[From: Bruce Nevin (Mon 920422 13:18:43)]
if we look at a chimpanzee society as what emerges from interactions
without benefit of symbolic reasoning, principles, or system concepts, and
if we see parallels (however described and interpreted) with human
societies, isn't this a sign that human beings aren't really taking
advantage of their own higher capacities?
I don't know that chimps lack symbolic reasoning, principles, or even
system concepts (or control of perceptions of the kinds we label with
those terms).
True, some people do behave
in this way. But I am, I'm afraid, more interested in doing something about
that than in studying it disinterestedly as a phenomenon. I have too much
interest in it just to let it be. I can't just say, "Well, that's how
society works and I guess we're stuck with it." I don't think we're stuck
with society as it is. Or I don't WANT to be stuck with it. I REFUSE to be
stuck with it.
Certainly I sympathize with this, a lot. But if your aim is to drive to
Durango you have to first know if you're starting out from Chicago, or
LA, or Boston, or Sydney.
But that metaphor is inept. I think it is inappropriate to imagine
leaving behind all attributes of our primate, mammalian, reptilian, and
other evolutionary forebears. Evolution doesn't seem to work that way.
The lungs evolved from the swim bladders of fishes, and to their double
membrane construction (wonderful for swim bladders) we may attribute the
pleurisy from which my wife suffered last fall. Our throats represent a
compromise between the needs of eating, the needs of breathing, and the
needs of phonation. The horse, for example, optimized for breathing.
Rube Goldberg make-dos are the norm rather than the exception. But
unlike other critters (or at least more than they), we can consciously
participate in our own evolution. However, even that concerns what we
do with our inherited materials, and we ignore those materials at our
peril.
So there is a goal of ameliorating our social relations with others, and
not wanting certain chimp/chump attributes to be there. This conflicts
with the goal of observing what is there dispassionately, without
attachment to outcomes, just for the sake of finding out whether we're
starting out so to speak from New York City or Dry Prong, Wyoming, a
prerequisite for the goal of amelioration. Perhaps it is advisable to
set aside the emotional craving that those undesired attributes not be
there, at least at the time of taking observations.
What might the positive useful functions of such chimpish shenanigans
be? Look at your account of the elevation of the clerk to the manager's
slot. You accorded him some of the outward signs of status, such as
calling him "Boss." These signs may have "felt good" to him, and it may
even on occasion have "felt good" for one of you to "make" him "feel
good" in this way. More significant, I think, from the perspective of
an outsider must have been the perception of one person answerable for
your department. Even if it is known that this person would just go and
get the answers from one or more of you, he knows whom to get it from
and how to go about getting it in a form that is useful to the
particular outsider, who doesn't want to know any great detail about all
the stuff you guys are maintaining. He knows (or can learn) what the
expectations and needs are of upper management, other departments,
outside vendors, competitors, reporters doing a story, directors, and so
on, a proliferation of PR requisites from which you guys in turn want
him to insulate you. I'm just imagining and projecting, of course, and
I may well be way off target on some particulars, but the general idea I
think comes across?
But this is simply specialization of function, you might say, according
to skills, training, temperament, and other things that would lead one
(say, in an anarchist society) to prefer helping one's fellows in one
way rather than in another. There is no hierarchy inherent in it.
Well, no, but there is. It is a hierarchy that follows from something
like "chunking" of information. But I agree that there is no dominance
or coercion, aka "power," inherent in it.
An individual contributing in a hierarchically superordinate position
(in this "chunking" sense) is able to take unfair advantage of that
position more effectively than one in a less centralized position, on
which fewer others are so dependent. Then a question becomes, for what
reasons might such an individual come to abuse the strategic advantages
of the position? Your "boss" evidently realized his dependence on those
who had elevated him to the flak-catcher position, was grateful for it,
and was conscious that he could not maintain himself there without your
support. Conversely, if he abused his position and seemed irremediably
abusive, the rest of you could withdraw your support in many ways. This
is what Gene Sharpe's many years of research on nonviolent resistance
brings out, the many forms this withdrawal of support can take, and how
surprisingly effective it can be against the most tyrranical rulers.
The point of this little disquisition is that it does not seem to be so
simple as atavistic hormones inducing us to chimpanzee behavior, this
business of people seeking "leadership." Part of it is the leader as
representative, including the various flak-catcher roles. In the
extreme, the leader becomes the representative sacrifice. And that is
another reason why some of us have turned down the role and its
benefits.
Another dimension not to be overlooked is the hierarchical power
relation between adults and small children. No amount of egalitarian
system concepts, principles, and programs can undo the biological facts
of dependence and weakness and need for nurturance. Bateson's wolf pack
example is telling here. It is the mother's gesture while weaning her
puppy that the pack leader makes to the usurper of sexual access. This
communication is powerful and effective because of the direct analogy it
makes between the leader-member relationship and the mother-puppy
relationship, and between the usurper's present situation and a critical
juncture in the development of the latter.
What is analogy?
Bruce
bn@bbn.com