The Big Picture

The way to achieve an ongoing optimum balance in a social body, along with proportion and symmetry, is to structure it with respect to the way in which all things are naturally structured; the macrocosm is formed out of the microcosm. All things are built from small discrete units.

The universe itself is created out of a mass of tiny particles, as is every object in it. A building is comprised of small components, bricks, for example. Anatomical structures are formed from microscopic cells. A social organism should also be structured in this way and anatomical systems can be a useful model in this regard. As Robert Wright puts it in his book, NON ZERO, “Analogies between societies and organisms go back to the beginning of cultural evolutionism. A state bureaucracy is a bit like a brain, and Aztec runners, sending commands to military outposts or distant farmers, are a bit like nerve impulses. That these analogies are easy doesn’t mean they’re worthless.” And now, with our greater understanding of how anatomical structures work and how we are biologically oriented, it might be prudent to view entire societies as actual living organisms subject to the natural scheme of things and view them as behaving in similar fashion to other living organisms.

We now live in an electronic world of information processing. We see everything as information processing and it seems that all of existence has to do with the processing of information in one form or another. And this is how a body politic, a social system, should be perceived as a processor of information. “After all,” writes Tom Peters in a section of his book, Liberation Management, “it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that the human body, the corporation and the economy are ‘nothing but’ information processing machines.” And it is no stretch at all to add to that list, social systems. The human body is an information processing system dealing with the maintenance and coordination of many different functions and organs, as is a social system, and the former can be instructive to the latter in fashioning an optimum operating system for social bodies.

Social bodies are complex entities, difficult and in some cases seemingly impossible to manage efficiently. On the other hand, our anatomies are even more complex and they are organized and managed in exemplary fashion. Of course, our anatomies are not perfect, things can go wrong with them, but for the most part they work quite well.

Overall, a healthy functioning body depends on the healthy function of each and every one of its organs. The body’s organs in turn depend on the healthy function of their individual cells. So, when each and every cell is in good working order the entire organism they incorporate is assured a healthy life.

So too with respect to social bodies; when each and every locality is in good working order the entire social organism they incorporate is assured a healthy life.

The body is instructed to provide for the health and welfare of each and every cell and the cells in turn provide for the healthy existence of the body. And this is also how a social body should work - constructed in regard to providing for the health and welfare of each and every locality while localities in turn provide for the healthy existence of the whole social body. And as each and every cell provides for all of its individual constituents each and every locality should provide the wherewithal for each and every individual to prosper.

An overall synergetic symbiosis created out of individual self-interest. That is a basic feature of life. We can’t expect a social body to exactly mimic it but given a totally transformative makeover it could closely come to resemble it. The desired, and I would think, universal goal here is to strike an ongoing salubrious balance between the self-interest and collective-interest that characterize the social body.

As it is now the self-interest of a powerful few dominates the social landscape everywhere. Whether the power elites are out for themselves or proclaimed do-gooders they thwart the possibility of creating a synergetic symbiosis between the self and the collective. They interfere with the natural confluence of the self-interest/collective-interest dynamic. This is, of course, unavoidable given the structure of social bodies now in place.

In as much as self-interest and collective-interest in the make-up of a social body are naturally mandated we can find it embedded in our social bodies. It works like this; collective interest is created out of a self-interest that is universal - the interest to survive, which amounts to an attraction to that which benefits ones survival. Everyone has an interest in their own survival. In order to survive in a modern society one needs to acquire money, one way or another. This results in the creation of employers and employees, which form collectives in the form of businesses wherein one’s self-interest in making money can be realized. The self-interest in making money results in one’s contributing to the success of a business collective and to the larger social collective through the payment of taxes. The problem is the dynamic is not allowed to operate freely from the bottom up so that the microcosm exerts more influence on the macrocosm rather than the other way around. There is a disconnect between the two that allows for the “Carnegie effect” where those in positions of power feel no allegiance to those who are not. (In reference to the great divide between the rich and the poor the tycoon Andrew Carnegie once quipped, “I am in heaven, they are in hell and that’s the will of God.”)

The microcosm has to be able to hold the macrocosm accountable at all times in every way. This was a major objective of the American Revolution, which got blindsided by the ascendancy of “special interests” looking to satisfy there own self-interest first and foremost without regard for the society as a whole.

The problem, however, is not with self-interest per se. The healthful conditioning properties of the natural world that channeled self-interested instincts and appetites are lost upon us in the confines of a civilized state

Take our appetite for sweet tasting foods, for example. We are all attracted to sweet tasting foods to one degree or another. How we were able to satisfy that appetite in the wild and how it is exploited in a civilized setting can be instructive here.

