When talking group affinity, there are usually several categories one can use.
Universally among humans, but also among monkeys, and many other mammals and birds, there is a distinction between Kin and non-kin.
I am personally unfamiliar with any further group of humans that do not recognize the second category of friend.
Also...there is a universal category of tribesmates, which I think translates into "members of my community"... but doesn't translate cleanly, largely for Dunbar-number reasons. I label this as close acquaintances.
And then...there are a whole bunch of categories that some people notice, and other people don't.
Crazily, some people give a shit about which patch of ground you were born on. Other crazy people give a shit about what color you are. What language you were taught growing up. What sky-god or earth-mother your parents taught you to obey. Which school your great grandparents went to. What gender your god constructed you to find physically attractive.
I mean ... I'm sure someone is benefitting from tricking all sorts of folks into caring about groups that are irrelevant to that person's life. Making us-them distinctions has usually created group-cohesion benefits mostly for the tribe's leaders, and has the added benefit of making a whole bunch of dumbasses do what the leaders say, for fear of "the other".
I consider it the most dangerous psychological force on the planet. Smart, unscrupulous people playing on idiots group-belonging-ism.
I'm sure someone will bring up the quote I can't remember about liberals and groups. I prefer Bryan Caplan's phrasing:
Family, Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers. 4 categories. Only 4 categories. All the other ones are bullshit that someone is using to screw with your loyalties...and move them off the sane 4-categories.
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34 comments:
You can/should divide strangers into criminals, bankrupts and everybody else, in these modern days of background checks and credit reports. I suppose you're still treating them "the same" in the sense of before you know anything about them.
Alex,
I am happy with that kind of grouping.
My personal variety is dangerous to me/not dangerous to me.
Aretae,
If your group can not extend loyalty to a metagroup large/powerful enough to defend itself against groups that do, it is screwed in any sort of intergroup competition. And you don't get to decide what group you belong to, the other groups decide that little detail.
Aretae, I have to disagree on the “only four categories” part, although I don’t want to throw out your point.
I know you don’t have any strong community grouping so I’ll give an example. Our commune has a volunteer fire brigade. (A commune is a government division in France with a mayor – ours is a bit under 10 square miles.) A lot of the communes out here in rural France have these fire brigades; they save lives and property. It is one measure of strength of the community along with local schools, number of children and how well attended your annual fete is.
Our commune had a population of 380 at the 2008 census yet we have 22 volunteer firefighters. Why do they do it? I think the biggest factor is a “help the commune when it needs it” mentality which also includes its flipside of “the commune helps me when I need it”.
I could go on for hours about how the community works. It is like your ingroup-outgroup division, although with 380 folk I don’t know but a fraction of them so they’re not acquaintances. The physical closeness of the folks in the commune gives you a strong social feedback mechanism and enforces behavioral standards. This isn’t someone screwing with my loyalties for personal gain, it is a community helping each other out. You don’t have to buy your wine from the guy in the commune, but you do. He’s going to look after you because if he doesn’t word gets around.
Another example: my cows escaped the other month really early in the morning and the local chimney sweep, on his way to work, drove half a mile up the lane to our farmhouse to wake me up and warn me. Compare that to one of the blogs I read about a farm in WA where pig escapes get reported to the cops and they get fined. Now when it comes time to sweep my chimneys who am I going to call? And yeah, we use chimneys.
Your four categories probably work fine in the city – like I care whether I buy my second-hand tv from the guy in this neighborhood or the next - but out here things are a little different. But thinking a little more maybe they do work in the city, too. If I bought my second-hand BMW motorcycle from a fellow member of the local BMW motorcycle group then there’s a social feedback mechanism. If he or she rips me off then word will get around.
Will Wilkinson and Jonah Goldberg had a related discussion about patriotism on bloggingheads.tv a while back...
My girlfriend and I discussed this recently, too. We both sympthatized with Wilkinson's view, which closely maps to yours and Caplan's, but I decided to take up Grossberg's POV for fun.
