I'm aware of this, and have written about it extensively. Michael Young was indeed furious with what was done to his coinage. However, even he believed in "the best person for the job" (on the basis that no-one wanted a lawyer who'd failed contract or a doctor who'd failed anatomy).
What he objected to - and what I, Matt Ridley, and Steve…
I'm aware of this, and have written about it extensively. Michael Young was indeed furious with what was done to his coinage. However, even he believed in "the best person for the job" (on the basis that no-one wanted a lawyer who'd failed contract or a doctor who'd failed anatomy).
What he objected to - and what I, Matt Ridley, and Steve Davies object to as well - is the idea that certain jobs (as obtained on the basis of academic credentials) are "higher" or "more moral" than other jobs.
That's the kind of thinking that led to the French Revolution, and no doubt loads of other historical nasties as well.
The history of being a doctor in the U.S. was it wasn't a particularly high prestige, or income, occupation until the AMA formed and got control of the granting of licenses to practice (and accreditation of and admission to medical schools).
Mises mentions the haughtiness of the 19th century Prussian bureaucrat in Bureaucracy - not much different from the earlier French aristocracy.
Would it also be fair to say that the medical community's medical knowledge was in fact rather limited up to the early 1900's. Even with discovery of the germ theory of disease, I gather not too many afflictions could be treated until several decades into the century. Thus lower prestige and income was not out of line, even granting the eventual semi-monopoly from the AMA and licensing boards?
Now, as an engineer, I wonder how well engineers of the 1860-1900+ timeframe were paid, and with what prestige they were held. Roebling and Brooklyn Bridge, Hoover and his dam? Eiffel Tower? Statue of Liberty and other tall buildings in NYC and Chicago, etc. Steel bridges and locomotives and steam power, electrical power, hydropower, etc. Then telecomm of various types. I suppose, given relative rarity, they rose to positions of project leadership and senior deputy to the financial, business, or political leaders - so not really a servant class but only just bumping up against the "elite class".
Oh make no mistake - I much prefer the market for medicine and doctors today to what was available a century and a half ago. As recently as 1960, healthcare was around 6% of GDP versus the 18% of today. We have better, but you can't say it's been a bargain. And it is still amusing to recall what patented medicine meant just over 100 years ago.
The status manipulation is a different matter. Fauci certainly imagined himself much like the cited Prussian Interior Minister, above any and all criticism of the common people.
"... you can't say it's been a bargain." But I can!
Consider what fraction of your income* and your wealth you would really be willing to spend IF YOU HAVE TO to prolong the health and life of yourself or a loved one. Probably if push comes to shove you would offer up much more than 18%. Now, there are any number of caveats and restrictions that governmentally supplied medicine [and medical reality] insert into this view, but if you decide the current medical establishment is not doing all that they could [and maybe we cannot really know as laymen?], you might well seek out a specialist in another city or state (or country?). Perhaps these impediments are more severe in the UK or OZ than in the US - not sure** - but typically an alternative option is or should be available.
*Food, clothing, shelter, even transportation take up smaller and smaller fractions of our income. Taxes and insurance are now my main / major categories. This leaves more personal resources available for medical care in strained situations, on top of governmental inputs.
**There was a case of some boy not being allowed to leave the UK for possible treatment elsewhere [in France? or Brazil?] - don't recall details off hand. An atrocious anti-freedom posture!!!
The girl just died within the past two weeks. The British government would not allow her to leave the hospital to die at home. The girl's parents had lined up promising treatment in Italy, all paid for, nothing at British expense, but the British health service refused to allow her any chance at life. She has a name, but I just don't know it.
Comparisons of personal income to GDP aren't really meaningful. When something consumes a larger share of GDP then it used to, that should be of interest to us, as that tends to run against expectations. Defense certainly doesn't consume as much (as a share) as it did in 1960.
As for government having more fingers in healthcare, a la Britain, then you are going to get more one-size-fits-all, rather than tailoring to individual circumstances.
I disagree. Some jobs are inherently more moral, it's just our value hierarchies are all screwed up. An engineer can build a bridge which saves thousands of lifetimes of traffic purgatory. We can live clean, heated or air-conditioned lives, completely with modern dentistry and cheap abundant energy powering access to a world of high quality information (if only our political lords and masters would allow it)- all thanks the work of engineers and a few scientists.
And the best scientists are by their very nature, good engineers. They look at deeply pragmatic ways to improve the world. Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and Norman Borlaug all fit the bill. These men should be defied for the lives that they've saved, as should the legions of men and women who make modern living just about bearable, if still replete with the ever-lurking spectre of tragedy.
The question is why won't we correctly assign moral value by its works? Because we don't want to. First of all, science and engineering is hard, and it would relegate the bright but not exceptional children of the socio-economically privileged to a GATTACA style secondary role. In the worst fields, Maths and Physics, only a three point difference in IQ reduces the chances of discovery by a factor of 200.
Plus, it wouldn't suit our hubristic notions of political evangelism. If morally virtuous acts can only be accomplished by hard work and dedication, what is to done with the world of politics, activism, the collectivist desire to make the world a better place through nothing other than wishful thinking, tax and coercion?
And let's face it- we creatives are no better. All of us secretly wish for some sublime eureka moment which magically slots all the pieces of the puzzle together- an insight for which we are both lauded and rewarded.
