Updated 21 Mar 2010
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Arising in antiquity, before mammals, before
the atmosphere became what it is, genes were
mutating in makeup and/or organization leaving
their creations to survive or not as selection
would have it for their particular niche. The
advent of civilization and its exponential
development came so fast, [in geologic time],
that genes preferred for peaceful living have
yet to be selected. They may never be if
humanity persists along its present path. Yet
there is
Hope, lots of it. Nature itself provides it.
And there are avenues for action, provided we
can read the
Tea Leaves.
-
Peace Via Nature's Way
-
Brevia
-
Where We Are - Violence, War, Genocide
-
Rocks in the Road Ahead
-
Nuclear / Population Dangers
Authoritarians-Aggressive, Hierarchical, and Conventional, make up most of us. Our Achilles Heel is that we are also overly obedient and susceptible to charismatic personalities--for better or worse. When worse, problems arise all the way from the individual or family level to genocide on a national scale. Hitler's Germans were typical Authoritarians as shown by Adorno.
-
Authoritarianism: First Surprise
-
Authoritarianism I
-
Authoritarianism II
-
Authoritarianism III
Stanley Milgram in the post-war period, and more recently,
Jerry Burger confirmed the personality was and still is common in the American culture as well. Beyond all that, Bob Altemeyer illustrated how the personality operates in and on politics; he found European and North American politicians are quite similar in their Authoritarianism. The trait seems to be universal and therefore enabled genetically.
-
Authoritarianism: Second Surprise
-
Features of Authoritarianism
-
Authoritarians in Politics I
-
Authoritarians in Politics II
-
Authoritarians in Politics III
-
Authoritarians in Politics IV
-
Authoritarians in Politics V
-
Authoritarians in Politics VI
-
Authoritarians in Politics VII
-
Managing Authoritarianism
The Authoritarian Personalities, APs, with their overly obedience, form a ready-made cadre for the psycho-sociopath. These people, mostly male, when charismatic, can capture the imaginations of the APs. Violence can know no end when these people take charge. Hitler's Germany and Rwanda were prime examples. So was My Lai on a smaller scale. Kent State was a mild--if student murders don't count--example of the same overly-obedient mechanics.
-
Sociopathology I
-
Sociopathology II
-
Sociopath: Worst Cases
-
Sociopathic Behavior I
-
Sociopathic Behavior II
So far, the outline seems too aberrant to apply to the likes of you and me. But hold on--they do. Yes, healthy North-American college students were turned into abusive automatons in a matter of hours. Impossible? Not at all! For example, Philip Zimbardo devised a most-remarkable experiment that foretold Abu Ghraib accurately in remarkable detail. Given the right conditions, the cream of the North-American college crop can revert to sociopathic (jungle) behavior in 24 hours. An inescapable conclusion that follows is that the membrane that separates our civilized and violent selves is paper thin. This condition reflects how important the nature/nurture issue is to the future of humankind.
-
Authoritarianism: Third Surprise
-
Do We Know Ourselves?
-
Stanford Prison Experiment Lessons I
-
Stanford Prison Experiment Lessons II
-
Bad Barrels vs. Bad Apples
-
Abu Ghraib - High Level Bad Apples
-
Stanford Prison Experiment, Insights
We are each born with a nature shaped by eons in the jungles, savannas, and mountains, fighting for survival. On the one the hand aggressively taking charge of a willing group of followers could often win the day, enabling the winners to pass their genes on to the next generations. At the same time, altruistic parents who cooperated also survived in the face of adversity and their genes too were passed on for generations to mold and enhance. What that left each of us with is an intrinsic emotional construct that exhibits two clusters of traits within each individual. These clusters are often in direct opposition to one another. In the vernacular, most of us have both our good and bad sides.
-
How Nature Created This Problem
-
Transition to Civilization
-
Hope provided by Nature
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope I
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope II
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope III
- Population Control
Given the inertia naturally present in all cultures, it will take generations to imbue the typical Joe and Jane citizen with the knowledge and wherewithal to create peaceful societies. Nevertheless it is not too late to start. Some thoughts follow.
-
Known Origins of Terrorism
-
It is time to Change Course I
-
It is time to Change Course II
-
Avenues Apparent I
-
Avenues Apparent II
-
Avenues Apparent III
-
A new Approach I
-
A new Approach II
-
A new Approach III
-
Afterwards??
-
What Else We Can Do?
-
Become Wise & Pass It On!