I argued that group loyalty is good to the extent that it is inclusive, and bad to the extent that it is exclusive. So an expansion of my group loyalty from the "family" category (one of Bryan's "sane" ones) to a regional or national or racial or even sexual level, could actually reduce overall exclusivity by making my circle of loyalty bigger than it otherwise would have been.
This wasn't exactly Jonah Grossman's stated argument, but he kept bringing up similar examples, like the adherence people in Utah and New York have to the Constitution of the United States, a development he thinks is a good thing despite the fact that it comes from in-group loyalty, to wit patriotism. Wilkinson's counter-examples were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On whether such divisions make any sense, i.e. whether they are "sane," this is a different question from whether they are good or bad. Grossman seemed to begrudgingly agree with Wilkinson that group loyalties like patriotism didn't make much sense objectively, that they were basically arbitrary, but that they are an inescapable and undeniable part of being human, so what good is it to consider changing them. Here I side with Grossman in the short run, and Wilkinson in the long run.
*sorry for saying Grossman a bunch of times there, I meant Goldberg... I have a friend named Jonah Grossman, it gets very confusing.
Aretae,
Does it matter whether a stranger can speak your language for you to interact? Does it matter whether a stranger comes from a more racist culture than yours? Does it matter whether a stranger comes from a much more violent society?
No you say? Strangers from one place are just as safe and helpful to you as strangers from another? What if these strangers are iq 70 Muslims who remove female genitalia? Are these strangers just the same to you as strangers from South Korea or New Hampshire? Do you no longer understand what average differences are?
And considering that you already recognize that normal humans care about these distinctions a lot, what kind of moron would you have to be to welcome loads of people who are different and dislike you for that reason? Are you going to pull an Aslan so that they will learn to like you? Wow, that sounds pretty hopeless.
Aretea,
This whole post reads:
I DECIDE WHAT THE DIVISIONS ARE AND YOU ACCEPT THEM BECAUSE I SAY SO.
That's it. I'm not yielding moral authority because you think your personal preference divisions are better then my personal preference divisions. Your reasoning isn't strong enough to justify it objectively, and the subective isn't enough to make me change my mind.
Crazily, some people give a shit about which patch of ground you were born on. Because this is important.
Other crazy people give a shit about what color you are. Because this is important.
What language you were taught growing up. Because this can be an important marker. Why ignore it?
What sky-god or earth-mother your parents taught you to obey. This can be an important marker for other things. Why ignore it?
Which school your great grandparents went to. This can be an important marker, a short hand for many other things. Why reject this information?
What gender your god constructed you to find physically attractive. I've found this to be important for a host of reasons.
I mean ... I'm sure someone is benefitting from tricking all sorts of folks into caring about groups that are irrelevant to that person's life. This would be Aretae, who wants me to import 10 Burundi's into my home because their quality of life will increase massively.
Making us-them distinctions has usually created group-cohesion benefits mostly for the tribe's leaders, Sounds like our current elites, who have given us the White guy/everyone else distinction.
...and has the added benefit of making a whole bunch of dumbasses do what the leaders say, for fear of "the other". The "other" here being racists, homophobes, sexists, etc.
I consider it the most dangerous psychological force on the planet. Smart, unscrupulous people playing on idiots group-belonging-ism. Amen.
I'll second nony 4:53. The post has a dictatorial feel to it. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Reactionaries like "dictators".
You will admit family as sane, but what about larger partly-inbred kin groups? Seems to me whatever basis you have (evolution? how does it possibly justify anything?) for dictating that FAMILY SANE will also work with clans and tribes and even races.
Also, I'll second backyardfoundry on language. Being able to converse with someone makes them far superior for almost any sort of interaction. But culture itself has some language-like features in this respect. How do you see yourself interacting with, say, a culture where the patriarch can and is expected to beat his wife, children and dogs routinely for any disobedience? Or, for that matter, a culture in which all members of your race are held to be evil, oppressive victimizers who deserve whatever they get at the hands of any member of aforementioned other culture?
Aretae,
Do you consider American blacks to be crazy for preferring payoffs to their race or for viewing themselves as a people who are different from others around them?