The fallacy is in believing that moral good is to be found through the pursuit of the world of ideas. Sure, great art and great literature can be essential to living, if we first concede that great art is also to be found on football field and in a roofer's sporting aspirations for his son or daughter. But a more just value hierarchy of moral good would require humility and the recognition that those who make the world better place in practical and measurable terms, should justly be elevated above the likes of Churchill, Gandhi, Kennedy and MLK.
Good thing I found your earlier "brain oriented" comment above, before responding to this one. A real conundrum as to whether comment threads should be nested or purely chronological. I would like to think with hyper linking we could provide nested equivalence in a chronological thread. Or provide each comment with an easily found ID number?
Another good deep thinking comment, but I don't agree with you unless and until we have a common understanding/ definition of "morality".
"The question is why won't we correctly assign moral value by its works? Because we don't want to."
As a nonreligious but still moral person (at least within a Judeo-Christian culture), I have come to the conclusion our moral sense is a combination of (1) those evolved inherent instincts we possess (an "absolute" component) and (2) whatever our culture introduces into our societies that aid our survival, based on experience (and representing the "relative" or "subjective value" component of morality.)
Larry Arhnart suggests 20 evolved natural desires for the instinctual elements. The distinction on attitudes about "honor killing" pretty well shows the degree of separation possible via cultural influences. These are of course also all "brain oriented".
Again, a lot buried in your comment, but it would take 3 or 4 hours across the table discussing them to achieve some form of reconciliation. I still want to explore John Quiggin's links below about Pinker, so I will stop here for now. :-)
The honor killing issue is a pretty interesting example. Haidt's Moral Foundations is fairly simplistic (with the added benefit that it draws out the moral dichotomy in the West, particularly with regard to the historical uniqueness of WEIRD people), but the 'purity' distinction is an important one.
One of the more interesting aspects of memetic viruses or ideologies, is how they become more benign for their host over time (though not necessarily for either individuals within the society, or external cultures). Communism, Nazism, Socialism and Fascism all provide an insight into the types of sociocultural constructs humans tend to come up with in the absence of faith-based systems- all of them disastrous.
But I will posit a potential hypothesis. I think the ancient imperatives on homosexuality are informative on this issue. If we look at hunter gatherer societies, then it's a reasonable hypothesis that an epigenetic mechanism for producing additional non-breeding adults is an evolutionary advantage- more adults to children during periods of food scarcity probably aids group survival in glacial periods.
As human's began to form more complex societies, homosexuality probably became a proto-cultural disadvantage. Contrary to the thoughts of many on physical evolution for intelligent tool-using species, humans have been evolving at a faster, not slower, rate over the last 50,000 years- particularly with regard to prosocial behaviour. The problem is it's a process, not an end-state. It's highly likely that as humans pushed beyond simple kinship bonds to extended clans, and finally towards more complex intertribal societies, then homosexuality would have become a distinct cultural disadvantage. Arranged marriages between clans and tribes would have been a key method for fixing in social cohesion.
This would suggest that the evolution of culture generally protects the individual through group cohesion, but not necessarily to the advantage of specific individuals within the group. Honor killings might be a means of avoiding the more general socially contagious intratribal conflicts which arise through the betrayal of breeding contracts, potentially disastrous for smaller or weaker cultures. Generational feuds are only a few generations away in the West, after all- at least compared to a broader span of history.
Have you read about duplicons? This evolutionary process provides the mechanism for incredibly fast adaptions to environmental niches. Something like a diet-based epigenetic adaption to damp down the disgust urge during periods of plenty, paired with the epigenetic switch to increase it during periods of threat or starvation might provide an incredibly potent genetic advantage for some populations over others.
On Haitd's purity (or sacredness?) criterion: I think it was Megan McArdle some time back who pointed out that even the liberals would actually have purity preferences for parts of their positions, although maybe the questions used by Haidt to solicit responses did not bring that to the fore. So some of the differences between conservative and liberal people are not so wide, after all?
On memetic viruses becoming more benign: one example where perhaps that did not happen was the French Revolution? Plus quite a few religious conflicts over the centuries? But if they don't become more benign, then I would expect them to have greater resistance from more people, to the point of potential loss or lapse.
On homosexuality: if the feelings/ response felt by heterosexuals is matched by equal intensity in homosexual people, then the whole idea of "life choices" becomes nonsense. I believe the Bible has 5 passages decrying men lying with men [but none in regard to women??], but growing up (as a non-churched person) I never heard any explanations as to WHY that should be wrong. My "social osmosis" did not provide an answer. I surmised later that an agricultural and pastoral society in the Levant or elsewhere desired/ required large families to prosper, so non-child producing situations were prohibited. I also recently learned that the ancient (Indo European and) Greek and Roman family oriented religions also needed a male heir to continue that religion, so homosexual behavior would have been forbidden. [I guess, per Oliver Stone, that changed later?? :-) ]
There is a TED talk video out there by a doctor defending the genetic support role of his homosexual son, but if homosexuals make up only 3% of the population, I question if that is high enough prevalence to have a meaningful impact. Are you suggesting that level might be much higher in times of scarce resources?? [Plus I don't know the breakdown of male vs. female homosexuality - that 3% number hides as much as it illuminates - a lot of sturm und drang for a relative small fraction of the population.]
