7 ms·

This was touched upon heavily in the book 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt, an amazing book if you're interested in this sort of thing and part of Bill Ga

This was touched upon heavily in the book 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt, an amazing book if you're interested in this sort of thing and part of Bill Gate's reading list where I first found it. This quote (by Bertrand Russell) stood out: "Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; and on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of individualism and personal experience that makes cooperation impossible."

pdwetz 9y ago
I'm not sure I follow his thought process on why "through the growth of individualism and personal experience that makes cooperation impossible." On a simple personal level, I'm for individualism and cooperation, so I'm not seeing the inherent conflict. Perhaps it's a matter of definitions?
- ergothus 9y ago
  The American culture values individualism...and also has a strong "you can't tell me what to do!" reaction to social pressure. If those points are connected, I can easily see too much individualism interfering with cooperation even if the base ideas are not in conflict. Evidence: who are the heroes in american TV and movies? The rebel against authority, the one that breaks the rules. Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, House, I could go on and on. We celebrate the idea of something we actively argue against in daily life. There's also some weird connection between extremes of claiming to value individualism and idolizing authoritarianism that I won't claim to understand, so I could be completely wrong on all of this. I'm not positive that extremes of individualism are a death knell for cooperation...but I don't find the idea unlikely either.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    > who are the heroes in american TV and movies? The rebel against authority, the one that breaks the rules. Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, House All of these heroes cooperated with close friends, colleagues, and other people in order to solve problems and achieve goals. The difference is not individualism vs. cooperation. The difference is cooperation based on the voluntary choices of individuals, as needed to accomplish goals, vs. cooperation dictated from the top by someone's ideology.
    - ergothus 9y ago
      I don't think we're talking about people that are utterly unwilling to cooperate with ANYONE. We're talking about whether they are willing to cooperate as a society.
      - pdonis 9y ago
        > We're talking about whether they are willing to cooperate as a society. And what does "cooperate as a society" mean? If there is indeed a goal that every member of the society has in common, then yes, it makes sense for everyone in the society to cooperate to achieve that goal. But too often, "cooperate as a society" really means that some people get to choose the goal and force everyone else to cooperate to achieve it, whether they agree with the goal or not. That is the kind of "cooperation" that the American culture of individualism rejects.
        ergothus 9y ago
        I feel like this is a bit of a straw man. Does american culture resist coercion? Yes, excluding a few big bandwagon issues and incidents. But that's not really the point. One might say when something needs to get decided or done, does the country get together and get it done or bicker and in-fight? Let's check some big "needs to get this taken care of issues": * Slavery - Somehow, the "land of the free" was one of the last developed nations to condemn this practice. And while racism is a separate issue, even over a century later we're still having large public arguments about whether the slaves had it "easy" (?!) * Climate Change - There is largely universal consensus that if current trends continue, there has been and will continue to be an accelerating increase in human suffering. Every developed nation on the planet agrees, almost every qualified scientist in the US agrees. We can accept that our scientists can predict the movements of celestial bodies across distances mind-bogglingly vast down to the minute, but trust our "guts" over them. Some might argue that the US is rejecting a goal chosen by everyone else, and doing so as a brave stand of individualism. I'd argue they are just demonstrating the issue. Do I need to go on?
        9y ago
- closeparen 9y ago
  When we celebrate rather than punish differences, we a get a population where people are more self-actualized and less oppressed, but have little in common with each other. If we are to have any semblance of community, we need to build it through voluntary associations. Trust, empathy, bonding, etc. are going to be a lot harder when someone's identity, life experiences, and circumstances are completely foreign to your own. I don't think it makes cooperation impossible, but as a practical matter it means we're more likely to need huge, complex institutions like the federal government to mediate cooperation. People also seem less likely to want to cooperate or sacrifice their resources for others who are nothing like them. One way societies have historically dealt with this is to close their borders, beat the shit out of internal nonconformists and, if they remain unrepentant, torture them to death in the public square by lighting them on fire. Subtler variants persist; for example, the official government's indifference to vigilante enforcement actions ranging from bullying (Japan) to beheading (Saudi Arabia). It seems clear to me that our culture of welcoming and celebrating differences is more just and causes better outcomes for more people, but it does mean that we aren't all in the same boat.