Short answe: Yes.
Given my black wife, I spend substantial time in black-only (except me) gatherings. Black racism is (in chicago) is no better, perhaps worse than white racism (in chicago)
But if one judges Blacks to be benefiting from our current racial consciousness, it would not be crazy to want the good times to continue rolling.
Jehu puts it well, but I wrote 2000 words on this exact question two years ago, so I'm going to stick my oar in anyway and excerpt it:
Humans are social, and need to form groups to succeed. As well as pursuing my personal goals, I need to gain the cooperation of my neighbours. How to do that is the larger part of what is normally thought of as the sphere of morality. [...]
All we can say is that it is necessary for me to conform to the collective expectations of the other people I interact with - to fulfill my designated role in whatever society.
For that to make sense, I have to know what my society is. In theory that's difficult: it's some group of people who interact with me and share expectations of each others' behaviour.
[...] we need to identify which individuals are the ones we care about, from the point of view of succeeding personally by fulfilling our expected role in society. There are two answers, on two levels. First, those who we expect to interact with in future. Second, those who can change the expectations that we have towards the first group, and that the first group has towards us. If someone will be dealing socially with me, I need him to be within the social framework. If someone can affect the social framework itself, I want him to be constrained not to damage its effectiveness or longevity.
That's still, on the face of it, rather imprecise. However, for most people, through most of history, it's been very easy to work out. There's a good reason for that: if you don't know who is in your society and who isn't, you are in a lot of trouble - at least your society is, and that means that, in the long run, you are too. With personal love comes jealousy, and with the patriotism that gives a society its longevity comes a certain chauvinism. That's a necessary feature, not a bug. If someone isn't a member of your society, they need to be kept away from it, or at least made powerless over it, lest they damage it.
A bunch of black Chicago strangers hate you on sight because of your skin and you would consider it "crazy" to view them differently than white Chicago strangers? Is this suicidal liberalism? Are you pulling a Brian Beutler?
No...I moved out of Chicago, because living in a place with that kind of racist bullshit was intolerable. I moved to South Texas where no one notices mixed race couples black/white white/hispanic hispanic/asian black/asian whatever. Racist places suck, and I oppose all sides.
Aretae,
"I was rich enough to move away from the problems my policies cause."
That's universalism, summarized.
Anon,
I met my wife in Houston, I live in San Antonio. Both are both more diverse and less racist than Chicago. I don't know what you're smoking. I move to places where my preferred policies are implemented, and they work.
Aretae,
I think you need to define "acquaintances" a bit more functionally.
Wobbly's post (the only one that brings up personal experience) mentions his commune of 380 people. These are not "acquaintances" as normally defined. But the FUNCTIONAL aspects he mentions seem to be the same as why acquaintances are a significant group.
ie. Personal reputation. Someone knowing who you are, and which cows belong to which person, and where that person could be found. And that acting in a positive manner would result in reciprocation.
I think these are all the features that make an acquaintance into a significant grouping for interpersonal behaviour, but perhaps a different name is needed to separate out the "but I don't really know him personally" bit.
Aretae,
You left Chicago because it was full of racist Chicagoans. Who became that way because of where they're from. So you're 'crazy.' You view people differently because of where they're from. You actually moved away from them to avoid them.
Now, AGAIN, why am I then 'crazy' because I don't want to live near statist, iq 70 Muslims who excise clits and kill infidels when the numbers are on their side?
Aretae,
1) A lot of people don't get to choose to live someplace else. They aren't high IQ knowledge workers. They mostly stay near where they grew up and where their family is because they need the support network to survive.
2) When you got to San Antonio you promptly bought a house sufficientely seperated from dangerous NAMs and homeschooled your kids away from dysfunctional NAM public schools. Most people can't do this. They live where they can afford and send their kids to school where they can afford. Who moves into their community therefore matters a lot.