"... suggest that the evolution of culture generally protects the individual through group cohesion, but not necessarily to the advantage of specific individuals within the group." Which is why the cultural impact of Judeo-Christian thought on the West, leading to ideas supporting individuals and their human rights, each with equal rights and dignity, "in the image of God", etc. is so important to understand more fully. Tom Holland (Dominion) and Larry Siedentop (Inventing the Individual) are my current go to sources for this idea, but I suspect many other writers have explored aspects of this over the centuries. While I give no credence to actual divine influence, this cultural impact may have come out of a dream Paul had, or he fell off his horse, or ??? I am trying to learn more about the details of early Roman political intent, bureaucratic control over the empire's various religions, etc. But a number of political and legal steps were also apparently needed to bring us to our current viewpoints.
On duplicons: I spent a few minutes search and now know the top level idea. But with our genome having 3 billion base pairs, it seems the study of genetics (for the layman) can occur at a top level of general observations, but a real understanding requires diving into a lot of detailed and arcane jargon, etc., plus following studies about specific genes, etc., to learn more. There seems to be little in the way of a middle level of study available.
"Something like a diet-based epigenetic adaption to damp down the disgust urge during periods of plenty, paired with the epigenetic switch to increase it during periods of threat or starvation..." I don't understand this? I would have thought the disgust aspect would decline during food scarcity, allowing eating of decaying food, etc., compared to being more selective when food was plentiful.
On the scarcity/homosexuality question, that is exactly what I am suggesting. One study shows that the chances of a son being homosexual increase significantly with each male sibling who proceeds him. It's also worth noting that an increase in meat consumption on the part of the father prior to conception is more likely to produce male offspring, whilst a shift to a more varied diet produces female offspring. The triggering mechanism for mothers appears to be in utero testosterone levels. It also worth noting that one study showed that of all children historically referred to gender clinics who didn't pursue the medicalisation route, 77% were found to be gay or lesbian in later life.
Good point about starvation and the disgust mechanism. I hadn't thought about that. Perhaps social disgust and food-based disgust are distinct phenomenon. Have you heard of the link between parasite stress and nascent authoritarianism? I always thought that Haidt's work on Purity lacked the liberals self-awareness (a bit like completely rational social fear of strangers being labelled fearfulness). I think it's a things vs people mechanism. The Left proved themselves to be insanely irrational over things during the pandemic (under 30s risks of death were around 1 in 650K for the healthy). Meanwhile, conservatives are mistrustful of outsiders until they can get a handle on them.
Homosexuality is mainly polygenic and epigenetic, although both one genetic olfactory mutation and male pattern baldness have both been identified as highly correlated. It also seems to be more of choice than standard narratives would suggest. Monozygotic twins have the same genetics and experience the same in utero conditions, yet if the first twin is gay, I believe the second twin is only 30% likely to be gay (from memory). This would indicate a strong inclination towards homosexuality, but argues against predetermination.
On the individuals and their human rights, most focus purely on religion and ignore the importance of English Common Law. Yes, the Enlightenment required that religious leaders lose their absolute authority over objective truth, but it also required the subordination of state sovereignty to the rights of citizens, particularly with regard to property rights. In the English Common Law tradition this occurred by making the sovereign subject to the Law. It's also worth noting that non-dominion former British colonies are on average 50% more wealthy than those colonies which were subject to other European colonial powers. That's the power of strong property rights in a legal system.
It's also worth noting that egalitarianism and universalism are specifically Judeo-Christian constructs. Singapore stands out as an example of successfully copying these Western innovations, but it remains to be seen whether this adoption stretches all the way down to a foundational level. The Chinese also seem to be doing a fairly good job of copying us, just as we copied their exams, but it appears to be mainly an internal artefact (not applied universally to humanity) and expresses itself as a very strong dislike of corruption.
The Chinese believe they have hit upon a 'secret sauce'. It's not an irrational proposition, given that in every area other than real estate and the one child policy they've learned from our mistakes and are doing it better. Sure, they're copying the Marshall Plan in Africa, being incredibly generous in fostering friendly diplomatic and trade relations, but they have no interest in sharing their secret source. In many ways, it's an advantage- the rest of the world has long objected to being lectured to by the West- especially given the West's wilful self-deception as to what exactly made us so successful.
The only reason why the Catholic Church developed the chastity requirement for priests was because one particular Pope decided that he didn't want the church to become yet another aristocracy.
Hard to know if we will ever get a definitive scientific answer, or that it really matters if we don't.
"Have you heard of the link between parasite stress and nascent authoritarianism? " No, but I did see something recently about a gene that provides an orientation towards accepting an authoritarian structure over you.
"Haidt's work on Purity lacked the liberals self-awareness..." If your view of the sacred is what resides between your ears, you probably don't even realize others might have a different view.
"...ignore the importance of English Common Law." Yes, easy to do since it is "merely common". But perhaps it also evolved out of church cannon law (part of separating civil and religious management over people's lives). See Inventing the Individual for part of this. Perhaps also Helen or Harold Berman law history sources can amplify on this.
Contribution of British colonies over the others is note worthy (says the citizen of the former American colony!). See my comment to Helen about the Chinese a few hours ago.
