Then yesterday I saw this TED talk posted on Feministing, with this note:

Check out journalist Krista Tippett as she performs “a linguistic resurrection.” She says, “We’ve come as far as we can with ‘tolerance’ as our only guiding virtue.” Amen.

This short talk really gets to the heart of the issue, and I’m especially struck by the affinity (in my mind anyway) between “compassion” and “hospitality.” Both do an excellent job of relating to the idea of fraternity — that all humans are part of an extended family.

I just started reading The Human Economy, and the first couple of essays on general globalization have me thinking about how, while humans have known about far away “others” for most of our existence, the issue of globalization is at root about an exponential increase not just in the interconnectedness of all humans, but in the awareness of that interconnectedness. What will we do with it, and how will we coexist? Is the paradigm of capitalism (extractionary competitive economics) the best answer, especially when only abstract capital (and those with the most of it) is what’s being liberated and globalized?

It strikes me that it might be possible to say, “OK, we’ve abstracted economic relations, and been alienated from our social relations — what if the next step isn’t to ‘solve’ this by getting rid of abstract economic relations, but to abstract our social relations, too?” Wouldn’t this be what global fraternity and compassion would be? An embracing of the abstract family of the entire human race? How would you interact with family? Differently from how people involved in capitalist abstract economics interact with each other? Probably.

So, maybe abstracting familial social relations in this manner, with a meta-awareness of all humans as brothers and sisters, would, in a way, inject humanity back into economics? Just a thought.

On a side note, isn’t it ironic that capitalism is often defended as the only solution to “the tragedy of the commons,” when it is in fact the opposite: the ultimate expression of that very parable, made global? Meanwhile when we actually had commons, people managed them quite well… in common. It’d be nice to return to that, in a global manner. Perhaps a paradigm of abstracted compassion and hospitality would help…

Once upon a time, to devote yourself to your work became a way to glorify God. To work was to be virtuous, to try to demonstrate that you must be a good person, even though you might not be because, of course, the final arbiter was post-life.

Nowadays, God doesn’t get much of a lick in anymore, but by golly if we haven’t replaced God with capitalism and productivity. And you women really aren’t cooking or minding the children as well as you used to…

Which reminds me, I’ve been thinking about public health issues and how any society does have some legitimate cause for encouraging healthy practices and setting standards of behavior on issues that go beyond an individual’s body. Infectious diseases, smoking, things like that, a society has some merit in monitoring. But the point should be “everyone’s health and happiness,” not productivity. And if what you’re doing only affects your body, I don’t care. I guess capitalists view productivity as affecting everyone – if too many people are ill or unproductive, “the economy” suffers, and so do others in society. We all have to do our part!

All glory to constant work! All glory to the hypnotoad!

(via Feminist Review, where you can read what the heck it’s about, because it’s early and I have to go to work)

You Just Don’t Get It

John Stuart Mill says this

…the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this mode; nor is it in the nature of human intellectual to become wise in any other manner. (On Liberty)

“Oh, that’s no fun,” I thought.

Isn’t it more fun to go with our first inclination? And stick to it. Especially when people disagree. When people don’t like our ideas, I have a suggestion. Shout:

You just don’t get it!

And then shout at them until they do…get it.

[...]

I was watching the Sky coverage of Israeli boarding of the flotilla. An interview of protesters in the street in London and some guy grabbed the camera to announce, “Sky has real problems and if you are watching this, you are probably a wanker.” There was something about the finality with which he said it that struck me. He knew that Sky viewers “just didn’t get it.”

[...]

American politics descended into “you just don’t get it” some time ago. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone rub their chin and say, “hmm, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s interesting.” God knows, I never say it. I’m too busy shouting, “You just don’t get it.”

There are two possibilities here, anthropologically speaking.

First, we have lost our Millian gift for a thoughtful examination of the issues. We are in love with the theater of being totally right all the time. We are addicted to emotional outrage. We don’t care there are deeper issues. When it comes to politics, we are all now divas. Give us the big gesture. Give us the sweeping condemnation. Or leave us out of it. Politics might once have been a game for sober souls. Now its for emotional show offs.

Second, the cultural world has widened. If we were to do a geographic mapping of the ideological space, we would discover that it has expanded. So much so that it is now vastly larger than it was in the Mill’s England. In this case, the outrage is entirely justified. We live in a larger world, where the differences really are more different. When the world of politics expanded, its tensility would not hold. Ground opened up. The consensus tore.

Probably both are true. And if they are both true, what then? How do we put Humpty Dumpty back together again?

Something akin to this has been on my mind for some time. Particularly the sort of paradox involved in feeling this way about the world: being exasperated that all of the people caught up in “you just don’t get it” absolutist theatricality… they just don’t get it.

Perhaps it’s the oldest problem of humanity: how do you transfer a willingness to listen to others to those who are unwilling to listen? Brings to mind the “empathy gun” of the Hitchhiker’s movie…

From this anthro blog post on understanding the people you’re trying to help and helping them in ways that are best for them instead of imposing your own assumptions.

Here is what poor Haitians define as elements of a good society:

1. relative economic parity
2. strong political leaders with a sense of service who “care for” and “stand for” the poor
3. respe (respect)
4. religious pluralism to allow room for ancestral and spiritual beliefs
5. cooperative work
6. access of citizens to basic social services
7. personal and collective security

[...] aid organizations have contested the first two of these: the first is seen as counter-productive to economic progress and the second as counter-productive to democratic principles.

[...] [RE: point 5:] Working in groups is part of rural life. It is accompanied by laughter, songs, jokes, games, and sometimes drinking. Collective play and performance “heat up” labor. Aid agencies often look down on what they perceive as rowdy and undisciplined behavior.

These sound like pretty good principles to me. I’d modify #2 a bit, I don’t think people need strong political leaders, but when such people assert themselves, they should definitely carry a sense of service and humility and be aware of power and consent. And the bit about play & cooperation is just priceless.