ghthor 9y ago
The constant battle between rigidity and chaos.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I disagree. It seems to be that collectivism, ironically, has made cooperation impossible rather than individualism. The government has taken on the role of "taking care" of your neighbor, so everyone stopped. Government guarantees you healthcare and income in retirement, so there's no need to have a family big enough to take care of you. And as the kid, your parents are taken care of, so your role is diminished. When a hurricane comes through and damages your neighbor's rooftop there's no need to pick up your tool belt, FEMA is going to cut them a check. People feel like they don't need to get involved in charity work such as feeding the hungry because the government takes care of that for the most part. Each one of those items and countless others seem like a great idea individually, but collectively it's destroying the social fabric of our nation.
- crispinb 9y ago
  Why then does the society with the flimsiest socialised provisions amongst rich nations (the US) also have on most measures by far the most precipitous collapse in social cohesion?
  - observation 9y ago
    European countries are much smaller than the USA. I realize that within the USA there exist differences but I think your population centers are far larger than ours. Europe has a larger population but it is very dense with small, medium and then rarer large communities (similar to Japan I think). The USA appears to me (this could be quite wrong) to have large, very large and then sparse communities. I wish I could summon up a one of those nice charts on this subject from gapminder! That would show immediately if there's something to it. It could also be simply that the American media and intellectual class are unusually neurotic and there similar issues exist everywhere but the local reporting in my country doesn't emphasize it as much.
    - crispinb 9y ago
      The relevant comparison is amongst all the wealthy nations (European, N. American, Asian & Australasian), not "USA" vs "Europe" (the various nations constituting the latter have highly divergent social policies). There are many differences among these nations. Some are densely populated (the Netherlands), some sparse (Australia). No comparisons I've ever seen amongst them however remotely suggests that as you add more sophisticated social welfare policies, this reduces social cohesion. On the contrary, such policies tend to smooth out the effects of inevitable industrial change, rendering populations more resilient. It's no accident that nations clinging to relatively crude social policy (the US, the UK) have far lower economic mobility than those using the state of the art (Sweden, Germany). And it is about sophistication, not absolute expenditure, by the way. France, for example, has high spending, but it's badly targeted and rendered inflexible by traditional interests, so on many indicators other than health, it looks more like the laggards (US, UK) than leaders (Sweden, Denmark, Canada).
losteric 9y ago
I blame the Cold War and decades of counter-collectivism propaganda. An entire generation grew up in that atmosphere... they became the nation's teachers and leaders, influencing the opinions of subsequent generations. Game theory shows small changes in behaviors and opinions can have massive downstream impact, as demonstrated by this interactive demo: http://ncase.me/trust/ http://ncase.me/trust/ (HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14864183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14864183). I haven't had any luck finding studies or data on this topic. The key would be voter turn-out for each party bucketed by age for the past few decades of elections. If my propaganda theory holds true, the Republicans would see a popularity boost that ages at roughly 1 year per year. That segment would be ~50-80 around now, which does match recent voting data (older voters consistently skew conservative) - but historical data is needed to track a bulge over time and disprove the "naive youngsters vote liberal" narrative.
- summer_steven 9y ago
  > [I blame the lack of] decades of counter-collectivism propaganda. How do Eastern European countries fare then? How about China?
  - losteric 9y ago
    Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what comparison you're drawing here. (Note: I specifically said collectivism, not Communism)
- cmurf 9y ago
  This is fair. My dad grew up in the Great Depression in farmland, and the Federal government stepping in is what prevented widespread starvation. And during the dust bowl, again the Federal government came in and taugh everyone better soil management techniques. And from that, most people in that time and place were Democrats and expected that the government helped fund and organize the things that needed to be done on a grand scale that individuals couldn't do, nor did insurance. Reagan did a lot of damage to the perception of what government should do and how citizens need to hold it accountable. Instead he described it in terms of being inherently bad, which is demonstrably b.s. but the country pretty much bought it as evidenced by his election, the ensuing cut in taxes, the near total stop in investments made to large scale private and and public infrastructure spending, and a shift to hoarding wealth rather than keeping it moving so that everyone benefits from it.