Besides the priestly celibacy issue, the Church's rules on consanguineous marriage led to the decline of tribal allegiances in Europe, allowing the growth of wider national and political focus, also contributing to individual rights over group rights.
One of the things I love about Leftist Academia (and media) is that they never tire of producing damning hypothesis for political purposes, which can effectively be used as rope, at a later date, with which to hang them. If one date searches the NYT then one can find articles which shows the dangers of mail-in voting and doubling of fraud risk associated with the practice.
There are better studies on the subject of Parasite Stress and Authoritarianism, but this rather amusing piece which links Donald Trump to authoritarianism could be equally applied to Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden or any number of Democrat strongholds.
Please note, I am not a Donald Trump fan, although I will grudgingly admit I occasionally find him amusing. Generally, I despair of the fact that we will likely never see a Western political leader with the intellectual gravitas to say what needs to be said- that if the West is to avoid near certain decline, then government needs to become like ouroboros, eating the old and inefficient bureaucracies of the past, and recycling the labour into activities which reduce spending over time (Scottish Public Health Policing is a good example).
'Hard to know if we will ever get a definitive scientific answer, or that it really matters if we don't.' I couldn't agree more. Although a Christian of the sort who believes faith is personal (and best not shared, in most circumstances), I have a hard time reconciling religions views on homosexuality. I was nearly fifty when I finally discovered that the primary motivating factor of whatever political leanings I might possess was civic libertarian. When the Right had a degree of Cultural Dominance and was preachy, I intensely disliked it. Now that the Left has Cultural Dominance I find their authoritarianism even more damning- because they've discarded some of their most cherished beliefs, the hypocrites.
On infection vs. authoritarianism: on Covid we basically dodged a bullet. We knew the relative impact to various age/sex groups after few weeks. Selected cohorts should have been protected better, but others should have sought herd immunity. This still leaves the issue for the next, more lethal, virus or germ: almost no one is "non-essential" in today's world, but stronger separation/ quarantine measures might well be justified in that case. I don't see any govt's planning well for that case. Better personal and building ventilators or filters and masks; disinfectant lighting, schedule adjustments to dilute crowding, etc.
"a Western political leader with the intellectual gravitas ... " If Churchill or Thatcher could not fill the bill to the public's longer term satisfaction, no one else will. "Of philosopher kings we have none!" :-)
Almost everyone gets Covid lockdowns wrong. The only time and place it was effective (other than in countries who enforced a sea barrier), was in those countries which entered lockdown two or three weeks ahead of everyone else. This didn't stop the virus, but it did allow it to infect most or all of the real economy workers who acted as key nodes for infection, providing a degree of herd immunity for the rest of the population. Those few countries which were ahead right at the very start had a strategic advantage because of early decision making.
It was the only time lockdowns or other mitigation measures worked, apart from one particular exception. What really surprised was the institutional resistance to shutting down public transport. We knew fairly early on that this was a particular risk, because bus drivers and ticket checkers on trains were being exposed to viral loads so high it was killing healthy men in their thirties. The only other instance of this happening was with hospital staff unfortunate enough to be situated close to ventilation systems connected to critical care units. I was quite surprised to find that several people I knew who were pretty well informed on both Covid and government policy, and were generally in favour of mitigation measures, suddenly seemed to baulk at the idea of shutting down public transport.
An early study from either the Low Countries or Denmark did a regional side by side comparison. Shutting down public transport seemed to be the only non-structural mitigation measure that worked. It's the only really solid evidence of which I am aware.
I've long been an advocate of an employer-based libertarian approach to varying the work schedule. The default Western government approach to tackling climate change seems to be fear, authoritarianism, obfuscation of costs and using pricing mechanisms to force behaviour change. What about persuasion? Varied work schedules allow workers to enjoy cheaper and shorter duration journeys to work, whilst significantly cutting congestion.
Also, the research shows that with the exception of chronic and targeted bullying, kids needs access to unstructured and unsupervised time with other kids to develop emotional resilience. Yes, it might be unpleasant, but those school bus journeys are essential to later emotional health and wellbeing. Better information could inform parents its bad for the kids to drive them to school. The school run is a huge contributor to congestion and air pollution.
Back in early 2021, I had an interesting discussion with a PhD on the subject of school closures- we both came to the conclusion that school closures were a very bad idea, likely to lead to far more fatalities, because they took away on opportunity to increase herd immunity amongst the healthy by exposure to very low viral loads- kids were ideal in this regard, because their physiological spreading mechanisms weren't fully developed.
You're right about dodging the bullet though. It could have easily been something like small pox. It's why I locked the entire family down about a month before everyone else- about two weeks before Nancy Pelosi went to Chinatown and tried to convince everyone everything was fine.
I changed my mind several times over the course of the pandemic. I was both saddened and disappointed to see that so many people seem to suffer what I can only describe as opinion lock- incapable of changing position as new information emerged. I think the academic concept of solution aversion has far broader implications than anyone realises. I also think that as people gather more evidence to support a position to which they have become committed, they become convinced that whatever they are looking at is far more serious than a more unbiased analysis would discover.
I'm aware of this, and have written about it extensively. Michael Young was indeed furious with what was done to his coinage. However, even he believed in "the best person for the job" (on the basis that no-one wanted a lawyer who'd failed contract or a doctor who'd failed anatomy).
