[FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
steve smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Oct 21 12:32:15 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
Every Q-Anon adjacent person I know loves to be challenged, not so they
can effectively defend any of their thoughts, ideas, beliefs, opinions,
but to help them temper them to a softer resilient blade with a brittle
but sharp fine edge to cut through everyone else's reality, if only in
their own minds.
I prefer to forge/temper my own armor soft but hefty enough that their
sharpened blades *stick* rather than chip, temporarily disarming or
distracting them between their attempted slashes. My nature prefers to
arm itself with a spiked mace but my other nature prefers that it hang
on my belt for show and never get weilded (flailed?).
May the medieval metaphors be with you,
- Steve
>
> 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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