RESEARCH WHILE TREMBLING
Essays I’m scrambling through are noted here.
Sociality governs beliefs and behaviors. This is true of primates. The corrective is thought to be science. This line of reasoning goes back to the African savannah and talks about how one gets along in a tribe, getting help when needed and not being obnoxious enough to be thrown out. In fact, it must reach back even earlier to primates in bands.
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Another more recent set of ideas is about the Eurasian steppes or mid-continent grasslands and the first domestications, particularly of the horse, because it introduced the first real break in social equity. A man on horseback simply has more power, more reach, and more military effectiveness.
Then comes the invention of the wheel/chariot which has the same kind of advantages. Now military potency has as much importance as wealth and expands through armor, gunpowder, the industrial revolution and its extension into flying and submarines, to our predator drones and satellite scrutiny and control systems. Military inequity — symbolized by nuclear power — is now global and changing the social structures.
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Another line of thought derives from that and addresses directly the impact of social cybermedia, the Facebook/Google/Twitter that have recently become the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. On the one hand it has made crime much easier to pursue invisibly world-wide for things like money laundering or trafficking the vulnerable.
On the other hand it has left trails everywhere and reveals even the rioters at the Capitol this week. They see themselves as viewers and though they pursue shocking performance, they don’t expect to see their mug shots on the news. They could not tell the real from the series tales. And it was the cyber-platforms that made their gathering possible. It was a pop-up riot, covertly managed.
The “wealth” that the criminal and treasonous among them were quietly acquiring was secured computers and possibly the systemic insertion of cyber-monitors and hacks. They were entirely unprepared for their “selfies” to become proof of felonies. These days computers have GPS.
Psychologists — grad students with clipboards — are able to demonstrate how our subconsciouses are still back in the primate days when one did what everyone else did and how our pretensions of free-thinking are prevented by our brain structures.
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The other thought about the social media and also the TV story-streaming world is that much of it comes from a small demographic on the Pacific Coast, esp. the parental garages of LA. Not only did their work design the computers and platforms, but also their values and understanding of the world got build in alongside. Their ethic was based on individual genius, not social responsibility. (Watch “Halt and Catch Fire” for specifics.)
All during these grievous events I was watching “Longmire” and kept catching echoes. Even though it was a modern Western it was like the Fifties versions I loved because the storylines wrestle with law versus justice.
It’s all very well to talk about the Rule of Law, but a horde of lawyers devote themselves to proving that only SOME laws — maybe NO laws — can’t be reinterpreted or replaced to serve the rich and crooked. Don’t ask God — he is technically “deus absconditus.”
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Sudden overwhelming and seemingly unaddressed disaster is upon us. Not only do we not know what to do to control Covid, but also not what to do about climate change or irreducible garbage in the form of invasive molecular plastics everywhere. It used to only be toxics.
The paralysis of the Repubs has contributed to this idea, which insists on doom. There’s no use trying to do anything. Live it up while you can.
Stephen Benen’s book, “The Imposters” explains how the Repubs simply took their oars out of the water and let the boat drift while the Dems watched, is relevant.
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One of my own ideas is an addition to the three “F” responses to danger. (NOT fuck — at least not directly.) The idea is that a reptile and a mammal in extreme danger will Freeze. Later in evolutionary development, a mammal will Flee if they can, or Fight if they must. Much of this is involuntary, reflexive, and observable unless there is prior training or time to think (humans who CAN think).
But there is a fourth strategy that I call Fawn, which is what we’ve been seeing with Trump. It is hopefully capable of triggering protective, parental or sexual or ownership reflexes that will convert an attacker into one’s friend. The fawning usually goes from the more vulnerable to the more powerful. Consider how a baby can seduce the mother into getting what it wants. Nevertheless, fawning can create a lasting relationship that escapes the first three F’s.
The necessity of care and attention between mothers and babies, chemically/molecularly sustained, is evolutionary for mammals who must stay with the source of milk, cleaning, and defense until they are old enough to sustain themselves. The bonds that cling can be social and can cross species, as with pets or livestock.
Politically, fawning and attaching to powerful people or their movements may become central to identity. Religion, sexual preference, gender, origins, skills are all ways that can be guided by fawning, securing the attention of mentors and teachers. Those of us who think we reject fawning are generally just blind to ourselves. I include myself. One of my ways of coping has been to attach to powerful males, fawning by helping and praising them. Our society encourages it. Sometimes it deflects punishment. I woke up in the ministry where people were fawning on me.
Imitating fawning, which seems to be a big part of the political world and the world of the super-wealthy, is a treacherous basis for running a country. Ask Melania. She’s survived more than sexual fawning.
Right now many of us with Covid are dependent on care that comes close to fawning but is not personal. A person who cannot breathe is at the mercy of skilled nurses and doctors. This is a technological extension of what was once the care of babies but the patients now are sometimes even ungrateful, still denying and still wanting to be in charge. We have not evolved enough to know how to feel about this emotional work. It’s a form of battle, so maybe the relevant F is Fight.
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If there is a theme, it is that we’re not evolving fast enough to meet the situations. This can end whole species. Even pooling our talents and knowledge — which does help a lot — has exceeded our ability to persuade all people of what we know. I try to think of a cute word that begins with F. “Future” — but that’s not evolved behavior. “Freaking out” is not helpful.
I’ll have to think about it.