What he objected to - and what I, Matt Ridley, and Steve Davies object to as well - is the idea that certain jobs (as obtained on the basis of academic credentials) are "higher" or "more moral" than other jobs.
That's the kind of thinking that led to the French Revolution, and no doubt loads of other historical nasties as well.
The history of being a doctor in the U.S. was it wasn't a particularly high prestige, or income, occupation until the AMA formed and got control of the granting of licenses to practice (and accreditation of and admission to medical schools).
Mises mentions the haughtiness of the 19th century Prussian bureaucrat in Bureaucracy - not much different from the earlier French aristocracy.
Would it also be fair to say that the medical community's medical knowledge was in fact rather limited up to the early 1900's. Even with discovery of the germ theory of disease, I gather not too many afflictions could be treated until several decades into the century. Thus lower prestige and income was not out of line, even granting the eventual semi-monopoly from the AMA and licensing boards?
Now, as an engineer, I wonder how well engineers of the 1860-1900+ timeframe were paid, and with what prestige they were held. Roebling and Brooklyn Bridge, Hoover and his dam? Eiffel Tower? Statue of Liberty and other tall buildings in NYC and Chicago, etc. Steel bridges and locomotives and steam power, electrical power, hydropower, etc. Then telecomm of various types. I suppose, given relative rarity, they rose to positions of project leadership and senior deputy to the financial, business, or political leaders - so not really a servant class but only just bumping up against the "elite class".
Oh make no mistake - I much prefer the market for medicine and doctors today to what was available a century and a half ago. As recently as 1960, healthcare was around 6% of GDP versus the 18% of today. We have better, but you can't say it's been a bargain. And it is still amusing to recall what patented medicine meant just over 100 years ago.
The status manipulation is a different matter. Fauci certainly imagined himself much like the cited Prussian Interior Minister, above any and all criticism of the common people.
"... you can't say it's been a bargain." But I can!
Consider what fraction of your income* and your wealth you would really be willing to spend IF YOU HAVE TO to prolong the health and life of yourself or a loved one. Probably if push comes to shove you would offer up much more than 18%. Now, there are any number of caveats and restrictions that governmentally supplied medicine [and medical reality] insert into this view, but if you decide the current medical establishment is not doing all that they could [and maybe we cannot really know as laymen?], you might well seek out a specialist in another city or state (or country?). Perhaps these impediments are more severe in the UK or OZ than in the US - not sure** - but typically an alternative option is or should be available.
*Food, clothing, shelter, even transportation take up smaller and smaller fractions of our income. Taxes and insurance are now my main / major categories. This leaves more personal resources available for medical care in strained situations, on top of governmental inputs.
**There was a case of some boy not being allowed to leave the UK for possible treatment elsewhere [in France? or Brazil?] - don't recall details off hand. An atrocious anti-freedom posture!!!
The girl just died within the past two weeks. The British government would not allow her to leave the hospital to die at home. The girl's parents had lined up promising treatment in Italy, all paid for, nothing at British expense, but the British health service refused to allow her any chance at life. She has a name, but I just don't know it.
Comparisons of personal income to GDP aren't really meaningful. When something consumes a larger share of GDP then it used to, that should be of interest to us, as that tends to run against expectations. Defense certainly doesn't consume as much (as a share) as it did in 1960.
As for government having more fingers in healthcare, a la Britain, then you are going to get more one-size-fits-all, rather than tailoring to individual circumstances.
I disagree. Some jobs are inherently more moral, it's just our value hierarchies are all screwed up. An engineer can build a bridge which saves thousands of lifetimes of traffic purgatory. We can live clean, heated or air-conditioned lives, completely with modern dentistry and cheap abundant energy powering access to a world of high quality information (if only our political lords and masters would allow it)- all thanks the work of engineers and a few scientists.
And the best scientists are by their very nature, good engineers. They look at deeply pragmatic ways to improve the world. Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and Norman Borlaug all fit the bill. These men should be defied for the lives that they've saved, as should the legions of men and women who make modern living just about bearable, if still replete with the ever-lurking spectre of tragedy.
The question is why won't we correctly assign moral value by its works? Because we don't want to. First of all, science and engineering is hard, and it would relegate the bright but not exceptional children of the socio-economically privileged to a GATTACA style secondary role. In the worst fields, Maths and Physics, only a three point difference in IQ reduces the chances of discovery by a factor of 200.
Plus, it wouldn't suit our hubristic notions of political evangelism. If morally virtuous acts can only be accomplished by hard work and dedication, what is to done with the world of politics, activism, the collectivist desire to make the world a better place through nothing other than wishful thinking, tax and coercion?
And let's face it- we creatives are no better. All of us secretly wish for some sublime eureka moment which magically slots all the pieces of the puzzle together- an insight for which we are both lauded and rewarded.
The fallacy is in believing that moral good is to be found through the pursuit of the world of ideas. Sure, great art and great literature can be essential to living, if we first concede that great art is also to be found on football field and in a roofer's sporting aspirations for his son or daughter. But a more just value hierarchy of moral good would require humility and the recognition that those who make the world better place in practical and measurable terms, should justly be elevated above the likes of Churchill, Gandhi, Kennedy and MLK.