Wisdom, like insight, only comes to most of us after a lot of living and thinking about life. Too few of us shake off the blight of being overly obedient. Those seriously into these questions are invited to visit Browser's Hub for a more formal and much more complete rendition of the turf.
-
Two Arresting Quotes
-
Issues Remaining
-
Peace Via Nature's Way
-
Brevia
-
Where We Are - Violence, War, Genocide
-
Rocks in the Road Ahead
-
Nuclear / Population Dangers
Authoritarians-Aggressive, Hierarchical, and Conventional, make up most of us. Our Achilles Heal is that we are also overly obedient and susceptible to charismatic personalities--for better or worse. When worse, problems arise all the way from the individual or family level to genocide on a national scale. Hitler's Germans were typical Authoritarians as shown by Adorno.
-
Authoritarianism: First Surprise
-
Authoritarianism I
-
Authoritarianism II
-
Authoritarianism III
Stanley Milgram in the post-war period, and more recently,
Jerry Burger confirmed the personality was and still is common in the American culture as well. Beyond all that, Bob Altemeyer illustrated how the personality operates in and on politics; he found European and North-American politicians are quite similar in their Authoritarianism. The trait seems to be universal and therefore enabled genetically.
-
Authoritarianism: Second Surprise
-
Features of Authoritarianism
-
Authoritarians in Politics I
-
Authoritarians in Politics II
-
Authoritarians in Politics III
-
Authoritarians in Politics IV
-
Authoritarians in Politics V
-
Authoritarians in Politics VI
-
Authoritarians in Politics VII
-
Managing Authoritarianism
The Authoritarian Personalities, APs, with their overly obedience, form a ready-made cadre for the psycho-sociopath. These people, mostly male, when charismatic, can capture the imaginations of the APs. Violence can know no end when these people take charge. Hitler's Germany and Rwanda were prime examples. So was My Lai on a smaller scale. Kent State was a mild--if student murders don't count--example of the same overly-obedient mechanics.
-
Sociopathology I
-
Sociopathology II
-
Sociopath: Worst Cases
-
Sociopathic Behavior I
-
Sociopathic Behavior II
So far, the outline seems too aberrant to apply to the likes of you and me. But hold on--they do. Yes, healthy North-American college students were turned into abusive automatons in a matter of hours. Impossible? Not at all! For example, Philip Zimbardo devised a most-remarkable experiment that foretold Abu Ghraib accurately in remarkable detail. Given the right conditions, the cream of the North-American college crop can revert to sociopathic (jungle) behavior in 24 hours. An inescapable conclusion that follows is that the membrane that separates our civilized and violent selves is paper thin. This condition reflects how important the nature/nurture issue is to the future of humankind.
-
Authoritarianism: Third Surprise
-
Do We Know Ourselves?
-
Stanford Prison Experiment Lessons I
-
Stanford Prison Experiment Lessons II
-
Bad Barrels vs. Bad Apples
-
Abu Ghraib - High Level Bad Apples
-
Stanford Prison Experiment, Insights
We are each born with a nature shaped by eons in the jungles, savannas, and mountains, fighting for survival. On the one the hand aggressively taking charge of a willing group of followers could often win the day, enabling the winners to pass their genes on to the next generations. At the same time, altruistic parents who cooperated also survived in the face of adversity and their genes too were passed on for generations to mold and enhance. What that left each of us with is an intrinsic emotional construct that exhibits two clusters of traits within each individual. These clusters are often in direct opposition to one another. In the vernacular, most of us have both our good and bad sides.
-
How Nature Created This Problem
-
Transition to Civilization
-
Hope provided by Nature
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope I
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope II
-
Nurture’s Response: Hope III
- Population Control
Given the inertia naturally present in all cultures, it will take generations to imbue the typical Joe and Jane citizen with the knowledge and wherewithal to create peaceful societies. Nevertheless it is not too late to start. Some thoughts follow.
-
Known Origins of Terrorism
-
It is time to Change Course I
-
It is time to Change Course II
-
Avenues Apparent I
-
Avenues Apparent II
-
Avenues Apparent III
-
A new Approach I
-
A new Approach II
-
A new Approach III
-
Afterwards??
-
What Else We Can Do?
-
Become Wise & Pass It On!
Wisdom, like insight, only comes to most of us after a lot of living and thinking about life. Too few of us shake off the blight of being overly obedient. Those seriously into these questions are invited to visit Browser's Hub for a more formal and much more complete rendition of the turf.
