From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!samsung!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc Tue Jan 21 09:27:19 EST 1992
Article 2907 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy,alt.postmodern
Subject: The One True Ideology
Message-ID: <aNkTeB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 19 Jan 92 23:05:09 GMT
Lines: 196

Paul Gallagher writes:
>Does anyone out there have any thoughts about Louis Dumont's
>arguments in "Homo hierarchicus" and elsewhere that the ideology
>of spiritual equality, the supposed dominant ideology of the West,
>gives rise to racism, totalitarianism, etc.?  His ideas sounds a
>little like what people on this newsgroup have been saying about
>the nasty influence of the Enlightenment, but he hypothesizes an
>innate human need to form hierarchies, which he regards as
>distinct from relationships of power.  For example, the human mind
>creates hierachies of people, but since this conflicts with the
>belief in the equality of souls, the hierarchy is displaced into
>the somatic realm, hence racism.

I'm not familiar with the book, but it certainly sounds like what
I've been talking about.  It seems to be another view of the
inconsistency, or to use a more postmodern term, the
incommensurability, between parts of the standard contents of the
substantive ideologies that most people actually hold.

I am posting in comp.ai.philosophy in addition to
sci.philosophy.tech and alt.postmodern because I want to discuss
this interesting notion in terms of a metaphor that will be very
familiar to people following the Turing Test/Chinese Room thread.

Suppose we have a group of intelligent, overly conscientious
neurotics -- not as common in 1992 as they seemed to be in, say,
1955, but still being produced, even though they are now
apparently outnumbered by stupid, sociopathic borderline
psychotics -- whom we are treating in a computer conference (since
our neurotics are nerds who are uneasy in social situations and
most comfortable at the consoles of their computers). Unbeknownst
to the real patients in the group we want to introduce a model
"patient" who has effectively solved all of the problems of living
the real patients have.  This will be a virtual person who exists
only in the host computer which the patients call from their home
computers, which we can do fairly easily since all communication
is via ASCII. We can even introduce some hesitations and a few
typos into "his" chats and posts to maintain the illusion that
"he" is a real person.

Our task is to create the belief structure of this archetypal
healthy "person," whom we shall henceforth call "John."  Think of
yourself as a member of the committee which has to agree on the
content of the beliefs which John holds.  Right away we run into a
glitch.  Should John believe in the spiritual equality of all
human beings?  Twenty years ago the question wouldn't even have
been asked.  But now we think of that belief as the centerpiece of
specifically _Western_ culture.  Even more specifically the best
of Western culture, the Enlightened part of it, since we know that
even in the West there are people who do not believe in this ...
whatever it is, foundational axiom?  article of faith? categorical
premise?  But if the Enlightenment is the product of specifically
Western historical dynamics, then it's very "universalism" is
itself parochial, since it ignores the cultural beliefs of other
cultures in the spiritual _inequality_ of persons and projects its
own values as somehow normatively privileged and entitled to erase
and replace "other" and "different" values.  In fact we could
spend a large amount of time, possibly an infinite amount if it
isn't even in principle resolvable, but lets suppose we do in fact
decide that the spiritual equality principle should be a
cornerstone of John's belief structure on the grounds that most of
the nerds in the on line therapy group will believe themselves to
be spiritually inferior to other people and it would be a
therapeutic move to level them up to a value they think is greater
than they possess.

After we've decided on that as the basic, foundational tenet of
John's belief system, we discover to our surprise that it is the
_whole_ of his ideology.  Once you've got that belief there isn't
the possibility of adding any others.  It's as if you must forever
remain in Rawls' vale of ignorance, for as soon as you begin to
advance any more specific beliefs, even if they seem at first
sight to follow from that one foundational belief, you find that
you are denying someone's equality.

I think that odd consequence can be shown more clearly if we
actually start up our electronic group and try to figure out what
statements John could make that would model appropriate, mentally
healthy and ideologically sound beliefs.  One nerd, let's call him
Eugene, complains that the other kids make fun of him because he
isn't athletic and can't catch a ball.  A second nerd, let's call
him Soren, commiserates and comments that he used to feel that way
until he realized that most of these jocks would end up making
hamburgers or driving delivery trucks, because brains were
_better_ than athletic ability in the modern world.  He even
offers up a Darwinian-like theory that sees evolution proceeding
from functional strength and viciousness, as exemplified by the
dinosaurs, whom, Soren points out, are now extinct, to
intelligence and adaptability as the qualities more likely to
enhance survival.

