System Justification

Olivia Grace

Some things speak for themselves. My little girl came into the world this past Saturday, March 14th 2009, just shy of 10 lbs.

Capital vs Labor

It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as here assumed . . . . Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.

Abraham Lincoln - first annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861

In-group & out-group bias

I recently went searching online for a discussion on in-group/out-group dynamics and came across this post from a blog entitled An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. I attempted to comment, but then later found out that there was a special submit process and that.. get this.. I was part of the out-group since I am not an evangelical christian.

Here is my original attempt to post on the blog that did not pass the moderator:

(Nov 3, 2008 12:10am)
Is not the threat between these specific factions just one of sanity vs madness? A person who has a good grasp of their own individual identity and power in the world would have very little reason to lapse into madness no matter which group "wins" the fight. There is no blood being shed on this issue or people dying from lack of resources. But taken the quote above, one can see that the fight for sanity is connected to being more and more accepted by a group (even the one you are part of!).

How's the saying go? The man in doubt must knock on everyone's door, but the man who is certain lets everyone sleep.

Could it be that the warriors on both sides of this issue have their own identity circle seperate from the circles they fight for?

We are people who fear we are not accepted! Let us rejoice!

From Nimrods

When days past and I noticed that it did not post... I wrote Steve an email:

(Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 11:02 AM)
Steven,

I attempted to post a reply to one of your blog entries, and only realized afterwards that I had to email you first in order to post. I was about to send an email, but then noticed that you only accept Evangelicals. I was raised Roman Catholic, not Evangelical, and came across your blog while searching for discussions on in-group/out-group bias. (The post was this one - http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com/2008/09/ingroup-outgroup-bias-in-origins-debate.html)

Do you ever allow posts for people that are not of the Evangelical faith?

Sincerly,

Joe

Steve promptly replied:

(Sat, November 15, 2008 8:31 am)
Hi Joe,

Welcome. Just to clarify: My current guest-post series has comments turned off (mostly) but this is not the norm for the blog. Anyone can comment on any post (where the comments are open) ... and I have all kinds of perspectives participating including several RC's. So if you are looking to join the conversation, just wait for posts where comments are turned on again. Also, for the current series, I'm inviting readers to send me emailed questions to be addressed my George Murphy in an upcoming post (See: http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/evolution-and-original-sin-series.html).

Re: primary posts to the blog, yes I'd prefer to keep it to Evangelicals for the moment. (see: http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com/2008/05/invitation-to-contribute.html ). That is my primary audience & in these theological discussions, many Evangelicals tend to be suspicious of theology not blessed by one of their own. I don't agree with that attitude but think the limitation on primary posts it is a good practical choice for now.

Thanks for responding &, and I encourage you to join the conversations in the comment sections.

thanks,
--
Steve Martin (CSCA)

To which I replied...

(Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 12:41 AM)
Steve,

I apologize for taking so long to respond, but I have been very busy since my girlfriend and I are about to have a child in February. That has taken priority over everything else, as it very well should.

Thank you for your invitation to comment on future blog posts. Since my interest in your blog was solely limited to the topic of in-group/out-group bias, I am unsure if I will have another chance. My momentary encounter with your blog was primarily the result of a search for this topic.

All considered, our passing interaction seems to point to the heart of this general concept of in-group/out-group. My additions to the conversation were moderated out since as you aptly put it, "..many

Evangelicals tend to be suspicious of theology not blessed by one of

their own.."

You said you did not agree with this attitude. I agree with you. It seems the two of us, therefore, are part of our very own in-group. ;-)

I have not yet received a reply.

Yes We Did - Cigarettes

My girlfreind just got a sticker in the mail from moveon.org to celebrate the Obama victory. Am I losing my mind or does this look like a new brand of cigarettes?

SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be OK painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?

