Is Social Order Important?

Discuss morality and ethics in this message board.
Featured Article: Philosophical Analysis of Abortion, The Right to Life, and Murder
Post Reply
Belindi
Moderator
Posts: 6105
Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Belindi »

I understand your objection to the term 'tribalism' but it's common usage now to contrast with 'universalism'. Are you really saying that in order to survive climate change emergency we must be social units like the tribal kingdoms and chiefdoms of years gone by?
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

Belindi wrote: March 8th, 2019, 3:06 pm I understand your objection to the term 'tribalism' but it's common usage now to contrast with 'universalism'. Are you really saying that in order to survive climate change emergency we must be social units like the tribal kingdoms and chiefdoms of years gone by?
Yes - or something like.
The way nation-states are set up now, they have very little ability to affect change. They're lumbered with entrenched religious and economic power-blocs, with administrative structures that were made according to a certain order of things - many of which will no longer exist, but the agencies can't change direction, can't be retooled, quickly enough. There are some agencies that were designed to meet the challenges of climate change, but they are politically powerless: if a government perceives a threat to the economy, it will choose an oil pipeline over ecological concerns, every time; if a president sees immigration as an immediate threat, he can redirect emergency funds from flood-relief to border control. The power-structure as it stands at the national level is slow, cumbersome, staffed by people whose perceived self-interest is in denial; commanded - increasingly - by fatheads and blowhards who can't find their ass with both beringed hands.

What's required for deep adaptation is the ability to assess one's environment, predict what dangers and potential it holds, use the resources available to the best effect for mutual protection and sustenance. No national policy can tell Lost Horseshoe, WY what power-source is best to serve them when the grid falls down, or what food-plants to grow, or how to build their shelters.
No, that's not quite true. FEMA and many other agencies at various levels of government actually have guidelines for various regions, and plans to cope with all kinds of foreseeable emergencies. FEMA climate change preparedness and resilience Unfortunately, it's based on assumptions that are frankly unrealistic: it's based on an optimistic past civilization.

It's like a tank. It doesn't turn fast enough to avoid falling into a trench; too heavy to go over a wooden bridge; when the diesel runs out it's stranded, and the men inside are hot, cramped, thirsty and blind. A pony has none of those disadvantages.
Here's another pretty good book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157 ... d-remember

As for universalism, I'm afraid that was a dream of the 20th century. If, after WWII, they had turned international affairs over to the UN - maybe.
But they didn't - and look at all the new messes! Nobody, but I mean no nation on Earth, will be able to cope with the displaced populations that have already begun to migrate and will only increase in numbers as water and land and homes disappear.
GE Morton
Posts: 4696
Joined: February 1st, 2017, 1:06 am

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by GE Morton »

Alias wrote: March 8th, 2019, 1:08 pm
No, they are not "capable of all kinds of change."
Must have been: they made all the kinds of change that took place.
No, they did not. They made only one change --- at some point one of their members (probably a woman, since in hunter-gatherer communities women were the gatherers and thus most familiar with plants and their habitats and growth cycles), upon returning to a previous wintering site discovered that where she had discarded some wild wheat chaff and seeds the previous year, new plants had sprouted. She showed the other women, and this year they deliberately scattered some more seeds, marked the spot, and were rewarded the following year with another new sprouting. No doubt it took several generations of women teaching daughters, gaining knowledge and refining techniques, before they were able to persuade the men to allow some of the members to stay behind to tend the crops.

All the other changes followed the transformation to civilized social structures.
Stability is often mistaken for stagnation by the lemming chorus.
No mistake. Static means unchanging; it is contrasted with dynamic. Stable means persisting, maintaining coherence; it is contrasted with unstable, or chaotic. Tribal societies were indeed stable, but also static. Dynamic societies (and most other complex adaptive systems) are also stable.
Ahem. I thought you were ignoring me!
I was. But it's hard to ignore such egregious errors.
GE Morton
Posts: 4696
Joined: February 1st, 2017, 1:06 am

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by GE Morton »

Alias wrote: March 8th, 2019, 4:38 pm Nobody, but I mean no nation on Earth, will be able to cope with the displaced populations that have already begun to migrate and will only increase in numbers as water and land and homes disappear.
Ah, another addition to the voluminous corpus of apocalyptic literature. They're always amusing. :-)
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

GE Morton wrote: March 8th, 2019, 9:31 pm [tribes made all the kinds of change that took place.]