Does John go on to agree with Soren that they, sitting at their
keyboards, are spiritually _superior_ to the kids who are out
playing ball?  What that does is move from the valorization of a
"Hobbesian" hierarchy based on strength and cunning (which is
indeed the rude ideology of the schoolyard and the playground) to
a "Jeffersonian" hierarchy based on talent and (intellectual)
merit (which is the official ideology of the classroom).  So John
is silent.  (Apparently Jefferson himself never perceived the
contradiction in his philosophy between the statement that all men
are created "equal" and the statement that there are actually two
hierarchies, an "artificial" (Jefferson's term) hierarchy of
wealth and privilege (as exemplified by the European aristocracies
of his time) and a "natural" (also Jefferson's word) hierarchy
based on talent and merit.  In a just society, the "natural"
aristocracy would rise to the top.  (Never mind the further
contradiction that Jefferson lived in a region of the newly formed
U.S. in which some persons were very wealthy by inheritance and
some very poor, and that he also owned slaves, which were the
basis of much of that inherited wealth.)

A third nerd, whom we shall call Jason, offers the consideration,
apparently reacting to the same "elitist" and "anti-democratic"
strain in Soren's comment that "John," (i.e., us, the committee
which operates him) noted, that "we" should all be grateful that
we are all Americans and that in America everybody has the right
to be what he wants.  He advises Eugene to make friends with the
ball players because everybody has something to offer.

We are wondering how "John" should respond to that when a fourth
nerd, Trang, a Vietnamese refugee, comments that Jason's
apparently democratic sentiments are even more elitist than
Soren's because they depend on the economic advantage which
Americans enjoy by virtue of their exploitation of the rest of the
world.  Trang points out that there are lots of people who are
smarter than Eugene or Soren but they don't get the chance to
develop their abilities because they live in grinding poverty in
the Third World.  And there are people there who could hit a
baseball harder and further than any of the kids who are making
fun of Eugene, but they also don't get the chance.  He then goes
on to characterize Jason as a racist and a fascist since he only
seems to value white Americans.  He asks if Jason thinks American
life is more valuable than Third World life.

Jason says he thinks all life is equally valuable and that more
Vietnamese refugees should be admitted into America.  But at that
moment a fifth nerd, Jose, joins the conversation.  He says that
Jason is a hypocrite for wanting to let more Vietnamese into the
country when there are so many Mexicans right next door who need
the opportunity just as much.  He also calls Trang a hypocrite for
talking only about legalized immigration because his own family is
in America illegally and they have to live every day with the fear
that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will discover them
and deport them.  Jose goes on to call Eugene a spoiled whiner and
Soren a snob.  He tells the group that his priest discovered he
had a high IQ and wants him to study to become a lawyer, but
although he has gone along with it all, he still thinks he may
drop it all and be a real man, like his older brother, and join a
gang which holds up liquor stores owned by Vietnamese storekeepers
who are trying to keep all Mexicans drunk so they can make money
off of them.

We are still wondering what, if anything, John can say, when Soren
replies to Jose and tells him he has the wrong values.  Soren says
that an intelligent person like Jose would be foolish to waste his
life fighting the law, because sooner or later he'll lose and end
up in jail.  At this point a sixth nerd, whom we'll call Justin,
breaks in to criticize Soren.  He argues that Soren is trying to
impose his middle class values on Jose.  He argues that every
culture has its own values and that you can't claim that one
culture's values are superior to another's.

We are still wondering what the right thing to say to all this is,
what we should have "John" say to model mentally healthy and sound
beliefs, when Eugene raises the question of whether it is
individual people who are equal or is it cultures and groups.  He
points out to both Trang and Jose that the American way is to
value each individual, not the background he came from.  This,
predictably, brings a response from yet a seventh nerd, Rasheed,
who is black.  He points out that since some groups have been
systematically discriminated against, the model that Eugene has
suggested is systematically unfair and discriminatory.  He says
that America no longer operates in that way that looked
individualistic but in reality was based on some in-groups keeping
other out-groups away from the valuable goods and resources of
society.  He accuse Eugene of wanting to turn back to clock to the
days before affirmative action and keep him and other black people
from getting a foot in the door.

Justin breaks in to say that life is inherently unfair.  He says
it is clear that all of them are smart so they should think of
themselves as the lucky ones who are on a lifeboat.  He argues
that the lifeboat would sink if they tried to help everyone in the
water get on.

Does there exist any consistent ideology which could be shared by
all these nerds (and in principle with every person on the planet)
which would promote the mental health of each and every one
without delegitimating and promoting the mental sickness of one,
some or all of the others?

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


