The Revolution: Part 2

[Phantomgrift]

[dexeron]

Milgram's "Obedience" and the Stanford Prison Experiment are less examples of some underlying human nature, and more examples of how we are socialized to view authority and indoctrinated into tribalism. Yes, they demonstrate a "nature" of humanity as it currently exists in western civilzation. However, there is nothing shown by either of these experiments that proves that this is innate and inborn. If we chose, we could just as easily raise our children to not fall in line with these models of authority and interaction, and the various cultures around the world and throughout history who do not comform to these examples (and even the statistical outliers in Milgram's work) are all the evidence required to demonstrate that this is possible. We can easily be better than the subjects of these two experiments, assuming of course we're willing as a people to change our own culture, which despite cynical pronouncements to the contrary, is something that's happening anyway as an ongoing process; you can't tell me with a straight face that our understanding of human rights and dignity (as imperfect as it is!) is not superior to that in, say, Victorian times, or during the Roman Empire? Culture is an everchanging and ongoing force, and we can talk about whether it advances at some times or regressess at others, but if anything is proven by all of this, it's that nothing is innate in human nature, except perhaps "Dunbar's Number".

So no, I reject the contention that we cannot improve our world and society because "humans will be humans". Culture is already changing, every day. Folks like Desp are trying to nudge it in specific ways to get to specific destinations a little faster, sometimes successfully, often not. However, I respect that far more than just taking the lazy way out and making cynical appeals to "human nature".

[HisDivineShadow]

Well Dex, if a behavior is modifiable through culture and upbringing is hardly evidence that "it's not innate to us as a species." It kind of confirms it. If anything, a glance at any war or situation of power imbalance confirms Milgram as well as the Stanford Prison experiment.

Still, I do agree with the underlying thrust of your argument that as human beings we also possess the intelligence and capability to modify our behavior and avoid situations that would lead to such crimes and atrocities. Frankly, I think that's the problem with a lot of the conservative Bobs like Phant and Ahab who frame their arguments in such a fatalistic context. They mistake what is for what should be, what is descriptive for what is prescriptive, and ignore the fact that societal change can and does occur if people are willing. If enough activists can change society to be more accepting of gays and blacks, surely we can also improve the socioeconomic crisis that fiscal conservatives have brought about.

[Despanan]

WELL SAID DEX.

HDS: I think you're cherry-picking your data here. War situations often revert to authoritarianism because we've been culturally conditioned to believe that's the best way to respond (and also, authoritarians always scream: "WE'RE AT WAR! NO TIME TO THINK! NO TIME TO HAVE PRINCIPALS! JUST OBEY!"

However there are PLENTY of examples where this doesn't happen. Take the Durrutti Column during the Spanish Civil War, or the Black Army (Insurrectionary army of the Ukraine) during the Russian Revolution. Both were anti-authoritarian, under enormous pressure and both were successful (The Black Army moreso).

More modern examples would be the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Recovered Factories movement in Argentina. The latter was non-military, bit they did organize and fight the cops.

Stressful situations often cause people to divert to authority because we're conditioned from birth to do that. What you're seeing isn't proof that it's in our nature to do that, because there's too many times that it doesn't happen for it to be biological.

[Despanan]

[HisDivineShadow]

[dexeron]

I won't say that you don't have good points HDS. My main point is to counter the pointless "don't try to do anything because human nature is human nature" cynical bullshit peddled by naysayers like Phant. Like with everything, there's a biological component, but I think we're too quick to assume that artifacts of socialization are biological imperatives - and that's most destructive in cases where actual biology causes people to act outside of "accepted" societal norms that are totally non-biological and in fact vary from society to society: for example, in the way the majority punishes those who deviate from accepted gender roles.

[Despanan]

I think you're making a hasty conclusion there: there's just as much precedent for the opposite behaviors: for instance, have you seen the film "Ape Genius"? You get to see Chimpanzees behaving via an innate sense of Justice, and shit as long as we're talking about apes Bonobos solve all of their conflicts via group orgys. There's WAY too much variation in both human and ape behavior to draw a genetic conclusion on either's "natural" views towards authority.

And again, to paraphrase Emma Goldman, you can't draw conclusions about human nature under capitalism any more than you can draw conclusions about monkey nature while those monkeys are in a cage.

Capitalism is global - and before that we had Feudalism and slave economies and tribalism. We have yet to see what's going to come after capitalism - so we've never seen humans on a macro level with material circumstances that would prompt anti/non authoritarian behavior AND we have many micro examples that disprove authoritarianism as the rule. It's WAY more rational to assume a negative with regards to human nature, rather than to assume a positive based upon very limited data.

[Despanan]

[HisDivineShadow]