Society as a myth.

I found this article during a random internet search. It is very, very much my view too. An excellent example of what Max Stirner meant by 'spooks'.

"A LESSON TO LEARN FROM 'ATLAS SHRUGGED': "SOCIETY" IS A MYTH

By

Donald R. Burleson, Ph.D.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Donald R. Burleson.

This essay may be reproduced in its entirety provided original authorship is expressly acknowledged.

In Ayn Rand's celebrated novel Atlas Shrugged, when John Galt delivers his powerful and

groundbreaking radio address-- a definitive statement of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, and a polemical tour-de-force unequalled in literature-- he opens up a philosophical question that Rand, through her character John Galt, seems to have been the first to explore, at least with the conclusions she reaches.

The question is: What is "society"? That is, what does the term "society" (which we should perhaps capitalize in the same spirit in which a religionist would capitalize "god") mean in a context suggesting that the individual human being should devote himself or herself to "what is best for society" rather than to his or her own individual interests? The answer that Rand gives is, in effect, that "society" in this sense is a myth, a delusion, a sham perpetuated for totalitarian political purposes. "Society" simply doesn't exist, nor should it.

It seems to me that this is a rather neglected facet of 'Atlas Shrugged', one that seldom gets much attention in critical commentaries on the novel. But I would claim that this particular issue, as raised (however momentarily) in the John Galt radio address, is a fundamentally important one, in that an awareness of the question and its resolution in Objectivist terms can be life-changing. One simply cannot come to see the nature of "society" as John Galt sees it, and still think of human life in the world the way one otherwise might.

Galt first distinguishes between what he calls "the mystics of spirit" (who tell us that we

need to subjugate ourselves to the "will" of an actually non-existent God) and "the mystics of  muscle" (who tell us, often at the point of a gun, that we need to subjugate ourselves to the "good" of a likewise non-existent Society). Galt then proceeds to remark:

"The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society-- a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself" 

This almost deified concept of "society" also goes by such names as "the public" and "the people," and Galt later reiterates that "people are everyone except yourself."

This notion that "society" or "the public" or "the people" really means everyone except oneself, everyone except the person addressed, is an exceedingly intriguing one.

For one thing, when I characterized "society" as a myth, I meant "myth" in both the "untruth" sense and the sense of "long-standing cultural tradition," because not only is there no such thing as "society," but, more significantly, the term and the concept have been used since time untold for the purpose of subjugation of individual human beings to various collectivist politico-economic systems, systems which essentially more resemble ant colonies than proper social assemblages of humans.

One thinks of the old Soviet Union, in which people were told, in effect: Just work for the

good of the People, the benefit of Society, and (as soon as the current Five Year Plan is complete, or maybe the next one, or maybe the one after that) there will be reason to be glad. Here, “Society" stands in place of the equally specious notion of an anthropomorphic "God," a creature traditionally postulated for purposes of herding people about, "God" for whom one is supposed to arrange one's life and work selflessly in hopes that in some incomprehensible way, future benefits will accrue. Pie in the sky. Clearly in the totalitarian/collectivist sense, the "Society" that is supposed to receive and enjoy these illusory eventual benefits no more exists than does the coercive fiction called "God." In totalitarian regimes, the reality is, no one ever ends up enjoying any benefits, no one, ever, except those party bigwigs who cruise about in limousines and spout the party line for the "enlightenment" (read: acquiescence) of the masses.

Since the collectivist view of "society" functions in a manner not unlike the notion of "God,"

i.e. essentially conduces to the control of the many by the few, the problem we face here is

basically a religious phenomenon. As always, in the long and sordid history of religious

manipulation of people by other people, the device is one of a compelling but ultimately absurd fictional construct, in this case not God the Father but Society the Family, the Tribe, something to be served by self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of the individual to the abstract multitude.

Abstract, because ultimately there are only individual people. This is the proof that the

collectivist vision, of necessary sacrifice and ultimate benefit to "society," is a fraud.