No, they did not. They made only one change ---
I'm familiar with the accidental invention of farming story. Except, though it might have happened that way in one place, one time, there were different kinds of farming carried on in very different ways by peoples on different continents.

And,of course, long before that, tribal peoples migrated out of Africa and learned to live in places as different and the equator and subpolar, along rivers and lakes, on mountains, in savanna and forest and bog-land and islands; to hunt all the different kinds of game on all the continents, to fish in fresh and salt water; to gather the fruits, nuts, fungi, grains, roots, flowers, bark and seed of all the various plants they found; to build shelters of hide, mud, log, reeds, palm-fronds, stone, cedar boughs and snow; to make boats of hollowed logs, willow twigs, animal skins and bundled rushes; to clothe themselves against all climates, to make fire, brew beer, concoct medicine, dig up salt and domesticate everything from a wolf to a water-buffalo.
All the other changes followed the transformation to civilized social structures.
More changes followed, yes, for some tribes.
No mistake. Static means unchanging; it is contrasted with dynamic. Stable means persisting, maintaining coherence; it is contrasted with unstable, or chaotic. Tribal societies were indeed stable, but also static.

Events you didn't witness didn't happen. Check. I'm sure you have a standard of longevity, a degree of complexity and a definition of stability to apply, and examples of such societies.
I can't think any of civilization that meets my criteria.
There's usually a function that does it automatically to save you the effort.
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

Well, now there - I've gone and made an egregious quote error. Hasty posting. Entirely my fault.
Belindi
Moderator
Posts: 6105
Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Belindi »

GEMorton wrote:
No, they did not. They made only one change --- at some point one of their members (probably a woman, since in hunter-gatherer communities women were the gatherers and thus most familiar with plants and their habitats and growth cycles), upon returning to a previous wintering site discovered that where she had discarded some wild wheat chaff and seeds the previous year, new plants had sprouted. She showed the other women, and this year they deliberately scattered some more seeds, marked the spot, and were rewarded the following year with another new sprouting. No doubt it took several generations of women teaching daughters, gaining knowledge and refining techniques, before they were able to persuade the men to allow some of the members to stay behind to tend the crops.

All the other changes followed the transformation to civilized social structures.
The first paragraph paints a nice credible scenario for regions that could support wheat , oats and other annual plants. You say "other civilised structures" however living in towns with merchant and service classes, and new urbanisations supported by industrial labourers , minerals, and power sources is a long development from how edible annual crops came to be the norm. Aren't social group sizes, and social orders for governance, always structurally integral with means of subsistence whatever those may be at whatever stage of technology?

That question matters because means of subsistence is soon to be radically changed and includes sudden intimacy with weather, the soil ,crude power sources, and pathogenic bacteria that has not been really experienced by most people for hundreds of years. It's not an evolution but a revolution. There's no stability there's sudden forced change.

I can see Alias's vision for small communities like blood tribes once were. I doubt that all of those would be stable social structures without vendetta controls. Tribes are fine when you are one of the kindred but there was interfamily warfare . For instance Muhammad acted so to amalgamate the Arabian tribes and put a stop to their vendetta system with centralised religious controls. I spent my childhood in the Scottish Borders where a few old local families and their helpers once earned their bread by armed reiving i.e.stealing cattle from their neighbours in England and Scotland.
User avatar
chewybrian
Posts: 1594
Joined: May 9th, 2018, 7:17 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Epictetus
Location: Florida man

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by chewybrian »

