Captain Nemo
11-30-2010, 11:19 AM
The following text is motivated by certain reflections found in this topic (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20826&page=24).
For those in search of solution for "good leadership" that would act in favour of the preservation and advancement of the European biocultural entity it must be clarified, that the solution cannot be found on individual levels, ie. the paradigm of finding biological superior leaders etc.
That paradigm is simplistic and reductive.
The solution is to understand what the general ideologic, political, economic and social construct of todays West represents in systemic terms, understand what are its systemic deficiencies vis a vis a theoretical model comprising all the cybernetic tasks a human system should be able to achieve.
Systemics, to remind you, is the science of systems, or "cybernetics" as it was previously called (I still prefer "cybernetics", as it is way cooler ;)).
Inside such systemic, cybernetic paradigm, culture, philosophy, ideology can be seen as "software" for that system, and what we call "values" as software instructions supposed to perform certain cybernetic tasks.
For example certain religious beliefs can be seen as the vectors for software instructions that have the purpose to maintain certain aspects of social regulation, certain aspects of regulation of the systemic functions of human groups.
Alas religious systemic vectors are historically idiosyncratic, meaning that they are often linked to rigid prescientific conceptions or rigid historical social forms, so when the prescientific concepts get questioned, or if modern life challenges certain social forms, the valid systemic intructions or metainstructions that they contain get ditched along the unfundamental idiosyncratic stuff - the baby is thrown away with the water of the bath, so to speak.
This is why the scientific revolution has endangered many important systemic aspects of society, many of its cybernetic metavalues, like the need for biological self reproduction, and many other "fundamental" cybernetic values embedded inside traditional or religious historically idiosyncratic forms.
This is one of the reasons why the present existing software is lacking.
There is a hole in that software, essential instructions missing - instructions concerning the organic interactions between the individual and the collectivity in order to make the system to function and perpetuate itself through time.
The other reason is the economic development, which favors the market as the main and only value of the system, reducing human systems to markets, and humans to mere individuals defined only through their relationship to the market.
Higher collective "fundamental" values of long term higher biocultural good have no place inside that system, as it is not seen as a system that must perform certain systemic tasks in order to function and survive as such, but as a mere market having no higher purpose than itself, and the purpose of individuals being equated with the purpose of the market - no higher "human" (systemic collective) motives in that.
The synergy of these two factors has produced a faulty software, faulty, deficient, incomplete philosophies, that exclude real systemic instructions, reducing the system to its mere dimension of horizontal exchanges between individuals or groups seen as mere collections of individuals - the "market".
But a complete, long term functional, reproducuing, constructively and purposefully regulating and self transforming human system is not a mere market - a mere system of horizontal exchanges.
It is also, and as much importantly or even more importantly a system of "vertical" exchanges - all the exchanges made inside the system through the whole, and in relation to the needs of the whole for its survival, reproduction and adaptative transformation.
And in that context, the interests of the individual are not just horizontal, market ones, but also vertical, as the interests of the individual are also connected to the well being and systemic harmony and completeness of the whole.
What makes us human and differeciates us from animals is exchange. (Predatorial animal patterns still persist as relicts, but they are not specifically human, and not what is really the human specificity - exchange is.)
Exchange has two dimensions.
The horizontal - between individuals or groups of individuals.
The vertical - between individuals or groups of individuals with the whole and through the larger, broader, long term interests of the whole.
To illustrate those vertical exchanges and the vertical dimension of values, even in very subtle social aspects, lets take an example.
Let's take pornography, or some other "minor" vices.
It can be argued that what consenting adults do has no influence on others, and therefore, there is no moral basis to condemn certain behaviours.
That is true on the horizontal level, as what one, two or more individuals do consensually has no direct influence on other individuals - so on that direct individual-to-individual horizontal level, the previous claim is true.
However on a vertical level, certain behaviours influence the whole, its general health, ability to self reproduce and maintain social forms favorable to the healthy functioning of the system in the long term, and through that vertical dimension of exchange there can be a negative impact on the quality of the whole and its abilities to function as a whole, and consequently on all individuals participating in that whole.
Certain behaviors are perfectly OK from the horizontal, market perspective, but can be understood as harmful if we include the vertical dimension of society.
So, the main problem in todays modern Western societies, is not an individual one, it is a systemic one.
The problem is that the whole intellectual, ideologic, philosophic software that we have is insufficient, it is only the "half of it" or even less.
Today's philosophy reduces everything to the individual and the horiziontal dimension, while human systems are much more in order to be systemically functional in the long term.
Unfortunately almost all the vertical software instructions that we have in our cultures are still embedded inside religious or idiosyncratic traditional values and we have no scientific articulation for the vertical dimension of society.
What is first needed is a conceptual philosophical revolution, a new philosophical blueprint and software that scientifically integrates the vertical dimension into the mental picture - the science of systemics.