Someone will object: "But when a scientist discovers a cure for a dread disease, does not the benefit go to society, to the public, to the people, to humankind?" Well, yes, in a sense, but one must remember that it is only individuals who can know this benefit. One does not

cure a "multitude" of a disease; one cures a person. And if it is only an individual who can

benefit from what another individual accomplishes, the notion of benefit to "the people" is

a linguistic shell-game.

What John Galt points out, that "society" means everyone except oneself, describes a bizarre twist of logic. It is as if we said: Here's a collection of things: {A,B,C,D}, the members of the collection being A, B, C, and D-- except that, ah, no, not A after all; and actually not B; and, um, not C; oh, and not D. When one has eliminated A, B, C, and D one at a time from the collection {A, B, C, D}, what is left? Actually, nothing. And to see "society" as everyone but oneself is precisely that: a group of people from which each person supposedly belonging to the group is excluded. What is left is the ghost of an idea-- the nebulous notion of "people" without the people. In short, a carnival illusion designed to gull the unwary.

Then again John Galt, later in his radio address, seems to shift the definition of "society" or

"the people" somewhat, when he says:

"The people, to you, is whoever has failed to achieve any virtue or value; whoever achieves it, whoever provides the goods you require for survival, ceases to be regarded as part of the public or as part of the human race."

In this formulation, "society" or "the public" or "the people" seems, then, to mean: all of you, unless you're a productive person, in which case you're excused, excluded from consideration. We come here to the difference between totalitarian and free social systems. In a free system, an inventor or discoverer of something that brings great benefit to large numbers of other people can, properly and deservedly, become very wealthy from his or her invention or discovery; while in a totalitarian state, one is expected to produce that kind of work-of-the-mind for free, not being entitled to any better lot in life than anyone else, not being entitled to any advantage not given also to those who did not think, did not innovate, did not produce. Are we to have redistribution of wealth, in the fraudulent glow of the idea that "society" benefits from government's taking from some (who produced) to give to others (who didn't), or are we to value the individual person as someone free to pursue life, liberty, happiness? It's the difference, again, between living in a rational socio-economic system driven by free-market dynamics and a recognition of the worth of the individual, on the one hand, and, on the other, living in an ant bed.

What we need is a new kind of disbelief. Atheism has freed us from the stultifying delusion that we should be made subservient to an imaginary god whom power-brokers tell us we must selflessly serve. The needed new disbelief, a sort of social atheism, should now free us from the equally stultifying and dangerous delusion that there is such a thing as "society," which we are to serve blindly, rather than acting in our own interests. It is understood that when one acts in one's own interests, one must not prevent others from exercising their right to do so as well. And yes, the individual can and should think, innovate, invent, discover, produce what others may benefit from having if they have earned the privilege. But the benefit must be value-for-value, must be receipt only of what

is earned and deserved and not just demanded by a sense of entitlement; and it must be remembered that the benefits that accrue from the innovator's work accrue not to some fanciful, illusory "public" or "multitude," but to individual human beings. That's all there is. We exist only one at a time, and any government that fails to recognize this, and to restrain its actions by virtue of that recognition, wields the lethal hand of tyranny."

Free Will?

The issue of free will and determinism is something I am thinking about a great deal these days. These few brief notes are simply orientation statements.

The following is a simple discussion of the issue of free will as it applies to the science of psychology and had it has been understood by many different psychologists. 

Why are psychologists interested in this issue?

Historical reasons

Since at least the writings of the French philosopher Renee Des Cartes (1596 - 1650) this issue has been a central part of Western philosophy. As Des Cartes writings and arguments had a major impact on the very early history of psychology, and as his writings raised issues that are still central to philosophy, it is not surprising that psychologists are still interested in this issue.