Good thing I found your earlier "brain oriented" comment above, before responding to this one. A real conundrum as to whether comment threads should be nested or purely chronological. I would like to think with hyper linking we could provide nested equivalence in a chronological thread. Or provide each comment with an easily found ID number?
Another good deep thinking comment, but I don't agree with you unless and until we have a common understanding/ definition of "morality".
"The question is why won't we correctly assign moral value by its works? Because we don't want to."
As a nonreligious but still moral person (at least within a Judeo-Christian culture), I have come to the conclusion our moral sense is a combination of (1) those evolved inherent instincts we possess (an "absolute" component) and (2) whatever our culture introduces into our societies that aid our survival, based on experience (and representing the "relative" or "subjective value" component of morality.)
Larry Arhnart suggests 20 evolved natural desires for the instinctual elements. The distinction on attitudes about "honor killing" pretty well shows the degree of separation possible via cultural influences. These are of course also all "brain oriented".
Again, a lot buried in your comment, but it would take 3 or 4 hours across the table discussing them to achieve some form of reconciliation. I still want to explore John Quiggin's links below about Pinker, so I will stop here for now. :-)
The honor killing issue is a pretty interesting example. Haidt's Moral Foundations is fairly simplistic (with the added benefit that it draws out the moral dichotomy in the West, particularly with regard to the historical uniqueness of WEIRD people), but the 'purity' distinction is an important one.
One of the more interesting aspects of memetic viruses or ideologies, is how they become more benign for their host over time (though not necessarily for either individuals within the society, or external cultures). Communism, Nazism, Socialism and Fascism all provide an insight into the types of sociocultural constructs humans tend to come up with in the absence of faith-based systems- all of them disastrous.
But I will posit a potential hypothesis. I think the ancient imperatives on homosexuality are informative on this issue. If we look at hunter gatherer societies, then it's a reasonable hypothesis that an epigenetic mechanism for producing additional non-breeding adults is an evolutionary advantage- more adults to children during periods of food scarcity probably aids group survival in glacial periods.
As human's began to form more complex societies, homosexuality probably became a proto-cultural disadvantage. Contrary to the thoughts of many on physical evolution for intelligent tool-using species, humans have been evolving at a faster, not slower, rate over the last 50,000 years- particularly with regard to prosocial behaviour. The problem is it's a process, not an end-state. It's highly likely that as humans pushed beyond simple kinship bonds to extended clans, and finally towards more complex intertribal societies, then homosexuality would have become a distinct cultural disadvantage. Arranged marriages between clans and tribes would have been a key method for fixing in social cohesion.
This would suggest that the evolution of culture generally protects the individual through group cohesion, but not necessarily to the advantage of specific individuals within the group. Honor killings might be a means of avoiding the more general socially contagious intratribal conflicts which arise through the betrayal of breeding contracts, potentially disastrous for smaller or weaker cultures. Generational feuds are only a few generations away in the West, after all- at least compared to a broader span of history.
Have you read about duplicons? This evolutionary process provides the mechanism for incredibly fast adaptions to environmental niches. Something like a diet-based epigenetic adaption to damp down the disgust urge during periods of plenty, paired with the epigenetic switch to increase it during periods of threat or starvation might provide an incredibly potent genetic advantage for some populations over others.
On Haitd's purity (or sacredness?) criterion: I think it was Megan McArdle some time back who pointed out that even the liberals would actually have purity preferences for parts of their positions, although maybe the questions used by Haidt to solicit responses did not bring that to the fore. So some of the differences between conservative and liberal people are not so wide, after all?
On memetic viruses becoming more benign: one example where perhaps that did not happen was the French Revolution? Plus quite a few religious conflicts over the centuries? But if they don't become more benign, then I would expect them to have greater resistance from more people, to the point of potential loss or lapse.
On homosexuality: if the feelings/ response felt by heterosexuals is matched by equal intensity in homosexual people, then the whole idea of "life choices" becomes nonsense. I believe the Bible has 5 passages decrying men lying with men [but none in regard to women??], but growing up (as a non-churched person) I never heard any explanations as to WHY that should be wrong. My "social osmosis" did not provide an answer. I surmised later that an agricultural and pastoral society in the Levant or elsewhere desired/ required large families to prosper, so non-child producing situations were prohibited. I also recently learned that the ancient (Indo European and) Greek and Roman family oriented religions also needed a male heir to continue that religion, so homosexual behavior would have been forbidden. [I guess, per Oliver Stone, that changed later?? :-) ]
There is a TED talk video out there by a doctor defending the genetic support role of his homosexual son, but if homosexuals make up only 3% of the population, I question if that is high enough prevalence to have a meaningful impact. Are you suggesting that level might be much higher in times of scarce resources?? [Plus I don't know the breakdown of male vs. female homosexuality - that 3% number hides as much as it illuminates - a lot of sturm und drang for a relative small fraction of the population.]
"... suggest that the evolution of culture generally protects the individual through group cohesion, but not necessarily to the advantage of specific individuals within the group." Which is why the cultural impact of Judeo-Christian thought on the West, leading to ideas supporting individuals and their human rights, each with equal rights and dignity, "in the image of God", etc. is so important to understand more fully. Tom Holland (Dominion) and Larry Siedentop (Inventing the Individual) are my current go to sources for this idea, but I suspect many other writers have explored aspects of this over the centuries. While I give no credence to actual divine influence, this cultural impact may have come out of a dream Paul had, or he fell off his horse, or ??? I am trying to learn more about the details of early Roman political intent, bureaucratic control over the empire's various religions, etc. But a number of political and legal steps were also apparently needed to bring us to our current viewpoints.