When such foundations are established, then political structures and their systemic tasks can be designed in function of that complete systemic understanding of human systems.
For those in search of solution for "good leadership" that would act in favour of the preservation and advancement of the European biocultural entity it must be clarified, that the solution cannot be found on individual levels, ie. the paradigm of finding biological superior leaders etc.
That paradigm is simplistic and reductive.
The solution is to understand what the general ideologic, political, economic and social construct of todays West represents in systemic terms, understand what are its systemic deficiencies vis a vis a theoretical model comprising all the cybernetic tasks a human system should be able to achieve.
Systemics, to remind you, is the science of systems, or "cybernetics" as it was previously called (I still prefer "cybernetics", as it is way cooler ;)).
Inside such systemic, cybernetic paradigm, culture, philosophy, ideology can be seen as "software" for that system, and what we call "values" as software instructions supposed to perform certain cybernetic tasks.
For example certain religious beliefs can be seen as the vectors for software instructions that have the purpose to maintain certain aspects of social regulation, certain aspects of regulation of the systemic functions of human groups.
Alas religious systemic vectors are historically idiosyncratic, meaning that they are often linked to rigid prescientific conceptions or rigid historical social forms, so when the prescientific concepts get questioned, or if modern life challenges certain social forms, the valid systemic intructions or metainstructions that they contain get ditched along the unfundamental idiosyncratic stuff - the baby is thrown away with the water of the bath, so to speak.
This is why the scientific revolution has endangered many important systemic aspects of society, many of its cybernetic metavalues, like the need for biological self reproduction, and many other "fundamental" cybernetic values embedded inside traditional or religious historically idiosyncratic forms.
This is one of the reasons why the present existing software is lacking.
There is a hole in that software, essential instructions missing - instructions concerning the organic interactions between the individual and the collectivity in order to make the system to function and perpetuate itself through time.
The other reason is the economic development, which favors the market as the main and only value of the system, reducing human systems to markets, and humans to mere individuals defined only through their relationship to the market.
Higher collective "fundamental" values of long term higher biocultural good have no place inside that system, as it is not seen as a system that must perform certain systemic tasks in order to function and survive as such, but as a mere market having no higher purpose than itself, and the purpose of individuals being equated with the purpose of the market - no higher "human" (systemic collective) motives in that.
The synergy of these two factors has produced a faulty software, faulty, deficient, incomplete philosophies, that exclude real systemic instructions, reducing the system to its mere dimension of horizontal exchanges between individuals or groups seen as mere collections of individuals - the "market".
But a complete, long term functional, reproducuing, constructively and purposefully regulating and self transforming human system is not a mere market - a mere system of horizontal exchanges.
It is also, and as much importantly or even more importantly a system of "vertical" exchanges - all the exchanges made inside the system through the whole, and in relation to the needs of the whole for its survival, reproduction and adaptative transformation.
And in that context, the interests of the individual are not just horizontal, market ones, but also vertical, as the interests of the individual are also connected to the well being and systemic harmony and completeness of the whole.
What makes us human and differeciates us from animals is exchange. (Predatorial animal patterns still persist as relicts, but they are not specifically human, and not what is really the human specificity - exchange is.)
Exchange has two dimensions.
The horizontal - between individuals or groups of individuals.
The vertical - between individuals or groups of individuals with the whole and through the larger, broader, long term interests of the whole.
To illustrate those vertical exchanges and the vertical dimension of values, even in very subtle social aspects, lets take an example.
Let's take pornography, or some other "minor" vices.
It can be argued that what consenting adults do has no influence on others, and therefore, there is no moral basis to condemn certain behaviours.
That is true on the horizontal level, as what one, two or more individuals do consensually has no direct influence on other individuals - so on that direct individual-to-individual horizontal level, the previous claim is true.
However on a vertical level, certain behaviours influence the whole, its general health, ability to self reproduce and maintain social forms favorable to the healthy functioning of the system in the long term, and through that vertical dimension of exchange there can be a negative impact on the quality of the whole and its abilities to function as a whole, and consequently on all individuals participating in that whole.
Certain behaviors are perfectly OK from the horizontal, market perspective, but can be understood as harmful if we include the vertical dimension of society.
So, the main problem in todays modern Western societies, is not an individual one, it is a systemic one.
The problem is that the whole intellectual, ideologic, philosophic software that we have is insufficient, it is only the "half of it" or even less.
Today's philosophy reduces everything to the individual and the horiziontal dimension, while human systems are much more in order to be systemically functional in the long term.
Unfortunately almost all the vertical software instructions that we have in our cultures are still embedded inside religious or idiosyncratic traditional values and we have no scientific articulation for the vertical dimension of society.
What is first needed is a conceptual philosophical revolution, a new philosophical blueprint and software that scientifically integrates the vertical dimension into the mental picture - the science of systemics.
When such foundations are established, then political structures and their systemic tasks can be designed in function of that complete systemic understanding of human systems.