To UNDERSTAND the CAUSES of thoughts and behaviour

Science is, at it's most basic level, the attempt to 'understand by causes'.  The doctrine of DETERMINISM takes the following position:

“ ... ... ... in the case of everything that exists, there are antecedent conditions, known or unknown, given which that thing could not be other than it is ... ... ... More loosely, it says that everything, including every cause, is the effect of some cause or causes; or that everything is not only determinate but causally determined ... ... if true, it holds not only for all things that have existed but for all things that do or ever will exist.”

Taylor, R (1963) Metaphysics   Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall

`Everything that exists` includes people and their thoughts and behaviour . A `strict` determinist holds that `thought` and `behaviour` are no different from other `things` or events in the world.

The issue then becomes - Are thoughts and behaviour the SAME KIND OF THING OR EVENT as, for example, chemical reactions, earthquakes, neurons firing etc., etc.

We don't, usually, ask if chemicals `AGREED` to react, or if an earthquake `felt like` happening, or if neurons `decide` to fire. If we do we are committing the sin of ANTHROPOMORPHIZING - we are ATTRIBUTING human abilities and characteristics to non-human things (including animals).

No one seriously believes that chemicals agree, or earthquakes have feelings, or neurons make decisions. But we DO attribute these abilities to people - they are a key part of our `everyday` concept of human beings of our `common-sense` psychology.

Because of this psychologists must take seriously the `everyday` view that people DECIDE, AGREE (or not) with each other, and, in so many ways, exercise FREE WILL.

Possessing `free will` depends upon having a `mind`, because deciding, agreeing and so on are exactly the sort of things we `do` with our `mind`.

However, while it may be the case the having freewill implies having a mind, having a mind DOES NOT imply having freewill. All our decisions, choices, agreements and so on may still be CAUSED (determined) even though it doesn't `feel` like they are. These arguments lead directly into the realm of logic and philosophical argument, where the discussion gets extremely complex. I will avoid this path here.

To investigate the influence of mental events over behaviour

Even if we accept, temporarily, that HUMAN thinking and behaviour are different from all other natural phenomena (which is a very debatable claim!) and that they are not caused (determined) in the same way (or a different kind of explanation is needed just for them), for most of it's history psychology has operated AS IF there was no difference.

Since 1913 when John Watson launched the `behaviourist revolution` in psychology, psychologists have tried to emulate the physical sciences and this took the form, mainly, of using EMPIRICAL METHODS and, particularly, the CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENT. To adopt such techniques implicitly accepts a deterministic view of human behaviour by accepting the deterministic and `mechanical` view of physical science.

In one very important sense, then, ALL psychologists ARE `behaviourists`:

METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIOURISM is the belief that EMPIRICAL METHODS, especially the experiment, is the only way to collect data about human thought processes and behaviour that can be QUANTIFIED and STATISTICALLY ANALYSED. The majority of psychologists today would call themselves methodological behaviourists.

Since about 1950, however, most psychologists would DENY that they are PHILOSOPHICAL BEHAVIOURISTS. Philosophical behaviourism in it's most extreme form is the position taken by Watson himself - to deny the very existence of the `mind` and mental processes. If you reject the `mind` you reject `freewill` too. All behaviour is a mechanical series of cause and effect. B. F. Skinner took a slightly less extreme position. He did not deny the existence of mental processes, he simply regarded them as irrelevant to understanding and predicting human behaviour. He rejected the notion of freewill, although he readily accepted that people BELIEVE they have it.

Philosophical behaviourism involves EXPLICITLY rejecting freewill, while methodological behaviourism is an IMPLICIT rejection of it.

Many who readily accept methodological behaviourism would, at the same time, reject philosophical behaviourism. They will accept the validity of their experimental and research results, and at the same time say they believe in human freewill. This appears to be a total contradiction, but they often propose various tangled philosophical arguments to get around this. However, these proposed `solutions` to the contradiction often cause more trouble than they are worth. But, there is no SINGLE, clear cut solution to this problem. IF you are a psychologist, then, somewhere down the line you are accepting some degree of DETERMINISM in human behaviour. If you don't accept any determinism you are not a psychologist and you are outside of the world of rational thought and clear-cut, well founded evidence.

