability of being right, as opposed to absolute certainty. It is a very important point, often ignored in debates. Doubt is a useful device (See John Ralston Saul's "The Doubter's Companion") that keeps us alert at all times, making us examine and re-examine our basic assumptions and the methods we use in pursuing ‘truth’.

[spike]

Ned,

You recently sounded like you wished you never mentioned tribalism. Well, I wish I had never mentioned capitalism because with your reaction it focused to much on the wrong thing.

But maybe it was capitalism you had in mind when you started this post. You said what you really wanted to discuss was the us against them mentality you see. And capitalism does give the impression of people and groups being against each other. But when you stand back you can see capitalism as a system in which a lot of people cooperate and work together, building networks and engaging each other.

I see your perceived us against them activity in capitalism as "creative tension", the friction and struggle that keeps societies vital. In comparison, systems like communism didn't offer any creative tension (hence its eventual collapse). In theory communism professed that it would not be an {i] us against them[/i] system. But in reality that's what communism created. It created a society of great divisions and depravity, much greater than capitalism. Ironically, communism never cultivate the level of empathy that capitalism has.

[Ned]

Spike,

I was NOT thinking about Capitalism when I started this thread. I was thinking about the group-identity, versus the species-identity, that manifests in all kinds of social interactions: small and large -- from neighborhood squabbles to world wars.

As far as communism is concerned, I grew up in a 'communist' state, so I know the reality of it. However, not all was bad: the leaders made attempts to alleviate the worst poverty that you can see in capitalistic societies. I had a free education all the way to the PhD level, that included free textbooks, free meals in the student cafeteria, scholarship that was pegged to your academic achievements. There was no unemployment (actually it was a crime not to have a job) and we had free medical and dental service.

On the down side we could not freely travel to the west, could start very small family businesses but it was within very strict limits, the propaganda was nauseating, we could not start anything political outside the communist party and there was a strict embargo on books that were considered anti-communist.

So, don't tell me what communism was like in practice -- I lived in it for 27 years.

I dealt with the issue of Capitalism versus Communism in my thread I called: "Proposal for a New Social Contract".
In it I tried to come up with a compromise between the 2 systems that could provide a stable solution without the two camps being at each others' throats all the time.

I recognize the accomplishments of a capitalist system (I am enjoying them right now) but I am also painfully aware of its victims, both at home and abroad. Think beyond the either/or and start thinking outside the box to see if a compromise is possible.

Take a look at my thread and think about it. It's in the Political Philosophy forum.

See at: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=15487

[spike]

So, don't tell me what communism was like in practice -- I lived in it for 27 years

.
I'm certainly not telling you that.

But I probably understand why it collapsed better than you.

By the way, Ned, which communist country to you live in?

[Ned]

But I probably understand why it collapsed better than you.

That's SOME claim, especially because you have no idea about what I think the causes were.

[Ned]

By the way, Ned, which communist country to you live in?

I have already posted that information on this forum, in several threads: Hungary.

...and I could tell you horror stories about how the newly embraced capitalism (since 1989) ruined the country and created immeasurable pain and misery for all but the newly super rich.

But you don't want to hear that and I am sure you would explain it to me that that has nothing to do with real capitalism

[spike]

Ned, I do feel your pain.

I always found Hungarians quite eccentric.

[Ned]

...back to your sophisticated arguments?

For a minute, a few posts up, you almost sounded reasonable.

Pity, it didn't last.

[spike]

Well, we all do have our moments.

[Ned]

Well, we all do have our moments.

Moments of what?

Moments of denial?

Moments of ignorance?

Moments of evasion?

Pick any one of them. It's yours.