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Amaros -> RE: Consent in modern civilization (7/1/2008 7:38:38 AM)
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I think it's a valid question, and some good observations, but generally speaking, the reason people consent to loss of freedom is generally the result of valuing their safety over their freedom.
This is pretty much the dynamic of culture itself, the centripetal vs. the acentric - simply put, centripetal behavior is organized, hierarchial group behavior, like the military, and acentric behavior is individual behavior.
Ideally, it's not an either/or situation: the great apes, including hmans, are acentric-centripetal, meaning that our default mode is acentric, individualistic behavior, i.e., we act independently pretty much most of the time, centripetalizing when confronted by a common threat - centripetalism is adaptation that generates a group defensive response to a group threat.
A troop of apes will feed independently, doing their won thing until somebody spots a threat, a leopard is the common example, at which point the alpha males will form a sort of defensive screen, putting on displays and throwing things, while the females, children, elders, etc., beat feet to the trees.
Unfortunatly, in human culture, the more political members of the species have discerned that if there is not valid threat to centripetalize a consnsus, then one can be invented with the same effect - thus the "gay adgenda", "family values", etc., i.e., for some people there is always a threat, and they are maintained in continuous state of centripetal, hierarchial defensive alertness - these are called conservatives.
Others are acentric the point that they have a difficult time organizing at all, so wrapped up are they in themselves, but all in all follow much the same acentric centripetal pattern as the great apes.
One distinction between centripetal and acentric behavior is that acentrism is typically a more creative state - seldom do groups of people get together and innovate anything, they usually do whatever worked the last time - an individual by contrast, is more likely to look at a problem in a new way, and innovate some way to solve it, if this method proves effective or useful, it will eventually be adopted - if not, it will generally be ignored or suppressed.
Politics, once again, complicates the issue, if the innovation happens to be good or at least neutral to the average member of society, but threatening to the status quo, then a centripetal defensive response may be generated in indirect proportion to the actual threat, thus discussion itself, the primary means of consensus formation in human society, will be supressed, etc. - if it goes far enough, if enough people back a centripetal consensus, i.e., convinced the threat to the status quo is also a threat to them personally, then you may well end up with a feudal form of government, a dictatorship, oligarchy, communism, etc. if people are willing to surrender their rights thinking it's in their short term survival interests.
The stability problem here, is that to maintain control requires the constant generation of new threats in order to maintain the centripetal effect, so after the first Leopard is dealt with, new Leopard have to be invented, and typically, these sorts of political constructs end up eating themselves alive - sort of the way the PLO has fragmented, or the way religions splinter into sects and factions and end up preying on each other instead of praying for each other - it's the nature of the beast.
So, really, it becomes all about rational threat assessment: is the threat presented real or imaginary? How much information do you have?
BTW, just a prediction: we'll be at war with Iran before or shortly after the election.
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