To DIAGNOSE MENTAL DISORDERS

When ABNORMAL behaviour is discussed, diagnosed and treated then psychologists and psychiatrists are making more or less explicit judgements about freewill and determinism.

In a very general sense, a mental disorder can be seen as a partial or complete breakdown of the CONTROL a person has over his/her behaviour, emotions and thoughts:

In COMPULSIVE behaviour people are `compelled` to do something, they can't help it;

People are ATTACKED by panic;

People are OBSESSED by thoughts;

People become VICTIMS of thoughts inserted from outside and are under EXTERNAL control.

In all these examples `things` are happening to, or being done to, the individual instead of the individual doing them.

In most Western legal systems being judged has having lost `normal` control (`being of unsound mind`) is a legally acceptable defence in criminal law. There is a whole complex body of law relating to mental health and psychiatrists who specialise in this field are called FORENSIC PSYCHIATRISTS.

Without going into detail, and noting that this is a very debatable issue indeed, forensic psychiatry IMPLICITLY accepts a clear cut difference between `normal` behaviours where the individual has `control` (freewill) and `abnormal` behaviour where their actions are determined for them.

To discuss MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Underpinning the whole issue of legal responsibility is the presupposition that people are, at least some of the time, able to CONTROL their behaviour and to CHOOSE BETWEEN different course of action. If this were not assumed how could we ever discuss moral accountability?

In most everyday actions, situations and interactions we simply ASSUME responsibility - our own and that of other's - unless we have reason to doubt it.

An influential figure in this debate (as in many others areas of interest to psychology) is Renee Des Cartes. In his theorising about human behaviour he made a fundamental distinction between MIND and BODY. The `mind`, according to Des Cartes, is a non-physical entity. The `body`, however, is a physical entity that is, basically, a MACHINE. This is the philosophical theory known as `Mind-Body Dualism`, or `Cartesian Dualism`.

According to Des Cartes, a person is an AGENT whose behaviour is governed by no other law than that which the agent him/herself creates. He wrote:

“But the will is so free in it's nature, that it can never be constrained ... ... ... And the whole action of the soul consists in this, that solely because it desires something, it causes a little gland to which it is closely united to move in a way requisite to produce the effect which relates to this desire.”

Des Cartes (1649)

According to Des Cartes the `little gland` was the Pineal Gland, situated near the corpus callosum, which joins the two hemispheres of the brain together. Today, it is known that the pineal gland plays an important role in sleep, but it is NOT where the `mind` or `soul` live, nor is it the `meeting point` between mind and body as Des Cartes thought.

According to Des Cartes the `mind`, via the pineal gland, uses it's immaterial (non-physical) powers to move the material (physical) body. When we behave in a voluntary manner this, he said, is what happens. This dualistic distinction makes sense of our everyday belief that there are (i) conscious, purposeful and voluntary actions and there are also, (ii) mechanical, unconscious and involuntary actions. The `mind` acts on the `body` in the first case. The `body` acts mechanically and in a caused (determined) manner in the second case.

Dualism also makes sense of ethical and moral issues. Morality assumes that we can `control` our actions and we are not simply mechanical `reflex machines` and that we can make actual choices.

Even though there is no scientific basis for Cartesian Dualism (the issue of the `separateness` of mind and body is still a hot debate in psychology), and the philosophical contradictions are immense, maybe the language it uses ( of a conscious, deciding, mind and a controlled, but mechanical, body) is useful in discussing morality? Even Skinner, who believed freewill was a total illusion, argued that we should still use the language of moral choices because it has a role in reinforcement and punishment.

This approach, in a sense, simply evades the issue of freewill and determinism and says that, because it has some practical and everyday applications, we will, under certain circumstances, simply ASSUME freewill exists.

WHEN THE WORLD TOOK OFF.