-
Two Arresting Quotes
-
Issues Remaining
There are many. We have only scratched the surface. On occasion we may have scratched the wrong surface or inferred something from the wrong scratch. Neither has stopped progress. What we concluded early on turned out to be only partly true after further research. For example, it is not just the Authoritarian Personality--alone, they serve useful functions. However, when taken in tow by charismatic psycho-sociopaths, the AP willingly, even eagerly, falls in line to do their bidding. So it was in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda. The propensity is in our genes. And it permeates all sectors of human endeavor.
However the events in the previous page work out, there is only a finite fraction of geotime left. On a 24-hour clock in reference to the age of our solar system, it is:
- late afternoon for the projected existence of earth's biosphere as we know it,
- evening for the 24-hour day itself (each day will lengthen very slowly until it gradually matches the lunar month).
The system was authorized by Mr. Bush explicitly in his signing statements. Authoritarian personalities in the line officers took it from there. Few questioned either the morality or legality of the abuse. In his book,
The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo gets very specific.
Rocks in the Road Ahead Include:
-
Individuals in the mirror who fear discovering the unknown more than they do certain death by mushroom cloud.
-
Charismatic sociopaths: unrestrained, unidentified.
-
Traditions based on dogma led or co-opted by sociopaths.
-
Societies whose populations exceed what natural resources can sustain.
“We Have Much to Fear From Our Own Ignorance.
We have even more to fear from what
we ‘know’ that isn't so.”
Anon: on repetition of history |
“Do we want a paint-by-number life,
or are we working on an original?”
Kris Rosenberg: on self actualization |
- Learn to read the Tea Leaves when politicians speak.
- Do they do as they say and say as they do?
- Do we hear logic or platitudes?
- Do they answer direct questions or do they divert into their agenda?
- If they don't know the answer, do they promise to get it and do, or do they bluff or bluster?
- Believe off-hand remarks—they reveal the real, unguarded person.
- Research the characters of politicians running for office.
- Set examples of moderation.
- Be a life-long learner, for peace will be elusive for as long as a sociopath can rule.
Start Thinking About It; Become Active.
- Make ourselves heard
- Use Dialogue in the manner of Socrates.
Join & post opinions. Remain Anonymous
- Join one or more blogs dealing with politics and what
ails the world
- Participate in politics on neighborhood level
- Participate in student exchange programs
- Learn another language
- Keep things in historical perspectives;
- Establish peace movements;
- Continue research on means for achieving peace in dialogue;
- Reach across boundaries in dialogue;
- Separate mythos from logos (church from state);
- Integrate societies in all ways.
- Balance our External / Internal loci of Control, beginning about age three.
- Know ourselves; Authoritarianism; Sociopathology
- Understand the Lucifer Effect
- Understand Faith & Science differences
- Recognize & avoid humiliating or alienating conditions
- Communicate in dialogue
- Support politicians who have demonstrated that the are not corruptible; read the Tea Leaves.
Create Movements
Recognize History—Avoid Repeating It.
- Problem: Violent Sociopaths hijack and corrupt systems, businesses, organizations, nations, religions.
- Solutions in Dialogue, the highest form of communication:
- Explores ideas with mutual understanding [and empathy]
- Connects with integrity as each draws the other out to find meaning
- Voices opinions toward finding mutually-acceptable solutions, or absolute solutions in the case science or technology
- Addresses conflict resolution effectively
Paraphrasing Zimbardo
Systemic (Bad-Barrel) situations that:
Corrupt the morals of otherwise decent people who happen to be susceptible to "Blind Obedience."
[We would add]:
>Authoritarian Bad Apples:
Otherwise known as
Sociopaths.
- Attentive to our independence and individuality as we respect our social group.
- Conscious of reality; wise to relabeling words;
- Watchful for ramifications of our own and collective actions;
- Aware that giving up freedom for security means yielding to dictatorship; where there is no such thing as security, even for in group!
This is not all...
Paraphrasing Zimbardo
We must be:
- Able to admit our mistakes and learn from them
- Aware that even smart people can do very dumb things
- Responsible, for our own actions and those of our group
- The best we can be
- Respectful of legitimate authority; resistant to unjust authority
Present Policies Have Had Their Chance
For Ten Millennia!
- Let us try less dogmatic procedures known to work.
- Let us try putting:
- Idealism ahead of short-term gain.
- Diplomacy ahead of guns.
- Civilization first.
The Current Situation is Most Serious
Under present policies and reactions to terror, it’s only a matter of time until a suicidal extremist goes nuclear, and not necessarily on God's command.