On duplicons: I spent a few minutes search and now know the top level idea. But with our genome having 3 billion base pairs, it seems the study of genetics (for the layman) can occur at a top level of general observations, but a real understanding requires diving into a lot of detailed and arcane jargon, etc., plus following studies about specific genes, etc., to learn more. There seems to be little in the way of a middle level of study available.
"Something like a diet-based epigenetic adaption to damp down the disgust urge during periods of plenty, paired with the epigenetic switch to increase it during periods of threat or starvation..." I don't understand this? I would have thought the disgust aspect would decline during food scarcity, allowing eating of decaying food, etc., compared to being more selective when food was plentiful.
On the scarcity/homosexuality question, that is exactly what I am suggesting. One study shows that the chances of a son being homosexual increase significantly with each male sibling who proceeds him. It's also worth noting that an increase in meat consumption on the part of the father prior to conception is more likely to produce male offspring, whilst a shift to a more varied diet produces female offspring. The triggering mechanism for mothers appears to be in utero testosterone levels. It also worth noting that one study showed that of all children historically referred to gender clinics who didn't pursue the medicalisation route, 77% were found to be gay or lesbian in later life.
Good point about starvation and the disgust mechanism. I hadn't thought about that. Perhaps social disgust and food-based disgust are distinct phenomenon. Have you heard of the link between parasite stress and nascent authoritarianism? I always thought that Haidt's work on Purity lacked the liberals self-awareness (a bit like completely rational social fear of strangers being labelled fearfulness). I think it's a things vs people mechanism. The Left proved themselves to be insanely irrational over things during the pandemic (under 30s risks of death were around 1 in 650K for the healthy). Meanwhile, conservatives are mistrustful of outsiders until they can get a handle on them.
Homosexuality is mainly polygenic and epigenetic, although both one genetic olfactory mutation and male pattern baldness have both been identified as highly correlated. It also seems to be more of choice than standard narratives would suggest. Monozygotic twins have the same genetics and experience the same in utero conditions, yet if the first twin is gay, I believe the second twin is only 30% likely to be gay (from memory). This would indicate a strong inclination towards homosexuality, but argues against predetermination.
On the individuals and their human rights, most focus purely on religion and ignore the importance of English Common Law. Yes, the Enlightenment required that religious leaders lose their absolute authority over objective truth, but it also required the subordination of state sovereignty to the rights of citizens, particularly with regard to property rights. In the English Common Law tradition this occurred by making the sovereign subject to the Law. It's also worth noting that non-dominion former British colonies are on average 50% more wealthy than those colonies which were subject to other European colonial powers. That's the power of strong property rights in a legal system.
It's also worth noting that egalitarianism and universalism are specifically Judeo-Christian constructs. Singapore stands out as an example of successfully copying these Western innovations, but it remains to be seen whether this adoption stretches all the way down to a foundational level. The Chinese also seem to be doing a fairly good job of copying us, just as we copied their exams, but it appears to be mainly an internal artefact (not applied universally to humanity) and expresses itself as a very strong dislike of corruption.
The Chinese believe they have hit upon a 'secret sauce'. It's not an irrational proposition, given that in every area other than real estate and the one child policy they've learned from our mistakes and are doing it better. Sure, they're copying the Marshall Plan in Africa, being incredibly generous in fostering friendly diplomatic and trade relations, but they have no interest in sharing their secret source. In many ways, it's an advantage- the rest of the world has long objected to being lectured to by the West- especially given the West's wilful self-deception as to what exactly made us so successful.
The only reason why the Catholic Church developed the chastity requirement for priests was because one particular Pope decided that he didn't want the church to become yet another aristocracy.
A very "fecund" comment :-).
Since I think we should separate the LGB from the T, I am not surprised if "77% were found to be gay or lesbian in later life."
"... only 30% likely to be gay (from memory)." My "memory" said only 6%, so I went looking for the sources I had saved on this: see perhaps 1) Are gays ‘born that way’? Most Americans now say yes, but science says no. Wed May 20, 2015 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/for-the-first-time-a-majority-of-americans-believe-homosexuals-are-born-tha 2) Identical Twin Studies Prove Homosexuality is Not Genetic by Mark Ellis – June 24, 2013 http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2013/06/identical-twin-studies-prove-homosexuality-is-not-genetic/
Hard to know if we will ever get a definitive scientific answer, or that it really matters if we don't.
"Have you heard of the link between parasite stress and nascent authoritarianism? " No, but I did see something recently about a gene that provides an orientation towards accepting an authoritarian structure over you.
"Haidt's work on Purity lacked the liberals self-awareness..." If your view of the sacred is what resides between your ears, you probably don't even realize others might have a different view.
"...ignore the importance of English Common Law." Yes, easy to do since it is "merely common". But perhaps it also evolved out of church cannon law (part of separating civil and religious management over people's lives). See Inventing the Individual for part of this. Perhaps also Helen or Harold Berman law history sources can amplify on this.