(Notes on the Industrial Revolution - Originally written by me as teaching notes many years ago. I have revised them a little.)

When did the so called Industrial Revolution happen?

This implies a rather specific point in time and, of course, there have always been ‘industrial’ elements in any human society. However - the Industrial Revolution is a PROFOUND shift in the nature of society and it is possible to point to a time when society was not ‘industrial’ and to a time when it was, and measure the changes that had occurred.

Three ‘phases’ can be identified (it is important to remember that it was NOT a planned event or sequence of events)

1. INITIAL PHASE (the ‘Textile’ phase) - From mid/late 18th century to 1820’s

2. HEAVY INDUSTRIAL PHASE - From c.1820’s - 1850’s.

3. Diversification/'Massification' Phase/s - After the 1850’s

The crucial period is, I would argue, the first two phases - this fundamentally altered many aspects of society and set a sort of ‘pattern’ for future developments.

Where did Industrialisation begin?

No arguments here, no doubt at all - It began in ENGLAND. England was the worlds first industrial society.

This was more a matter of chance and various crucial factors coming together at a particular time and place than anything else. If one looked at the world in, say, 1500, one would not have thought that England was going to become the first industrial nation. Places like China, the Arab world or India would have looked much more likely.

What is ‘INDUSTRIALISATION’?

The simple definition is - Where a society based on agricultural production changes into one based on the manufacturing of goods and artefacts. Since about 1850 over 70% of ALL the artefacts the human race has made in 6,000 years of civilisation have been manufactured.

There is a very profound shift from PRIMARY economic activities (extracting a living from nature in a very direct way - farming, forestry, mining etc.,) to SECONDARY economic activities (manufacturing items from the raw materials of nature). In essence industrialisation is a change in the basis of a societies economy - how a society produces and distributes to meet needs. It is, then, an ECONOMIC phenomenon.

But it has an enormous impact, eventually, on every level and sphere of social life leading to a total transformation of that life in a deep and permanent manner.

What sort of impact?

1. The rise of MACHINE DRIVEN PRODUCTION - encouraging and driving TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. This has its own series of long reaching effects too, in so many aspects of life. It is important to note that the Industrial Revolution was not caused by technology, but it created the demand for more and better technology.

2. The rise of ‘The FACTORY’ (the ‘manufactury’) as a special location where production takes place. This has follow on effects on the type of labour and skills required; the nature and organisation of work; the meaning of ‘work’; social organisation (by the impact on communities and family structures).

3. URBANISATION:

This is a process that is INEVITABLY linked to industrialisation. The rise of the factory system creates new urban concentrations.

Rural communities are dislocated and de-populated.

The population becomes very unevenly distributed - heavily concentrated in a few urban centres.

The population - especially the working classes - and their customs, behaviours and problems therefore become much more visible.

Demand is created for better communications - roads, canals, rail.

A growing proportion of the population (eventually the vast majority) no longer have any connection with primary production.

The urban environment creates many new opportunities, new patterns of interaction, new types of community, new cultures

4. New social classes are created:

The emergence of the new industrial middle-classes of owners and managers and the Industrial working classes.

Decline and increasing marginalisation of both rural aristocracy and rural labouring classes.

This has a major impact - creating new social conflicts, new sub-cultures and new politics.

5. A rapid rise in material living standards:

From relatively early (say 1870’s), when the worst phases of industrialisation were being brought under control by various means there seemed to be an apparently inevitable improvement in living standards with each passing year. This, too, was new and shifted expectations and changed cultural values and norms.

6. Other effects follow - think of the shifting demands for education for example. There are many threads flowing from what seems to have been a simple economic change.

A few general points about the Industrial Revolution:

Why was England the FIRST society in the history of human civilisation to industrialise Why there? There is no easy answer to that - but it was, essentially, an HISTORICAL ACCIDENT whereby a cluster of key ‘ingredients’ came together.