Honeycomb was an attractive delicacy for a primitive tribe. And in the wild it was there for the taking. But there was a price to pay. In order to get some honey for his tribe a tribesman climbs a tree and hacks away at a beehive with a stick delivering chunks of honeycomb to the ground below where fellow tribe’s people gather them up and bring them back to the rest of the tribe. The cost is multiple bee stings to the attacker of the hive, which dissuades frequent assaults and limits the portions that can be taken at any one time. Thus, in the wild appetites are effectively controlled by the nature of things.

In our civilized states sweets are readily available and easily acquired making overindulgence all too convenient. Appetite is a powerful motivator in the natural world that in a civilized world can become an out of control unhealthful indulgence. We say it is a matter of self-control but controlling an attraction that is linked to one’s survival instinct is a tall order. In the wild our appetites and instincts were plugged into the nature of things and were naturally restricted.

It is a very strong appetite that faces a swarm of angry stinging bees. It is very difficult to come to understand that something that makes so much sense to us, that seems so right, like eating sweet foods, can be so wrong. But our inclination toward eating sweet foods is not wrong at all. The problem is not inside us with what we want to eat but outside us with the products offered. We are not wrong but they, the products, can be wrong. The fault is not in our appetites but in those products that exploit and pervert those appetites.

Our innate inclination for sweet tasting food and the civilized-created-temptations that cater to it is a good, basic example of the convoluted situation our natures generally find themselves in with regard to the refinements of civilization. Instinctively guided cultural refinements can turn our natural appetites into unruly torments. In this convolution we tend to find fault with our natures. We get the idea that we don’t know what’s good for us.

Money exacerbates the situation. Money explodes communities into a compendium of individuals competing in a zero sum game where self-interest can manifest itself as greed. Money becomes the focus of all our appetites. With money we can have whatever we want. Without it we have nothing. We devise ways of getting as much money as possible. With money everything that was once seamlessly integrated in creating a tribal community becomes a particular commodity. Shelter, food, clothing, sex, aggression, intelligence, beauty, cooperation, competition, craftsmanship, knowledge, information, etc., all have a price. They were all, at one time, interlocking parts of a whole working tribe. With money they become disassociated objects that one seeks to sell to the highest bidder. That’s the law of survival where money calls the shots.

Being greedy for money is a result of one’s natural self-interest becoming individualized, isolated and distended by the matrix of civilization. How wrong is it to be greedy for money in an environment where one’s survival is solely dependent on making money?

Instinctually driven to provide shelters that protect us as much as possible from the exigencies of the natural world we have invented civilizations where our instincts, appetites and drives can be driven to distraction. A proper catalyst to bring about the synergistic confluence of individual self-interest is not provided for in our civilizations as it once was in the survival game of the natural world.

Religion attempts to act as that catalyst by declaring war on our instincts. We are taught that our instincts, appetites and drives are bad. Greed is bad. Self-interest is bad. Sexual desire is bad. Our appetite for food is bad. While vows of poverty, self-sacrifice, celibacy, and fasting are good. The world belongs to demons who want to destroy our souls by tempting our evil instincts. Only by denying ourselves the pleasures of the flesh can we survive for eternity. Just as we had to abide by rules and rituals for physical survival in the jungle we have to abide by the rules and rituals of religion for the eternal survival of our souls.

Religion’s great appeal is that it engages us in a game of survival. In the jungle it is good to physically survive and all our instincts are employed for that purpose. In civilization basic physical survival is not an overriding concern and our instincts become separate venues for self-gratification. Religion creates another world which it declares to be the real world where spiritual survival is good and we must deny the physical world along with our instincts as much as possible in order to achieve that survival. Of course, religious institutions don’t always practice what they preach as they cozy up to the rich and powerful, for instance, for their own physical benefit.

In civilized societies there is a need for a catalyst to mold our instincts into a positive creative force. But declaring those instincts evil is perhaps no longer the way to accomplish that. If it ever was. But traditional religions were born in ignorance. They didn’t know any better. Basically, our instincts are good but they need to have a vigorous conditioning process through which they are channeled into enriching endeavors. We don’t need to change ourselves we need to change how our civilizations are configured. We need to change the way in which our instincts are channeled through the social matrix. We need to change things with respect to present knowledge rather than continue on as we are with respect to the ignorance of the past.

To begin with we all need to develop a very strong sense that each and every one of us is the source of social order. That law, order and morality are concepts that have arisen and arise from within our very selves. That the social order we are subject to is of our own making and not something that needs to be imposed on us authoritatively from above.

In subsequent posts I will detail how this can be accomplished.