[lbo-talk] Film Notes

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Thu Oct 23 13:50:07 PDT 2003


From: "Luke Weiger"

I agree with much of your prior post: humans are an extraordinarily cooperative species (though not to the degree ants are). That's why we have ethics (or, at least, why we can have ethical beliefs and act on them): a system of rules for fair cooperation allowed many of our close ancestors to prosper.

^^^^^ CB: Yes, on ants, we might try to develop an index of cooperativeness and compare species.

The point I am trying to get at, since we are discussing human nature, is that to characterize human nature it makes sense to compare/contrast it with chimp nature, elephant nature,ant nature, "hominid missing link" nature. And that what is striking about this contrast and the transition to the human species is increased cooperation. That is a fundamental incite of anthropology. As you allude to , it , not competition, was the key to our relative prosperity. Capitalist ideology sort of tries to convince us otherwise ( I'll have to try to get to the discussions of "good" competition tomorrow).

I think your defining ethics based on cooperation and the criticality of our sociality is _very_ right on.


> How about an environment where there is no scarcity , i.e. nothing to
> compete over ?

Material goods aren't the only scarce resources in life. How about appealing mates, or esteem? ^^^^^^^ CB: Although I didn't confine what I said to material goods, yours is a natural question here ( Have to get to Justin's "positional,inherently scarce goods" etc. tomorrow , too). I have to honestly say that I think the appeal of mates and its scarcity is historically constituted in a lot of ways. For one thing, monogamy is historical. Group "marriage" and "promiscuity" , in some way, are probably actual original historic institutions. But even more, everybody is potentially "appealing" especially in a society...I'll just say in a "classless", etc.society, improved society, and leave that for further development if the thread goes on. Suffice to say I can sincerely imagine a society where there is an overabundance of appealing mates.

Esteem is similar I guess. Why can't virtually everybody be esteemed ? I do not see why esteem is inherently scarce or some kind of positional "good", as Justin refers too.

And as the thread has gotten to in other posts, there is "good" or non-antagonistic competition/contradiction. We have a physics competition, and after its ended, there is no envy of Einstein, the winner. We all benefit from his discoveries. From each according to ability ,and all are esteemed for what they can give in good sport; to each according to need, not based on life and death competition.


> Sort of like who gets the most runs in a baseball game is not a really
important, just
> kind of entertaining.

Tell that to the players during or immediately after the heat of "battle."

^^^^^^^ CB: Since playing softball is one of my main things, I truly know what you mean. When I don't hit, I am always depressed. We do ritually line up and high five all hands between teams after every game.

I do think "competition" might be preserved in various sports, in a society drastically less competitive overall. I think it would be important to preserve the social memory of the millenia of class society in harmless forms, for one thing so that people don't fall back into it in the harmful forms.



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