The ‘Agricultural Revolution’ of the 17th Century had several significant results -

1. A growing agricultural surplus;

2. A declining demand for rural labour resulting in a growing pool of unemployed/underemployed workers (potential employees);

3. A vigorous level of commerce – trade.

4. Trade and surplus = a growing surplus of capital = a growing demand for goods and services and a growing incentive to invest.

5. Plenty of natural resources (coal; ironstone; water power etc.)

6. Because it was the first time such a process had taken off anywhere, it was relatively ‘easy’ in the sense that the level of skills, capital and technology required to ‘set the ball rolling’ were not that great.

This is not a very lengthy or exhaustive list - but a situation was growing where a small element of the population were generating surplus wealth. This created demand. A large section of the population were under employed. This created a pool of labour power.

It was a painful experience - the impact on the living standards and life chances of the early industrial working classes was terrible. No one disputes that, but one must escape both our modern outlook and the horrified reactions of Victorian reformers. Life was ALWAYS hard for the poorest and the labourers. And they couldn’t wait to get away from rural poverty and into the industrial towns where work was regular.

The early entrepreneurs did have it fairly easy - they imposed costs on society but didn’t bear any of them themselves.

Finally, it is very important to realise that growth was VERY SLOW (about 3% per year). But the key point is that for the first time in history positive growth was sustained for a very long time - this was new!

It was not experienced as a sudden change then - but slow, sustained growth leads to very large changes in a relatively short time. For example, 3% growth every year DOUBLES in 25 years.

I am a fan of industrialisation and the liberating effects it has. I will add more to this theme later and try to deepen some of the points made here.

DIALECTICAL EGOISM

The beginnings of a description of the way I am thinking.

(The following draws very heavily on MAX STIRNER'S DIALECTICAL EGOISM by John F. Welsh – Lexington Books 2010 – especially Chapter 8: Dialectical Egoism – Elements of a Theoretical Framework, p.267.)

The basic elements of a theoretical framework:

Dialectical Egoism (DE) is interested in:

1. Using the dialectical as the primary methodological tool without Marxist and Hegelian constraints;
2. The State as the object of critique as an obstacle to individual freedom;
3. The focus and goal of inquiry is a concept of “ownness” and self-ownership;
4. The individual is a totality, an irreducible unit, that confronts organisations and others.

“Dialectical analysis includes a conviction that there is no terminus to the historical process, that social reality is multidimensional, and that humans do not know all there is to know. Dialectical methods aim at the demolition of externally imposed constraints on individual action and thought, … “

Welsh, p.269

Dialectical theory and egoism are both:

1. Philosophies of freedom;
2. Give liberty and the self a central role in philosophy and politics.

A conversation between dialectics and egoism should produce:

“ … a vision of individuality and society freed of domination and the collectivist reduction of persons to abstract political and social categories.”

Welsh, p.270

Hegel's 'free subject' and Stirner's 'unique one' are similar, and both describe a self-conscious and sel-determining individual.

“The anti-utopianism of Hegel and Stirner are based on an objection to the imposition of a rationally concocted plan on individuals and society by political or cultural elites.”

Welsh, p.270 (my emphasis)

Individuals and Social Organization:

Three level model of the interaction between individuals and social organization.

1. Thoughts and actions of individuals expressed in everyday life;
2. Role of culture and ideology in shaping individual thought and action;
3. Macro level political and economic structures.

(A) AT THE BASE – is the perspective of everyday experience. The cognition and behaviour of the individual. The individuals perspective on his/hers everyday experiences. This includes the sense of ownership or alienness. “It attempts to capture how the person navigates everyday life … “ (Welsh, p. 271)

“Dialectical egoism is the theory and practice of individual opposition to preexisting formula for thought and behaviour whether these come the state, the church or the school. There are no extant, external measures that provide a person with definitive guidance about thinking and acting.”

(Welsh, p.271)

“Nothing is more to me than myself” - Stirner

Dialectical egoism attacks every cultural construct, every social fact (reifications) that have an external existence to and a coercive impact on the individual.

