[FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism

Sun Oct 20 23:07:14 EDT 2024

Good Lord.  Not fully convincing.  Not nearly,   I do like the way in which
authority and the adoption of absurd beliefs work together. And why trying
to change somebody' allegiance to a charismer might be strengthened by
going after shared absurd beliefs.

Nick

On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 5:32 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:

> I agree that the hype in conservative news sources about great CEOs is an
> example of the Great Man theory. The hype about AI godfathers is an example
> too. Nevertheless I still believe that authoritarian organization is the
> rule in social systems. In almost all companies and corporations the CEO
> has the last word, in armies the general at the top, in families
> traditionally the father.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
>
> In hierarchies there are two ends of a spectrum: at the one end we have an
> authoritarian system and a top-down hierarchy where people at the bottom
> are doing what the leader at the top wants. At the other end we have a
> democratic system and a bottom-up hierarchy where elected people at the top
> are doing what the people at the bottom want. In between are authoritarian
> systems that pretend to democratic, and democratic system that have
> authoritarian tendencies.
>
> An example of the spectrum would be a Navy vessel vs a pirate ship in the
> 18th century. Mutiny is one form of transition between the two types.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_in_18th-century_piracy
>
> Another example is the Catholic church vs protestantism. In the Catholic
> church officials are appointed from the top, in protestant culture they are
> elected.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism
>
> The question why people are shifting from one form of organization to
> another is intriguing. I am not sure if we have clear answers to this
> interesting question. Nick argued that "groups capable of shifting to an
> authoritarian organization in response to a perceived existential threat
> survived in greater numbers than those that didn't" but this argument alone
> is not fully convincing, or is it?
>
>
> -J.
>
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: glen <gepropella at gmail.com>
> Date: 10/18/24 9:47 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
>
> I can't help but feel that the sentiment that authoritarian organization
> is the rule is an example of (or sibling to) the Great Man theory.
> Ultimately, it's something akin to a psychological investment in teleology
> - which I'm using to mean when the appearance of purposeful behavior is
> often treated as an indicator that processes do have purpose (as opposed to
> teleonomy - where processes merely seem to have purpose, behave as if they
> have purpose, or perhaps purpose is emergent). But it's not merely the
> attribution of purpose, but also the attribution of unity or fusion into a
> bounded whole.
>
> I'd challenge anyone to present an organized system that is *actually*
> unified in this way. Even political systems we name and accept as
> authoritarian, are not completely fused, atomic, centralized. The extent to
> which the nominal leader is actually the leader is a graded extent, never
> perfect. Each particular authoritarian system will be more or less
> authoritarian than another. And, worse, each particular system will be more
> authoritarian in some dimensions and less in others.
>
> So if I read this generously, what I hear is that we're very used to ...
> comfortable with ... the attribution of leader-controlled organization, as
> in corporations with chief executives, etc. And we're less used to ...
> facile with ... comfortable with ... distributed organization and
> quantifying the extent to which organization is centralized or distributed.
>
> If I read it less generously, it sounds like reification - pretending like
> some illusory property is actual.
>
> On 10/17/24 10:21, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> > Interesting thoughts. The use of "atavism" in the context of social
> systems is interesting, but it is not new. Joseph Schumpeter has used the
> term atavism to explain the outbreak of World War I
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism
> >
> >
> > I believe authoritarian organization is not the exception, it is the
> rule. A pecking order or "dominance hierarchy" is the most common order in
> social groups and almost all organizations, corporations and companies.
> Even among chickens in farms or apes in zoos.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy
> >
> >
> > The opposite of authoritarian organization is an egalitarian society
> where everybody is equal. In his book "Warlike and Peaceful Societies",
> Agner Fogar agues that people tend to prefer one of these two types
> depending on the situation. His regality theory says "people will show a
> psychological preference for a strong leader and strict discipline if they
> live in a society full of conflict and danger, while people in a peaceful
> and safe environment will prefer an egalitarian and tolerant culture"
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regality_theory
> >
> >
> > -J.
> >
> >
> >
> > Inters-------- Original message --------
> > From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> > Date: 10/17/24 12:08 AM (GMT+01:00)
> > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
> friam at redfish.com>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
> >
> > On Evolutionary Atavism
> >
> > My so-called mind is still churning from our conversation about
> evolutionary atavism,  the idea that current behavioral systems may be
> ill-suited to contemporary circumstances.   As an evolutionary psychologist
> I should be for it; however, as a survivor of the instinct wars of the
> 1950’s, I should be against it.  Where am I?
> >
> >    The problem with evolutionary atavism arises when people start
> attributing any necessity to it.  Natural selection would not be possible
> if organisms did not offer up structures and behaviors that are
> maladapted.  Evolution could not have occurred if organisms did not respond
> to these maladaptations with adaptive changes.  Evolution is a dynamic
> between change and stability and the interesting question is why some
> things change while others don’t, and why some changes occur more rapidly
> than others. Asserting that some things are the same as they were a million
> years ago because they didn’t happen to change is just silly.
> >
> > Still, evolutionary atavism does play a role in my thinking.  Let’s work
> an example together and see what that role is and whether it is justified.
> I listened with guilty pleasure to Obama’s address ridiculing MAGA
> thinking.  My pleasure was guilty because I thought his speech would make
> Trump more likely to win the election.    This conclusion arose from an
> evolutionary hypothesis about the origins of charisma.  The logic, such as
> it is, goes like this.
> >
> >  1. *The modern human species arose 160kyrs ago from a very small number
> of small groups. *That the human species passed through a severe bottleneck
> at it inception is probably true; that it was composed of small group at
> that time is a plausible surmise.**
> >  2. *Those groups were engaged in intense competition at the bottleneck.
> *This statement is reasonable but not supported by any data I can think of.
> **
> >  3. *Therefore, they survived or failed as groups. *Again, merely
> plausible.**
> >  4. *Those /groups/ survived that were capable of rapid concerted
> action. *This is based on the idea that in emergencies it is most important
> for every to do some thing, rather than for them to wait and work out the
> best thing to do.**Barely plausible. Not even clear how one would go about
> researching it. **
> >  5. *Groups capable of shifting to an authoritarian organization in
> response to a perceived existential threat survived in greater numbers than
> those that didn’t.*
> >  6. *Humans, therefore, are inclined to put their faith in a single
> person when they perceive an existential threat. *Let’s call this the
> “Charismer Response”**
> >  7. *The person most likely to be selected for this role is apparently
> single-minded and decisive. *This gives us the characteristics of a
> *Charismer*, **
> >  8. *Charismees relinquish their capacity for independent rational
> thought in favor of the Charismer’s decision-making. *
> >  9. *Charismees receive benefits from the group in proportion to their
> demonstrations of surrender of rationality.*
> > 10. *Charismees demostrate their surrender by the repetition of o  or
> more flagrantly irrational beliefs. (virgi birth, stole election ,  etc.)*
> > 11. *Challenges to these beliefs only increase charismees allegiance to
> the group*
> > 12. *Therefore, Obama should have kept his smarty-pants mouth shut. *
> >
> > You all ca*n* evaluate the heuristic, rationality, a*n*d probability of
> this argument.  I am going to stop *n*ow because my keyboard has stopped
> reliably producing “*n’s” * ad is drivig me uts.  At best, I think
> evolutionary atavism is a source of plausible hypotheses about why
> organisms are not adapted to their current circumstances.  See some of you
> tomorrow.
> >
> > Sicerely,
> >
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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-- 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nthompson at clarku.edu
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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