GE Morton wrote: March 8th, 2019, 9:31 pm They made only one change --- at some point one of their members (probably a woman, since in hunter-gatherer communities women were the gatherers and thus most familiar with plants and their habitats and growth cycles), upon returning to a previous wintering site discovered that where she had discarded some wild wheat chaff and seeds the previous year, new plants had sprouted. She showed the other women, and this year they deliberately scattered some more seeds, marked the spot, and were rewarded the following year with another new sprouting. No doubt it took several generations of women teaching daughters, gaining knowledge and refining techniques, before they were able to persuade the men to allow some of the members to stay behind to tend the crops.
Supposedly, it was the desire to brew beer that really gave people the incentive to grow crops, and perhaps led us to 'civilization'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV36ytSgC3o
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

Belindi wrote: March 9th, 2019, 5:56 am Tribes are fine when you are one of the kindred but there was interfamily warfare . For instance Muhammad acted so to amalgamate the Arabian tribes and put a stop to their vendetta system with centralised religious controls. I spent my childhood in the Scottish Borders where a few old local families and their helpers once earned their bread by armed reiving i.e.stealing cattle from their neighbours in England and Scotland.
I said it was stable, not that it was idyllic! Or even nice. We're talking about humans, after all.
Cross-border raiding, banditry, piracy, rustling and feuding on a small scale have always been part of tribal life - at least where territory was constrained, as on islands. Not as much, but still noticeable, where vast forest and prairie put distance between peoples. But inter-family rivalry and occasional clashes are not at all the same as xenophobia (they weren't fighting strangers, but cousins, whose ways and mores they knew intimately, whose daughters they stole or bought for their own sons). It sometimes became necessary, as in Muhammad's time, to amalgamate several tribes for mutual defense against some bigger (civilized?) aggressor: the Christians, the French, the Spanish, the Romans, the Vikings, the Sassenach....

There will be plenty more fighting and killing before things settle down again - presumably with a more manageable-sized human population. Of course, now we have weapons that leave a big blot on the landscape for a long time. One of the main short-term problems our successors will face is the sheer volume of corpses, especially in the wake of pandemics. In the long term, their major problem will be the scarcity of insects... https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access ... 99176.html
...ironic, given that the abundance of insects was a major concern of early farmers.
Belindi
Moderator
Posts: 6105
Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Belindi »

I am glad to read your measure of cynicism, Alias, as I'd begun to wonder if you believed in the Noble Savage.
Might we now try to make some sort of list of the attributes of a viable tribe , after the Catastrophe? For instance the best number of individuals, choosing the leader, patri or matri locality, patri or matri ownership of children and spouses, ownership of chattels and land, slavery.

I'd like to think that the new leaders would be individuals who knew basic technologies such as waste disposal, shelters, water collection, use of water powered or wind powered energy sources, and herbal remedies e.g. aspirin from willow bark, morphia from poppies.
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

Belindi wrote: March 9th, 2019, 11:51 am Might we now try to make some sort of list of the attributes of a viable tribe , after the Catastrophe? For instance the best number of individuals, choosing the leader, patri or matri locality, patri or matri ownership of children and spouses, ownership of chattels and land, slavery.
I'll have to give that some thought, after I finish entering all the data in our tax accounting program.
I'd like to think that the new leaders would be individuals who knew basic technologies such as waste disposal, shelters, water collection, use of water powered or wind powered energy sources, and herbal remedies e.g. aspirin from willow bark, morphia from poppies.
Much can be learned and retained from the various government agency preparedness documents I referred to earlier - worth a look - especially any put out by your local one, relating to your particular situation. (It's not as if some smart people haven't thought about this!) We don't have to start from 0.
Another model that already exists is NA first nations' traditional forms of organization. http://www.fngovernance.org/pillars
Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit atrocities. - Voltaire
GE Morton
Posts: 4696
Joined: February 1st, 2017, 1:06 am

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by GE Morton »

Belindi wrote: March 9th, 2019, 5:56 am
The first paragraph paints a nice credible scenario for regions that could support wheat , oats and other annual plants. You say "other civilised structures" however living in towns with merchant and service classes, and new urbanisations supported by industrial labourers , minerals, and power sources is a long development from how edible annual crops came to be the norm. Aren't social group sizes, and social orders for governance, always structurally integral with means of subsistence whatever those may be at whatever stage of technology?
The progression from the discovery of agriculture to the development of cities with merchants, craftsmen, traders, scholars, and bureaucrats no doubt took several centuries --- perhaps a millennium --- but that is not long on evolutionary time scales. The transformation was quite rapid, considering that over the first 200,000 years of human pre-history things changed very little --- the lifestyles of those early humans barely differed from those of other primates: the major difference being the propensity of humans to make and use stone and bone tools and weapons.