This includes all political, cultural and ethical codes. It includes concepts like 'god', 'humanity', 'morality' and 'authority'. These are deconstructed into spectres or spooks that are created and imposed by others.

Morality, rationality and legitimacy are external concepts that function as ideological social control. Individuals ACT. What matters to DE is whether the individual is sovereign – does the individual own the act?

(B) THE MIDLEVEL – focus on those elements of culture and ideology that promote, perpetuate or challenge the structure of social relations.

Examination of the interaction between the individual and the culture to understand how social systems cultivate compliance and subordination to authority.

The 'RAGAMUFFIN' is the archetypical individual who surrenders their ownness and accepts dispossession as an appropriate and just response to the demands that individuals think of themselves as part of a collectivity.

The ragamuffin …. “ …, gleefully abandons the boundary between self and culture, uncritically adopting prevailing values and meanings as his or her own.” (Welsh p.272)

DE objects to the power that abstractions acquire – abstract terms (reifications) like 'humanity', 'nation', 'class' and 'race' used as if they are real historical actors and become tools of church, state and other institutions or movements. These things are spooks to be challenged at every level.

(C) The MACROLEVEL – this is essentially a critique of monopoly capitalism comprising the four elements of monopoly. Monopoly of banking, land, trade and intellectual property.

Monopoly capitalism cannot be challenged by another monopoly (socialism, communism, humanism). These collective responses create a new form of monopoly.

The 'unique one' is permanently opposed to all collectivities. Society cannot be reconstructed at the macrolevel without reconstituting political authority in another form and thus generating new forms of opposition.

Resistance means resistance to 'ragamuffinhood', humanist ideology and monopoly capitalism.

Five methodological precepts:

1. The individual is the totality – not culture and not the state. The thinking and acting subject is the foundation of any reality humans create.
2. Conflict is inherent in the everyday experience of persons – chief of these are (a) the conflict between the state and the liberty of the individual; (b) conflict between the prevailing abstractions, reifications, in society and the individuals struggle to define reality for themselves; (c) conflicts among people and groups for desirable things. “Persons are born into a society that intends to impose its physical and mental dominion. Individuals … tend to resist constraints on their behaviour and to assert ownness.” (Welsh p.276) There is no escape from conflict.
3. Life is processual – ever thing is in movement and no form of society or interaction is permanent.
4. The behaviour of the person is indeterminate – rejects the reduction of human behaviour and experience to procedures of natural science. (This is a major issue for me – I believe that we can understand humans through the procedures of natural science.)
5. Inquiry appropriates and challenges the world -

This has been a rough outline. Points to take up include:

• refining the concept of the dialect;
• how does the challenge of our scientific understanding of human behaviour fit in here?

An Opening Note on my intellectual position.

That is a really pompous heading, I know.

How would I define my view point now? In short, my perspective on things is – MATERIALISTIC, REDUCTIONIST, DETERMINISTIC,SCIENTIFIC, RATIONAL … and all those other ‘horror’ words we are not supposed to be in my line of work.

Put briefly like that it seems so simple and clear cut. But, of course, it is neither simple nor clear cut. Each one of those requires definition and clarification, and I can defend every single one if I have too.

Materialism:

“The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism. Fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monistontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

Reductionism:

“Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings. Reductionism is strongly related to a certain perspective on causality. In a reductionist framework, phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of other, more fundamental phenomena, are called epiphenomena. Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the fundamental phenomena that explain it. Reductionism does not preclude emergent phenomena but it does imply the ability to understand the emergent in terms of the phenomena from and process(es) by which it emerges.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism

Determinism:

“Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behaviour, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

Scientific:

“Science is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how reality works. Knowledge in science is gained through research. Using controlled methods, scientists collect observable evidence of natural phenomena, record measurable data relating to the observations, and analyze this information to construct theoretical explanations of how things work. The methods of scientific research include the generation of hypotheses about how phenomena work, and experimentation that tests these hypotheses under controlled conditions. The results of this process enable better understanding of past events, and better ability to predict future events of the same kind as those that have been tested.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific

Rational:

“Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality

I do not apologise for using Wikipedia – they give as good a definition as any. They are, however, a little too simple as they stand, but they give the general idea I think and sets the background framework for my thinking today.