This was listed as a serious question in Four philosophical questions to make your brain hurt , and I must admit that after reading this one my brain did hurt. Not because my brain was stumped with the complexity of this question, but by the sheer stupidity of the two analogies given to justify this argument. If you look closely, you will notice that both analogies are alterations on the Ticking Time bomb Scenario, and in truth have very little connection to the first argument. I will one day go into how I feel about the time bomb scenario, but for now I would like to just stick to this issue.

Let us try to solve this problem like adults. First, how will Bill be presented with this choice? I noticed no one asked Bill his opinion on the matter. Will he be sent a letter by the state that says he must turn himself in? Let us take it further.. if he says no, will the police hunt him down? Also, if he is captured and his organs are taken, will there be a place to go so that it is known that these five very important people now live by the forced sacrifice of Bill? A website where each of the five people can express their gratitude to Bill... the background image for the website can be Edvard Munch's The Scream.

You might have guessed that I'm against this idea already. Why?
I will answer that by writing an imaginary dialogue with the lonely Bills of the world:

If by chance you live alone, have no friends, and find it difficult to be social in general for reasons that seem mysterious to you.. go out immediately and get a gun. Protect yourself while you try to figure out why you are so alone. Purchase a couple of guns in case one does not work. If anyone comes to your door with what seems like official serious business, and you do not know them, just blow them away. Do not ask questions. You will need to keep on the run during this lonely portion of your life, but do your best to stay hidden while you try to make friends. Even if it is difficult, do your best to make at least one friend. Fake it if necessary. Tell a couple of people around you that hate your guts to at least say to the state that you are their friend. Get at least one of them to say that, in a way, they might even love you. You will definitely need at least one person that expresses love for you.. because in times of need the state might relax the law to exclude those who only have friends. A loved one might keep you alive longer. Get that friend! Make someone love you.. quick. Only large powerful majorities matter! Single entities have no meaning! And trust nobody.. because they might want your liver.

Suffering is incorrect. Being alone is incorrect. The greatest happiness for the greatest majority is the goal. Once we reach it, all will be solved.

Life that is unsocial is not life. Only the group is alive. There are no individuals in the world. The state is alive. Each person inside the state is not alive. A person that lives only for 20 years in ecstacy is of lesser worth than the person that lives for 100 years in a mild happiness. A person alone is the most worthless person in the world. The greatest of all of these is the person that lives the most years, with the most happiness, with the most friends and loved ones.

The goal of everything in the universe is a good feeling of being socially connected. Pop a pill to get along with people if you find it is difficult.

The Bully Hunt

In the aggressive teens, areas of the brain linked with feeling rewarded -- the amygdala and ventral striatum -- became very active when they observed pain being inflicted on others. But they showed little activity in an area of the brain involved in self-regulation -- the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction -- as was seen in the control group.

One of the unspoken modern results of the enlightenment is the moving away from all forms of corporal punishment. We no longer feel that physically hurting another human being - to control their behavior - is acceptable. The master/slave dynamic, which is growing less powerful day by day, leans heavily on corporal punishment.

It is interesting that these things are interconnected - corporal punishment, self-regulation, and satisfaction. Some seem to have control over their physical body while others need external forces to control them. I wonder if John Brown's amygdala lit up when he punished his son, and why he suddenly wanted to be beaten as opposed to beating..

During an unruly phase in his son's life, John Brown kept an account of how much punishment was due from John Jr's various infractions: for disobeying his mother, he owed eight lashes; for telling a lie, eight more. When the time came, John Sr., as anticipated, applied the whip to his son's back. A third of the way through the allotted number of strokes, however, he stopped, handed the whip to his son, took off his shirt, and demanded that his son finish the beating. John Jr. recounts, "I dared not refuse to obey, but at first I did not strike hard. 'Harder!' he said; 'harder, harder!' until he received the balance of the account." Initially mystified, years later John Jr. realizes that his father was offering a "practical illustration" of the doctrine of atonement - that "justice could be satisfied by inflicting penalty upon the back of the innocent instead of the guilty."
- John Brown's Body

Could it be that the satisfaction that comes from corrective punishment on a persons body was never related to the crime, but solely from the joy of harming another? That atonement is not to teach the person receiving the punishment a lesson, which is commonly the excuse, but that the one doing the beating is doing it for their own hidden satisfaction?