- “Tooth for a tooth,” has not brought peace over six millennia.
- Neither has any political, religious, or secular movement succeeded at bringing peace to the borders.
- On the contrary, many have declared or waged war, and
still do, in the name of God or in other cases a slogan that demonizes others.
Authoritarianism
Common Themes in Violence & War.
- Sociopathic, psychopathic, or narcissistic leaders exploit Authoritarian tendencies in the genes of most of us to establish despotic Systems that motivate, even create, violence through humiliation and alienation.
- Organized violence, terror, war, and genocide arise when:
Nature handles overpopulation by famine, pestilence and war
This is merely another way that humanity has not risen above the animal world.
- Myths arose in prehistory to ease the mind.
- Once useful, dogmas are now threatening: “Go forth and multiply” is one of them
- Dogma proscribing active birth control aggravates conflicts over resources.
- The allegory of the wine barrel is an apt metaphor for human destiny.
- Microbes consume all the sugar only to die in their own effluent.
Scientific study of four pairs of Indian cities, each pair balanced ethnically and population-wise, showed:
Integration in all sectors of society is an effective way to reduce ethnic conflict. A great deal of the current unrest on earth is driven by ethnic and/or religious differences.
Consilient research reveals that instincts are genetic expressions toward violence--aggression, dominance and obedience. In counterpoint, altruistic, parenting and herding instincts were fit for survival. In this way a dichotomy in nature was born.
Peace is possible on international scale
- After WWII Japan democratized, Europe rebuilt
- New democracies & European Union formed
- Marshall Plan led to stabilizing forces: UN and NATO, now include former enemies.
New democracies have been relatively peaceful.
Some Cultures are Peaceful: Why?
- World Capitals: Tokyo, has a murder rate only 5% of that in Washington DC.
- Nations: Violent crime in Norway or Portugal is 15-20 times less than
that in America.
- Cities: Honolulu or El Paso are 15-20 times safer than Baltimore,
Detroit or Washington DC. (FBI statistics.)
|
Given these facts, how did nurture create such differences?
Option 1: Some societies evolved, “learned more,” than others mired in dogma.
Option 2: The safe cities are more homogeneous population-wise.
Option 3: Both? This is what we think.
|
Tools Built In By Nature For Peace
- Mothering instincts developed early in natural
history—evident in dinosaur fossils.
- Mothering, reinforced herding genes, and offset fierce and dominant genes.
- Altruism is a common trait among species in our genera. Individuals
help next of kin, friends, even strangers.
- Herding is a common life-preserving behavior throughout the animal kingdom.
- With intelligence, parenting, altruism, and herding instincts, nature provided a tool kit for opposing violence. These instincts made civilization possible in the first place, even if violent. That tool kit today is more popularly known, when thoughtfully applied, as Nurture. Basically all we have to do is follow our own good instincts as we defend against the not-so-good ones.
Read-over of our genes
into civilization expression
| From:
|
Jungle & Savanna: |
To:
|
Civilization:
|
| From:
|
Gene Group Survival
| To:
|
Authoritarian Traits; Sociopathology
|
| From:
|
Survival Techniques
|
To:
|
Violence vs Cooperative Defense
|
| From:
|
Fierceness
|
To:
|
Aggression
|
| From:
|
Dominance
| To:
|
Hierarchical Submission
|
| From:
|
Herding instinct
| To:
|
Conventionalism
|
| From:
|
Parenting
| To:
|
Altruism
|
Origin: It is All In Our Genes
Genes for Intelligence: Intelligence in the genome of Homo sapiens evolved in the jungle and savanna, and, aided by certain emotional genes, became dominant in the biosphere.
Succeeding in the
survival of the fittest were genes for:
- Fierceness (Aggression: Fighting other species & Homo; Personal Survival)
- Dominance (Hierarchy: Turf war: Homo vs. Homo; Personal Survival)
- Herding instinct (Conventionalism: Cooperating within genus)
- Pack Hunting (Cooperation: Personal/species survival)
- Parenting, nurturing & altruism (enables all others, for better or worse.)
Peace-relevant insight from this experiment.
A mere “egg shell” separates our peaceful and violent behaviors. This features erupts when certain conditions are ripe. Violence is the usual result whether domestic or international terrorism, war and genocide.
Abu Ghraib System: Phillip Zimbardo
- Zimbardo was an insider to Abu Ghraib, after the fact.
- He saw: A corrupt “American system".