pdwetz 9y ago

I'm not sure I follow his thought process on why "through the growth of individualism and personal experience that makes cooperation impossible." On a simple personal level, I'm for individualism and cooperation, so I'm not seeing the inherent conflict. Perhaps it's a matter of definitions?

ergothus 9y ago
The American culture values individualism...and also has a strong "you can't tell me what to do!" reaction to social pressure. If those points are connected, I can easily see too much individualism interfering with cooperation even if the base ideas are not in conflict. Evidence: who are the heroes in american TV and movies? The rebel against authority, the one that breaks the rules. Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, House, I could go on and on. We celebrate the idea of something we actively argue against in daily life. There's also some weird connection between extremes of claiming to value individualism and idolizing authoritarianism that I won't claim to understand, so I could be completely wrong on all of this. I'm not positive that extremes of individualism are a death knell for cooperation...but I don't find the idea unlikely either.
- pdonis 9y ago
  > who are the heroes in american TV and movies? The rebel against authority, the one that breaks the rules. Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, House All of these heroes cooperated with close friends, colleagues, and other people in order to solve problems and achieve goals. The difference is not individualism vs. cooperation. The difference is cooperation based on the voluntary choices of individuals, as needed to accomplish goals, vs. cooperation dictated from the top by someone's ideology.
  - ergothus 9y ago
    I don't think we're talking about people that are utterly unwilling to cooperate with ANYONE. We're talking about whether they are willing to cooperate as a society.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      > We're talking about whether they are willing to cooperate as a society. And what does "cooperate as a society" mean? If there is indeed a goal that every member of the society has in common, then yes, it makes sense for everyone in the society to cooperate to achieve that goal. But too often, "cooperate as a society" really means that some people get to choose the goal and force everyone else to cooperate to achieve it, whether they agree with the goal or not. That is the kind of "cooperation" that the American culture of individualism rejects.
      - ergothus 9y ago
        I feel like this is a bit of a straw man. Does american culture resist coercion? Yes, excluding a few big bandwagon issues and incidents. But that's not really the point. One might say when something needs to get decided or done, does the country get together and get it done or bicker and in-fight? Let's check some big "needs to get this taken care of issues": * Slavery - Somehow, the "land of the free" was one of the last developed nations to condemn this practice. And while racism is a separate issue, even over a century later we're still having large public arguments about whether the slaves had it "easy" (?!) * Climate Change - There is largely universal consensus that if current trends continue, there has been and will continue to be an accelerating increase in human suffering. Every developed nation on the planet agrees, almost every qualified scientist in the US agrees. We can accept that our scientists can predict the movements of celestial bodies across distances mind-bogglingly vast down to the minute, but trust our "guts" over them. Some might argue that the US is rejecting a goal chosen by everyone else, and doing so as a brave stand of individualism. I'd argue they are just demonstrating the issue. Do I need to go on?
        9y ago
closeparen 9y ago
When we celebrate rather than punish differences, we a get a population where people are more self-actualized and less oppressed, but have little in common with each other. If we are to have any semblance of community, we need to build it through voluntary associations. Trust, empathy, bonding, etc. are going to be a lot harder when someone's identity, life experiences, and circumstances are completely foreign to your own. I don't think it makes cooperation impossible, but as a practical matter it means we're more likely to need huge, complex institutions like the federal government to mediate cooperation. People also seem less likely to want to cooperate or sacrifice their resources for others who are nothing like them. One way societies have historically dealt with this is to close their borders, beat the shit out of internal nonconformists and, if they remain unrepentant, torture them to death in the public square by lighting them on fire. Subtler variants persist; for example, the official government's indifference to vigilante enforcement actions ranging from bullying (Japan) to beheading (Saudi Arabia). It seems clear to me that our culture of welcoming and celebrating differences is more just and causes better outcomes for more people, but it does mean that we aren't all in the same boat.

ghthor 9y ago

The constant battle between rigidity and chaos.