Contribution of British colonies over the others is note worthy (says the citizen of the former American colony!). See my comment to Helen about the Chinese a few hours ago.
Besides the priestly celibacy issue, the Church's rules on consanguineous marriage led to the decline of tribal allegiances in Europe, allowing the growth of wider national and political focus, also contributing to individual rights over group rights.
One of the things I love about Leftist Academia (and media) is that they never tire of producing damning hypothesis for political purposes, which can effectively be used as rope, at a later date, with which to hang them. If one date searches the NYT then one can find articles which shows the dangers of mail-in voting and doubling of fraud risk associated with the practice.
There are better studies on the subject of Parasite Stress and Authoritarianism, but this rather amusing piece which links Donald Trump to authoritarianism could be equally applied to Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden or any number of Democrat strongholds.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/rates-of-infectious-disease-linked-to-authoritarian-attitudes-and-governance
Please note, I am not a Donald Trump fan, although I will grudgingly admit I occasionally find him amusing. Generally, I despair of the fact that we will likely never see a Western political leader with the intellectual gravitas to say what needs to be said- that if the West is to avoid near certain decline, then government needs to become like ouroboros, eating the old and inefficient bureaucracies of the past, and recycling the labour into activities which reduce spending over time (Scottish Public Health Policing is a good example).
'Hard to know if we will ever get a definitive scientific answer, or that it really matters if we don't.' I couldn't agree more. Although a Christian of the sort who believes faith is personal (and best not shared, in most circumstances), I have a hard time reconciling religions views on homosexuality. I was nearly fifty when I finally discovered that the primary motivating factor of whatever political leanings I might possess was civic libertarian. When the Right had a degree of Cultural Dominance and was preachy, I intensely disliked it. Now that the Left has Cultural Dominance I find their authoritarianism even more damning- because they've discarded some of their most cherished beliefs, the hypocrites.
On infection vs. authoritarianism: on Covid we basically dodged a bullet. We knew the relative impact to various age/sex groups after few weeks. Selected cohorts should have been protected better, but others should have sought herd immunity. This still leaves the issue for the next, more lethal, virus or germ: almost no one is "non-essential" in today's world, but stronger separation/ quarantine measures might well be justified in that case. I don't see any govt's planning well for that case. Better personal and building ventilators or filters and masks; disinfectant lighting, schedule adjustments to dilute crowding, etc.
"a Western political leader with the intellectual gravitas ... " If Churchill or Thatcher could not fill the bill to the public's longer term satisfaction, no one else will. "Of philosopher kings we have none!" :-)
Almost everyone gets Covid lockdowns wrong. The only time and place it was effective (other than in countries who enforced a sea barrier), was in those countries which entered lockdown two or three weeks ahead of everyone else. This didn't stop the virus, but it did allow it to infect most or all of the real economy workers who acted as key nodes for infection, providing a degree of herd immunity for the rest of the population. Those few countries which were ahead right at the very start had a strategic advantage because of early decision making.
It was the only time lockdowns or other mitigation measures worked, apart from one particular exception. What really surprised was the institutional resistance to shutting down public transport. We knew fairly early on that this was a particular risk, because bus drivers and ticket checkers on trains were being exposed to viral loads so high it was killing healthy men in their thirties. The only other instance of this happening was with hospital staff unfortunate enough to be situated close to ventilation systems connected to critical care units. I was quite surprised to find that several people I knew who were pretty well informed on both Covid and government policy, and were generally in favour of mitigation measures, suddenly seemed to baulk at the idea of shutting down public transport.
An early study from either the Low Countries or Denmark did a regional side by side comparison. Shutting down public transport seemed to be the only non-structural mitigation measure that worked. It's the only really solid evidence of which I am aware.
I've long been an advocate of an employer-based libertarian approach to varying the work schedule. The default Western government approach to tackling climate change seems to be fear, authoritarianism, obfuscation of costs and using pricing mechanisms to force behaviour change. What about persuasion? Varied work schedules allow workers to enjoy cheaper and shorter duration journeys to work, whilst significantly cutting congestion.
Also, the research shows that with the exception of chronic and targeted bullying, kids needs access to unstructured and unsupervised time with other kids to develop emotional resilience. Yes, it might be unpleasant, but those school bus journeys are essential to later emotional health and wellbeing. Better information could inform parents its bad for the kids to drive them to school. The school run is a huge contributor to congestion and air pollution.
Back in early 2021, I had an interesting discussion with a PhD on the subject of school closures- we both came to the conclusion that school closures were a very bad idea, likely to lead to far more fatalities, because they took away on opportunity to increase herd immunity amongst the healthy by exposure to very low viral loads- kids were ideal in this regard, because their physiological spreading mechanisms weren't fully developed.
You're right about dodging the bullet though. It could have easily been something like small pox. It's why I locked the entire family down about a month before everyone else- about two weeks before Nancy Pelosi went to Chinatown and tried to convince everyone everything was fine.
I changed my mind several times over the course of the pandemic. I was both saddened and disappointed to see that so many people seem to suffer what I can only describe as opinion lock- incapable of changing position as new information emerged. I think the academic concept of solution aversion has far broader implications than anyone realises. I also think that as people gather more evidence to support a position to which they have become committed, they become convinced that whatever they are looking at is far more serious than a more unbiased analysis would discover.