Beliefs and Memes

My friend brought up the ubiquitous belief that society can't work well in the absence of government.

I will say without reservation that I believe there are certain functions that a government can carry out a lot more efficiently than the absence of government can.

You can't reasonably believe that statement, because you have never seen what an "absence of government" looks like, or what it can or cannot do. So where are the tests for such a theory? You can only believe that statement if you mean "believe" in a religious sense, i.e., "believe with no proof". There is no empirical evidence for the idea that we need a the monopolized guns of government to fill certain social needs, like courts, utilities, and protection.

When you say "I believe", it is your cultural brain-washing speaking. The people of every time period hold back progress* by believing "without reservation" that the current way of doing things is the best way. The relatively new concept of the "meme" **, coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976, is helping us to study the way knowledge and errors are passed from generation to generation. For what a meme is, start here, and here.

* By "progress" I don't mean economic progress necessarily. I mean overall human progress in the ideas of fairness, justice, peaceful coexistence, health, science, education, and all that good stuff. Economic progress is a good means to these ends, but most of our thinking on economics is severely clouded by our mercantilist / statist culture.

Talking about economics is a lot like fish talking about water - if fish could talk, they wouldn't have a word for "swim" because you take your milieu for granted. We have no word for "walk around on dry land while breathing air". Economics is like that for us. That's why misconceptions abound in the field of economics. Without one-size-fits-all government economic solutions, the damage caused by these errors would be easily-contained local problems, not severe world-wide carnage

** Some bloggers, in an attempt to appear more intelligent than nature intended, are using the word "meme" synonymously with the word "rumor" or "gossip". People! The word "meme" was coined in order to discuss the long-term evolution of ideas, not celebrity gossip or petty political battles.

My beliefs would start from the basis that America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution are basically sound. At their core is the basis for all people to live their lives without coercion and/or exploitation. And sadly, all those good ideas have been exploited, coerced, twisted, perverted, mangled, and corrupted beyond recognition.

I'm not gonna disagree with that too much. Dang it!

The only thing I would add is that every attempt at "good government" has ended up poorly. And, since the best advances in humanity have come from outside, and often directly opposed by, the purview of church and government, ... I conclude that you can't very well defend people from a system of exploitation and coercion by setting up another monopoly of exploitation and coercion. That kind of protection must be set up on the smallest, most local scale, by free individuals who are not hamstrung by government's "protection racket" monopoly.

In a State where the citizens have some voice, it is not the fault of the State when things get perverted and corrupted. It is the fault of the citizens for allowing it.

"Some" voice is right. I'm for 100% democracy - where I get 100% voice in how my life is managed. I get to decide without deference to the ignorant "majority". I decide where I want to compete, and where I want to cooperate. I decide when I need a "neighborhood group" and when I want to go it alone. Government takes this away from everyone, even the so-called "majority". Why do you disparage herd mentality but insist that it's the only way to get certain things done? That seems to be doublethink. Cognitive dissonance.

You agree that most states were conceived for evil purposes, but not here in the good old USA. At the same time, you are telling me that you aren't guided by emotions when you reason this out for yourself. Do you think in Saudi Arabia, in China, in Cuba, in Japan, in Israel, you pick a country, ... that "reasonable" people think that most other governments are bad, but theirs is pretty good? After all, their state has been fine-tuned by people with "good intentions" and "ideals".

You don't see any bias that you might have picked up from American schools and American culture? My "bias detector" is going off. It's a tricky thing to disregard bias, prejudice and conditioning while searching for reasonable and fair solutions.

I don't claim to be free from bias - Thinking back to my early teens, I may not have had these exact words in my head, but I have always had some basic assumptions that I start from:

that there is a fundamental "wrongness" to war even if you're the "good guys",

that stealing is wrong no matter how rich your victim is,

that fairness needs to be applied to creepy people as well as attractive people,

that force used in self-defense should be the minimum necessary to repel an attack,

that religion gives people excuses to hate strangers,

that the majority doesn't usually know what is right,

that we lose much in the long-term by compromising for the short-term, ...

I'm sure that I have general concepts in my head that are hardened by time and habit, not necessarily by logic and reasoning. The best I can do is examine these premises and throw away the small errors. I don't think I can throw away big chunks of my "attitude" all in one fell swoop. I "unlearn" things in small bites.

I've always been skeptical and inquisitive, wanting to turn rocks over to see what's underneath. I've always wanted to pull the curtain back to see the man operating the puppet strings. I'm not content until I find out how a magic trick is performed. I want to see past the illusions. But, I know that my understanding of the illusion might contain further illusions. I am skeptical of my skepticism. I think it's a blessing and a curse, and not always a good thing. But that's how I am, and I don't deny the assumptions that are contained in my reasoning.

All reasoning starts with assumptions, but anyone who claims to be reasonable needs to keep returning to examine their core assumptions (which mainly come from the culture that we grow up in). So we keep critically examining our culture; even if we can't change the mistakes immediately, we can point out the defective meme.

Another deeply held belief of mine is that most people are, at their core, sheep. They want to be told what to do, and what to think. They want to be led somewhere and don't care where as long as it's not "ere.

Amen to that. We evolved as "herd" critters. "Going against the group" got weeded out because those going against the group didn't take to the trees when someone yelled "Tiger"! Non-conformists died if they were too radical. We have lots of good reasons for going along to get along; it's called "culture". Culture is how we transfer lots of information from one generation to the next, without having to re-learn and re-invent everything.

There's nothing wrong with this "sheep" mentality, as long as we occasionally check the core premises to see if we're passing along outdated information to subsequent generations. Cultural information can be adjusted and corrected, but it takes several generations for corrections to take hold. That's where long-term commitment to principles trumps short-term compromise "to go along to get along".

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."

-H. L. Mencken

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