Consultant32452 9y ago

I disagree. It seems to be that collectivism, ironically, has made cooperation impossible rather than individualism. The government has taken on the role of "taking care" of your neighbor, so everyone stopped. Government guarantees you healthcare and income in retirement, so there's no need to have a family big enough to take care of you. And as the kid, your parents are taken care of, so your role is diminished. When a hurricane comes through and damages your neighbor's rooftop there's no need to pick up your tool belt, FEMA is going to cut them a check. People feel like they don't need to get involved in charity work such as feeding the hungry because the government takes care of that for the most part. Each one of those items and countless others seem like a great idea individually, but collectively it's destroying the social fabric of our nation.

crispinb 9y ago
Why then does the society with the flimsiest socialised provisions amongst rich nations (the US) also have on most measures by far the most precipitous collapse in social cohesion?
- observation 9y ago
  European countries are much smaller than the USA. I realize that within the USA there exist differences but I think your population centers are far larger than ours. Europe has a larger population but it is very dense with small, medium and then rarer large communities (similar to Japan I think). The USA appears to me (this could be quite wrong) to have large, very large and then sparse communities. I wish I could summon up a one of those nice charts on this subject from gapminder! That would show immediately if there's something to it. It could also be simply that the American media and intellectual class are unusually neurotic and there similar issues exist everywhere but the local reporting in my country doesn't emphasize it as much.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    The relevant comparison is amongst all the wealthy nations (European, N. American, Asian & Australasian), not "USA" vs "Europe" (the various nations constituting the latter have highly divergent social policies). There are many differences among these nations. Some are densely populated (the Netherlands), some sparse (Australia). No comparisons I've ever seen amongst them however remotely suggests that as you add more sophisticated social welfare policies, this reduces social cohesion. On the contrary, such policies tend to smooth out the effects of inevitable industrial change, rendering populations more resilient. It's no accident that nations clinging to relatively crude social policy (the US, the UK) have far lower economic mobility than those using the state of the art (Sweden, Germany). And it is about sophistication, not absolute expenditure, by the way. France, for example, has high spending, but it's badly targeted and rendered inflexible by traditional interests, so on many indicators other than health, it looks more like the laggards (US, UK) than leaders (Sweden, Denmark, Canada).

losteric 9y ago

I blame the Cold War and decades of counter-collectivism propaganda. An entire generation grew up in that atmosphere... they became the nation's teachers and leaders, influencing the opinions of subsequent generations. Game theory shows small changes in behaviors and opinions can have massive downstream impact, as demonstrated by this interactive demo: http://ncase.me/trust/ http://ncase.me/trust/ (HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14864183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14864183). I haven't had any luck finding studies or data on this topic. The key would be voter turn-out for each party bucketed by age for the past few decades of elections. If my propaganda theory holds true, the Republicans would see a popularity boost that ages at roughly 1 year per year. That segment would be ~50-80 around now, which does match recent voting data (older voters consistently skew conservative) - but historical data is needed to track a bulge over time and disprove the "naive youngsters vote liberal" narrative.

summer_steven 9y ago
> [I blame the lack of] decades of counter-collectivism propaganda. How do Eastern European countries fare then? How about China?
- losteric 9y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what comparison you're drawing here. (Note: I specifically said collectivism, not Communism)
cmurf 9y ago
This is fair. My dad grew up in the Great Depression in farmland, and the Federal government stepping in is what prevented widespread starvation. And during the dust bowl, again the Federal government came in and taugh everyone better soil management techniques. And from that, most people in that time and place were Democrats and expected that the government helped fund and organize the things that needed to be done on a grand scale that individuals couldn't do, nor did insurance. Reagan did a lot of damage to the perception of what government should do and how citizens need to hold it accountable. Instead he described it in terms of being inherently bad, which is demonstrably b.s. but the country pretty much bought it as evidenced by his election, the ensuing cut in taxes, the near total stop in investments made to large scale private and and public infrastructure spending, and a shift to hoarding wealth rather than keeping it moving so that everyone benefits from it.