Pre-enlightenment, the outcasts tended to be the physically weak, the diseased, those with grey identities as compared to the standard male and female. The sadist was part of the ingroup, and found joy in physically harming those that broke the law, and this was sanctioned by society. Is it possible that without having the ability to regulate their own actions, that these aggressive men, who obtain pleasure from harming others, will become the outcasts?

Golden Steam - EgoPHobia 19 Interview

ε γ ω φ ο β ι α

http://egophobia.ro/19/experiment.html#15

GOLDEN STEAM

Chicago, USA/ Cluj, Romania, October 30th, 2008 -- EgoPHobia (www.egophobia.ro), an e-zine of the Romanian intelligentsia, is pleased to announce the release of the Experiment 19/20 issue. If you are a writer, editor, pubicist or broadcaster, Experiment will offer you food for thought and a spectacular material for your story.

EgoPhobia presents golden steam articles, translations and interviews in four languages, followed by lavish visuals about the emerging and controversial Steampunk subculture in the world.

The featured artists, and craftsmen are: Sean Orlando (Oakland, USA), Uri Hofi ( Ein-Shemer, Israel), Pierre Materr (Paris, France), RA Friedman (Philadelphia,USA), Shannon O'Hare (Berkley, USA), Joe Rosato (New York, USA) and Nicu Ilfoveanu (Bucharest Romania).

The controversy about the definition of Steampunk is covered by the translations of an article by Randy Nakamura (Los Angeles, USA), published in Design Observer, and the interview given to Bostodelphia by Steampunk spokesmen Jake von Slatt (Boston, USA)

Is Steampunk "humbug design, scrap-booking masquerading as the avant-garde" as was said by Randy Nakamura, or a"new aesthetic which lends itself to pre-existing industrial arts creative practices, including creative recycling, scavenging, and reuse", as stated by Sean Orlando ?

A Territorial Imperative

We have such a natural predisposition for “birds of a feather” to “flock together” that even groups formed with no prior connection among the members (or no meaningful connection at all) can demonstrate a preference for their comrades over those outside the group. Social psychologists call this the “minimal group” paradigm: Individuals randomly assigned to one group over another, absent any rational justification, engage in self-evaluation that favors their new group and strengthens their affiliation with its members. In cultural, family, or political groups, our affiliation with others can provide a comforting means of evaluating the immense, complex web of incomplete information with which we are presented in everyday life. Psychologists have even found that identification of a policy proposal as being from one’s own party can be more determinative of an individual’s approval than the actual content of the proposed policy.

A non-thinking human being.

Quick sentence, easy to write. Born from a lot of analysis and painful personal experiences. Thinking and fear are connected in a bit of an inverse relationship.. the more scared someone becomes the less they are able to think. When someone becomes terrified the only actions are to protect the ground they are standing on with high aggression. The "group" that you side with (since we are talking about non-thinking humans) has to be an identity circle that is easy to understand. We wear the same pin. We raise the same flag. We have the same uniform. We have the same skin color. A "policy" is an abstract idea. I can touch a pin, flag or uniform. I can see skin color.

The world as perceived by the brain is the world in which you live. If you limit your thinking, you limit the world. Most people just sleep and feed, to steal from Hamlet, and do not look for any larger discourse other than a one way communication of obedience to a strict and cruel punitive authority - an alpha male 'beast' that protects us from the harsh realities of nature.

Money for nothing..

I have always thought that the stock market was just a glamorous OTB. Both places are filled with men trying to get loads of cash for doing nothing of real worth in the world.

Here is someone that views the financial crisis from a different perspective.