Those first farmers were novices, ignorant, and their efforts often unsuccessful. But over time they learned, about optimum soil conditions for various crops, how to irrigate, how to use animal waste as fertilizers, etc. And eventually their yields could reliably feed the entire group. Since the efforts of everyone were no longer needed to secure food, some individuals were freed to pursue other interests and tasks; a division of labor developed.
That question matters because means of subsistence is soon to be radically changed and includes sudden intimacy with weather, the soil ,crude power sources, and pathogenic bacteria that has not been really experienced by most people for hundreds of years. It's not an evolution but a revolution. There's no stability there's sudden forced change.
Yes, it was a revolution. That hypothetical woman, whose only thought was to augment the tribe's food supply for the next year, launched the most profound, far-reaching revolution in the human experience, before or since.* Though it did not seem revolutionary to anyone at the time, and it was not sudden. Nothing much would have changed over the lifespan of an individual. But the pace of that change slowly accelerated, though it stalled periodically (the several "dark ages"). Civilizations collapsed, for various reasons, but the knowledge they had gained lived on, and was soon applied by other peoples.

"Stability" is relative. No human social structure devised to date has proved to be eternal. But a system that survives for a few centuries has to be counted as stable. Human societies are complex adaptive systems, and the defining characteristic of those systems is that they are unpredictable in the long term, dynamic but stable in the short term.
I can see Alias's vision for small communities like blood tribes once were. I doubt that all of those would be stable social structures without vendetta controls. Tribes are fine when you are one of the kindred but there was interfamily warfare . For instance Muhammad acted so to amalgamate the Arabian tribes and put a stop to their vendetta system with centralised religious controls. I spent my childhood in the Scottish Borders where a few old local families and their helpers once earned their bread by armed reiving i.e.stealing cattle from their neighbours in England and Scotland.
The social instincts (affinities for kin, wariness of strangers, devotion to tradition, the attraction to authoritarian figures --- gods and "Alphas" --- and the longing for brotherhood) we inherited from our primate ancestry are hard-wired into our psyches. Civilization affronts those instincts at every turn, provoking angst, envy, enmities, rebellions, wars. The "revolution" will not be complete until those instincts go the way of the stone tools.

*Jared Diamond called this discovery "the greatest mistake in human history."
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

Civilization requires a tiered class system, chain of command, top-down organization, might-makes-right rather than consensus, and obedience to authority. Thus, it tends to be - though is not necessarily - counter-social. It was, indeed, a very grave mistake, and democracy has barely mitigated the damage; doesn't have time to repair it.
I've been talking about how humankind may be able to survive - not whether we should.
But, in keeping with the conspicuously absent Athena's original intent for this thread, we might start, not with the ways and means of the next phase, but with the values that could sustain a surviving remnant over a longer term than a half dozen millennia before the next apocalypse.
GE Morton
Posts: 4696
Joined: February 1st, 2017, 1:06 am

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by GE Morton »

chewybrian wrote: March 9th, 2019, 7:08 am
Supposedly, it was the desire to brew beer that really gave people the incentive to grow crops, and perhaps led us to 'civilization'.
That is a respectable theory, and may well have supplied much of the motivation for learning how to cultivate the necessary crops. Recipes for beer are found in the Sumerian tablets, and there is evidence that it (or similar beverages) were produced also in ancient China and pre-Columbian America. But wheat (in the Near East), rice (in China), and maize (in Mesoamerica) appear to have been cultivated earlier than barley (or the maguey plant in America).

Here is the full Discovery program on that theory:

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/how-bee ... the-world/
Alias
Posts: 3119
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: Is Social Order Important?

Post by Alias »

So, as a central guiding principle, I'd go for: "Cherish life."
Post Reply

Return to “Ethics and Morality”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021