This, as I said, is the broad framework, foundation if you like, of my thinking. Specifically I would describe my position as  Neuro-Cognitive Evolutionary Psychology with a touch of existentialism …. more on the existentialism later.

And there I just named the idea ‘Evolution’. Evolution is a foundational organising principle for the way I think now. 

A Note on Ideology.

What do religious, political and 'cultural' beliefs have in common?

1. Often, a founding figure and/or a group of key figures – who is/are beyond criticism.

     Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Marx, Lenin, Hitler etc., etc.

2. Often, a central text, texts or documents.

     Bible, Koran, Mein Kampf, Capital - or texts derived from these.

3. Saints and sinners.

4. A strong tendency to fragment into a variety of groups – often intensely hostile to each other.

5. Traitors, heroes, heretics – mythic figures.

6. A mythic history or origin myth.

7. A strong tendency to require followers to accept the mythic apparatus.

8. Varying degrees of sanction for those who deviate from the central myth.

9. Often an iconography and symbolic vocabulary.

10. A tendency to ignore, reject or adapt facts that are contrary to the central mythos.

11. A strong tendency to ignore reason and scientific realism.

12. An acceptable 'vocabulary of motivations' (a great concept that – thank you, C. Wright Mills.)

It was a dissatisfaction with the 'anti-realism' of religion that led me to choose atheism many, many years ago. All I have learned since then is plenty of other good reasons to be an atheist and none at all to be religious, or that modern cop out 'spiritual'.

I am beginning to see a similar development in my attitude to political ideologies.

I grew up in rural England in the '50s and '60s, the eldest child in a family of traditional British conservatives. By traditional British conservative, I mean in the tradition of Churchill or MacMillan, not Margaret Thatcher. Politics was not an issue in my family, things were as they were. As a teenager, I became a more or less traditional supporter of the Labour Party. Again, this was the 'traditional' Labour Party of Harold Wilson. Essentially a social democratic party with socialist tendencies. The modern Labour Party bears no resemblance to the Party I supported at that time.

I arrived at university in October 1974 and very quickly moved to the political left. I flirted with the Socialist Workers Party for a while and was, in general, a Marxist. The early 1970s were, still, marked by the radicalism of the '60s, especially in the university world. So I lived in a very politicised atmosphere, and it was wonderful. Many late night discussions, debates and arguments.

Yes, it was a lively place, the University of Essex in the mid-'70s.

However, the point of this is not to present a detailed history of my university days, as interesting as that might be, for me at least.

What I have come to realise is that all 'ideologies' share most or all of the random list of features above. In fact, belief or value systems that exhibit these features could be defined as 'ideologies'. This includes just about all political and religious systems of thought.

And I cannot, personally, tolerate them any more.

I learned long ago that one cannot argue with religious true believers and that one encounters the same long list of logical fallacies in their 'arguments' and the same denial of empirical evidence.

It has slowly dawned on me over the last 20 odd years that one encounters exactly the same problems within political discourse. It has only been a sort of 'faith' on my part that has kept me 'believing'.

Recognising the faith-based nature of my political views and recognising the element of 'belief' involved finally led me to reject all such systems of thought as essentially special pleading, distortions of reality, power games and egoism.

I am in the process of trying to put all this together into a much better and better documented and argued piece. I am aware of the many problems this unearths and the potential philosophical issues I may have to tackle.

We, as rationalists, cannot and must not use the same flawed methods in our argumentation. We must be much less sure of ourselves and much more humble.

My position today could be called Classical Liberalism, minarchism, 'Stirner-ism', a sort of nihilism.