Cartertonian wrote:That was a thoughtful and intelligent post, Smertios. However, it serves as a fine example of the fact that Qatz isn't actually interested in the questions he poses. He has one agenda and one agenda only...to find different, literary and artistic ways of highlighting that - in his view - the whole world is subordinated to a shadowy and malignant elite.
In this regard he deviates from the classic 'stuck record', because he at least plays a different tune every time. It's just the message in the song that remains the same.
Every socialist I have met is not interested in the truth, but only fiction to support their unreal hypothesis
The ClockworkRat wrote:You're saying that social relations have not been modified by 'human intelligence'?
If we take your last example - the worker and client - then their relation and simultaneous interactions are very much modified by human intelligence. There is a generalised set of behaviours which each much stick to in order to maintain the validity of their transaction. These have developed in such a way as to increase efficiency in the action which the worker is to do, and even the means of exchange is - as you later point out using your own definition - unnatural. The entire reason that they are there in the first place as worker and client depends on the socio-economic relations of the time and place. There isn't anything else involved in their interaction.
Your claim is contradictory.
No, you got my point wrong. I am not saying that social relations cannot be modified by human intelligence. Everything that is natural can be modified, but the outcome (the "modified thing") can be completely natural as well.
For example, imagine a car. It is not a natural machine, since it was the product of the human intelligence working, in order to overcome a natural barrier (the speed of transportation). Traffic itself is non-natural. We have built roads, set rules, designed traffic lights for control etc. But, once the non-natural part has been designed, the system itself will function naturally. The flow of of cars in an urban environment obeys pretty much the same principles as any natural flow in closed spaces, such as electrical and hydraulic circuits, and can easily be analyzed by means of graph theory. That is completely
natural to the artificial system designed intelligently by humanity.
Perhaps a better example would be a bipolar transistor. It doesn't exist naturally in the world. Humans have to take a semimetal, dope it with atoms of another semimetal, in order to create "net" charge. Then three different blocks of doped semimetals have to be aligned properly, in order to have the thing work. But the properties that make the transistor work are natural (like every other property, obviously), so the system itself will work naturally once designed.
Similarly, any social interaction has a non-natural component. Like you said yourself, there is a set of rules pre-established for both agents/actors to follow, in order to maximize efficiency. This set of rules was designed as a piece of economic technology. But there is nothing unnatural about the interaction itself. And, once the rules are set, in the first place, the behavior of each agent will be completely natural...
So no, my post is not contradictory at all...
CounterChaos wrote:In review of this, Qatz is correct. What I failed to realize is - that the Philippines is not an example of modern industrial society - as millions here are still hunter gatherer. His definition of hierarchy then as it applies to modern industrial society - is correct.
I would not go so far as to say that "the whole world is subordinated to a shadowy and malignant elite", I would say the whole world is subordinated to a silver spoon fed elite. We have no control where we are born - or the place where we begin this adventure. This is why I am a socialist - I want all of us born - with a stainless steel spoon in our mouths and begin the adventure on an equal basis.
As easy as it is for me to see this, to want this and to espouse this - it is just as easy for the silver spoon fed - to feel the need to protect their exclusive position. This is what we see, this is what they fear - that we see.
That is not being a socialist. You are being a liberal
Socialists want people to start the adventure on an equal basis, but they also want people to go through it and finish on an equal basis. The equality defended in liberalism is that of equal conditions. So, everybody would have the condition to begin the adventure equally, but whether they are successful in life or not is entirely dependent on them themselves.
Qatz's definition of hierarchy is wrong, and I wrote an extensive post explaining why (with examples
)... It is a bad and emotional view of society, being completely non-rational, as it ignores basic biological mechanisms of the human species. Like I said, our species is social and our society is hierarchical, otherwise we would see lots of non-hierarchized human groups around. But every human group, small or big, develops a hierarchy naturally. Look at my example with groups for a school assignment, for example. Families, companies, clubs. Leaders always appear spontaneously, no matter how much one tries to avoid it. The action of trying to avoid it itself creates a hierarchy, since one person is trying to control the social relations.
If we can become a non-hierarchical society in the future? Certainly, but it will require a major evolutionary shift, that will get rid of the biological characteristic itself. We are social animals because, a long time ago, nature selected those individuals who were social, since they were better prepared than non-social ones. And our society is hierarchical simply because, at some point, nature selected those groups that were hierarchical, considering they had an advantage over the non-hierarchical ones. For that to change, the environment itself needs to change, so it becomes more advantageous not to have an hierarchy. I don't see that happening anytime soon...
PoFo ethnic party statistics: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8&p=14042520#p14042520