- He concluded: “The Problem Is Not About Bad Apples In A Barrel,
It Is About Bad Barrels.” (Created, of course,
by a few high-level Bad Apples!)
Social Conditions Existing At Abu-Ghraib
- RATIONALIZATION / SELF JUSTIFICATION (Guards)
- Explaining away discrepancies between private morality
and public actions on a "rational basis"
- OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY (Prisoners)
- Humans have strong instincts for obedience to the powerful.
Social Conditions Leading to Trouble in
Abu-Ghraib, Rwandan genocide
- DEHUMANIZATION (Guards)
- Excluding others from the moral order.
- DEINDIVIDUATION (Guards)
- Feeling little personal responsibility in anonymous situations
where external social restraints are weak.
- PASSIVITY IN THE FACE OF THREATS (Guards & Prisoners)
- Fear of retribution by the "in-group."
The Stanford Prison Experiment, SPE
Phillip Zimbardo, Professor, Stanford University--Social Psychologist:
Extended Adorno’s and Milgram’s work
- Zimbardo’s SPE experiment predicted later events:
- Abu Ghraib and similar detention centers
- The several modern genocides
- The SPE became a “SYSTEM,” a miniature system that foretold Abu Ghraib—all too realistically!
Came as another national surprise.
-
North American college students:
- Were corrupted in 24 hours, feeling and playing
the roles of abusive tyrant or crushed prisoner
- The first “prisoner” broke in 36 hours.
- This is the Lucifer Effect.
- A product of the SYSTEM--and predictor of Abu Ghraib!
The trap: Sociopaths like to do their dirty work in the dark. This is akin to snares set by the Far-North trappers. We don't see it--too late, we feel it.
- From previous page: What if, in more private environments, our hot shot:
- irritates, scares or antagonizes others;
- never takes responsibility;
- is manipulative, demanding and
- always puts his/her self-interest first with
no concern whatever for others—or the consequences?
- This composite is sociopathic.
Recognizing the Sociopath
- Imagine meeting a hot-shot, funny and engaging with a stage presence that has no bounds—the life of the party.
- What more could anyone ask?
- We would likely vote for this person; who would not? S/he is most likable, and memorable. S/he even might have made us feel good about ourselves, we might even love them.
Martha Stout’s Frank Assessment
"Short of a sociopathic leader who diverts the course of an entire nation, leading it into genocide or unnecessary war, the psychopathic killer is surely the most terrifying example of a psyche without a conscience..."
Stout Continued: What We Need to Know
- Some 4% of all of us are sociopathic according to Martha Stout. Multiples more of us have hang-ups.
- Those with connections, money, ambition, and charisma can co-opt nations as Napoleon, Hitler, and a later “unitary president” have shown.
- Sociopaths are often charismatic, beguiling, smart, and attractive.
- Some are serial killers.
- Responses from others feed their needs for control and winning.
Martha Stout, Psychotherapist
Author of:
“The Sociopath Next Door”
If there is a singular personality type that consistently gives rise to violence, it is the sociopath--aka psychopath. Narcissists are similar, but are typically out of touch to significant degrees. Such people are not psychotic; their psyches are distorted. They are amoral, robots without feelings for others or for the consequences of their own actions. Their main goal is to win. Martha Stout shows their features in sharp relief in her book:
"The Sociopath Next Door."
Things We Can Do As Individuals / Groups
How can we preventing extremism from corrupting governance at all levels from school boards to national office?
Neocon Manifesto: [Continued]
- Deter attack from whatever source;
- Strengthen alliances;
- Preclude others from interfering in areas of American
Interests. [interests, even if soil, read that as Imperial Economic-Interests]
- Shape the future through cooperative relationships.
- Maximize value of ad hoc [military] coalitions.
- While US cannot police world, it must never depend
solely on international mechanisms. [Pre-emptive war is OK.]
John Dean – Public Servant
- In his “Conservatives Without Conscience,” Dean is talking about the Neoconservatives or
Neocons.
- They are Authoritarian to the core.
- Without conscience defines the
Sociopath.
John Dean – Public Servant
In addressing the trend in Republican politics since Nixon, Dean writes:
"Much of what I have to report is bad news. But there is some good news, because while authoritarians have little self-awareness, a few of them, when they learn the nature of their behavior, seek to change their ways. Thus by reporting the bad and the ugly, it may do some good. At least that is my hope."
Neocon Manifesto: Continued
- Promote democratic consolidation among the republics of the former USSR.
- In Middle East, foster stability;
safeguard US access to airways, seaways, and oil.
Who we are