---
Like most universalists you don't pay the cost of your universalism. Your circumstances allow you to isolate yourself from them. Others of your nation pay for them. If anything you benefit, since importing more labor drives down the cost of labor raising the real purchasing power of your income. You also get to talk about what a universalist you are which makes you feel good about yourself and helps you out in social status game.
And it isn't about the universalism itself, because if it was you would act in a wildly different matter. No, it's about adopting a moral framework that just happens to make you a saint and benefit you personally. Shocker! It's almost like your just making up shit as you go along like everyone else.
Anon,
You're making up stories so they fit your narrative. Unfortunately your imaginings don't resemble reality.
I grew up in a town that makes portland look like a lower class hotbed of diversity. I started homescholing other folks kids in my hometown because education is my topic and mass schooling is atrocious. Swore up down and sideways that my kids would never go to school, having never seen diversity in my life.
After college I moved to russia, and worked for $10/hr teaching english in moscow. Exploring diversity. Then I moved to houston (for a girl), made $15/hr living in poor neighborhoods in houston while working at a vocational school for working class folks movin into IT. Heavily mixed race. Later...I married one of my black ex-students. We lived together in houston...then I got a rich person job, and we moved to mixed race neighborhoods in Austin looking for diversity for our mixed race children. Black muslim, poor white trash, hispanic, poor young mormon family who could never pay their low mortgage.
Someone offered me a month long gig in Chicago. I lived in poor, minority only neighborhoods, and took trains around where I was the only white guy on the train to go home at midnight. And then the only white guy on the bus.
I got a long term job offer in chicago...I moved to a white-bread racist environment because I didn't know how bad midwestern cities were about race issues. Wasted 3 years there in a racist hellhole (fo a good job) before going back to whitebreadtown...and then back to diverse texas where my kids get to have friends of all races, and don't get screwed up by idiot atttudes about race that I found elsewhere in the country.
You want to push your narrative vs. My dad, a berkeley liberal in white-town? Ok. Against my gay sister in portland? Ok. Against me and my black wife from texas who live preferentially in mixed race areas so our kids see real diversity? I need some of what you're smokin'.
Is the diversity you tout going to last? Is it going to out-compete the mono-racial communities that I see growing in this country?
Doesn't real diversity require separation? If we mix all members of a species in one habitat, just a few (often only one) survive.
Aretae,
The point about homeschooling is:
1) You can afford it (you don't need two incomes).
2) You don't care if the schools suck because your kids don't go there.
It doesn't much matter if your neighborhood is "diverse" if its all high IQ minorities that act civilized. Smart black people might as well be white as far as diversity goes. That's why black people make fun of any other black people that act smart and civilized. Compared to the median black person that is way out of character.
I have a black GF too. I grew up in a diverse neighboorhood too. My highschool had all of five white kids in it. I don't use this as an excuse to justify my views on life like you.
My high school with five white kids also had an average SAT of 1400/1600. I could say it was diverse because they were Asian, Indian, Russian, etc. Or I could be honest and say they were all the same type A high IQ nerds with involved parents and similair cultural attitudes.
When well off people say they like diversity they mean they like hanging out with the right edge of the bell curve of minorities that act like they do and can afford to live in their neighboorhood.
It's everyone else that has to deal with the 80 IQ unassimilated violent middle of the minority bell curve.
Jacob,
Welcome to the blog. Sorry I missed the welcome in my argument with Anon.
Anon,
Again, I think you misread my comment.
I had NO diversity growing up. All white, not so geeky as yours. Besides the few of us in college classes before age 10.
I don't live with rich high IQ people when I move to cities. I have my kids play with neighbors, who are sometime poor, black, and low-IQ. Because I want diversity. Low diversity neighborhoods are the worst ones I've lived in. And real diversity, not the diversity you're talking about.
I repeat...you have a narrative about me that is false. You might consider the possibility that I am actually pro- immigration and pro-diversity for real...not from a distance.
It may be true that if someone believes in/accepts/tolerates the truly horrible system that is the public schools, then they necessarily have other crappy opinions as well (anti-diversity).
But I hated the schools before I heard of diversity, long before I hung out with any non-SWPL black folks.
I haven't figured out whether the police, the schools, or occupational licensing is the worst thing going on in america today. The schools have been my answer for 25 years...but I think the other two may be bigger structural problems. Maybe.
2. I know welfare moms, and families of 4 living on $20K annually in Chicago, who won't send their kids to school because school itself (not the particular schools) is so bad. I don't think you can blame my homeschooling decision on wealth.
RSF,
I assert that strong economic growth beats ethnicity. If you can become rich by working with a Nigerian and a Filipina...then you work with the two foreigners, and you get along with them.
If you are stuck in an economic stagnation, then you start looking for "other" to blame, and other races works pretty well as a scapegoat.
It's not shocking at all that the best cities (my experience) in the country for diversity are also the best cities in the country for business, and the ones with the lowest government interference with business as well.
If the world goes to hell in a handbasket, bet on the monocultural Amish. If the world thrives, bet on multicultural, diverse Houston.
I have my kids play with neighbors, who are sometime poor, black, and low-IQ. Because I want diversity.
Kind of a LMAO line. I'd be interested in what the kids think.
Low diversity neighborhoods are the worst ones I've lived in.
Research contradicts this.
You might consider the possibility that I am actually pro- immigration and pro-diversity for real...not from a distance.
I don't doubt your veracity here. Anon's point is that you can choose the immigrants and diversity with which you interact. Others don't have that option.
If you can become rich by working with a Nigerian and a Filipina...then you work with the two foreigners, and you get along with them.
What happens when new openings get continuously filled by Nigerians and Filipinas, until Aretae is the only White guy on the bus? Or do you play tit-for-tat from the get go? How do you keep race out of it? Or do you interbreed with the Nigerian and Filipina until everyone is the same shade? Then where is your diversity then?
goes to hell...thrives
If it only works in the good times, does it really work? If it works in the bad times, it works even better in the good times.
RSF,
We've been tangling about this particular point for >1 year now.
1. Good game theory strategies for times of scarcity make you worse off in times of abundance. Good strategies for times of abundance make you worse off in times of scarcity.
2. Diversity is an abundance strategy which works under the natural state of abundance until governments come in and actively create scarcity.
3. Jobs aren't a finite resource. How many jobs there are to be had is an (increasing) function on population. More people = EVEN more jobs (on average, ceteris paribus, etc.). Adding 1 filipina to the population will on average increase the number of jobs that could be profitably done by 1.003.
4. Jobs are not ever a resource to distribute. To treat jobs as something to distribute to your friends, co-ethnics, or locals is stalin's really really bad way of thinking about economics, and leads to stalin's outcomes.
Aretea,
I don't want to get into further comments because I have no place to criticize your parenting. Playing authority game isn't going to get us far.
I'll just say that I got the shit kicked out of me by proles growing up, and school was a hellish nightmere because charter school as it was 8 straight hours a day of dodging prole bullies.
My parents couldn't homeschool both because they were proles that didn't know how and they had to work.
Maybe you feel different because your kids inherited your strong fighter genes and they don't have to go to school everyday, so a little exposure to dangerous proles is ok with you. For me, it's pretty much the worst outcome that could ever happen.
Aretae, I flat out disagree with all your points.
Resources are finite, especially our ability to access them.
More people may or may not increase our wealth, it depends on the people. Do you think more Muhammad Attas increase our wealth?
*because should read until
While I agree with the over-arching idea, I have a couple bones to pick.
1. I would add in the category aggressor, or enemy if you prefer. Someone actively, or for that matter passively waiting to, aggress against one is not to be grouped with strangers.
2. The 1st group, family, for many individuals & other than for mating purposes, can be easily broken into the next 2 categories, friend & acquaintance. A sibling is usually a friend, a 2nd cousin thrice removed is an acquaintance.
3. I would tend to frame this in the actions of the actors involved, not in a label. I.E. instead of friends, it would be people the actor actively lives with and cooperates with. Acquaintances becomes people that you have met & cooperate with to the limit of mutual benefit, & so forth.
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