ATTACK OF THE OBAMITES II
Human Nature and Political Change

Okay, the responses to yesterday's post are starting to trickle in. Matt raised such good points that I'm making yet another main page post out of it all:

Wow, where to start. I'll try to keep it specific by addressing two points:

"I disagree with his assessment of "human nature." I believe that most human beings are compassionate, moral, helpful people: social conditioning must make them used to that which is intolerable; changing the culture means changing the social conditioning. A just, fair, and equitable society is possible. But even if it's not, that's no excuse for not trying to get as close to it as we can. Kind of like space travel and the light speed barrier, we can't break it, but we can approach it, and that's pretty fucking fast!"

You're saying here that we are born pure and that social conditioning makes us do bad things. I disagree - we are relatively well-behaved animals, my friend. We have the capacity to do good or evil but mostly tend to act in our own self-interest and have the capacity for great cruelty and destruction. Peer pressure is the best weapon to develop better behavior. Ironically, religion has always been about that but it gets hijacked by those who see its power as a rout to personal power and enrichment.

By the way, part of your contradiction in the above statement is something I see you do with business - you treat it as if it is a creature of its own instead of just a tool of humans and their nature.

Second point: "I totally understand his appeal, and fault no one for supporting him. I just think it's all a waste of time." Why then do you do your blog? Just getting off on self-righteous rhetorical masturbation? Or do you actually think change is possible? Why would you not try for positive change?

By the way, people complain about Obama not being more specific but I appreciate him not getting more specific. I want a president who will look at problems and issues on their own merits and with input from different quarters. We've seen what happens when you come in with your POV locked in - the same square peg keeps getting hammered into the same round hole. Tell me generally how you approach problems, combine that with your voting record and I know what I need to know.

In short: Cabernet is not on the menu, sir, but the Temprenillo can sometimes pack quite a punch. Why not give it a try instead of spending the whole meal complaining about the Cabernet?

With no further ado, here's my response.

Okay, I wasn't clear because I was trying to only touch on the "human nature" argument--it was just too big a can of worms for me to deal with last night, or most any night for that matter. But to clarify, I most definitely do not believe that we are "born pure" and that evil must be imposed by society. You're right; we do have the capacity for both good and evil, but I think good is the stronger drive, and that self-interest isn't as strong as you're asserting. That is, I think we are much more social creatures than we are individuals, as much as I like my own individuality. Generally, humans want to help their group, however that's defined, and will often engage in some kind of self-sacrifice to help others they see as being important to the group or themselves. Indeed, there is some exciting new neuropsychological research suggesting that such a drive is quite literally hard-wired into the human brain, which makes sense because one easily sees how this aids human survival.

But to drive home my assertion that social conditioning, made manifest in specific social situations, will make people tolerate acts of evil or oppression that they would never tolerate when divorced from such circumstances, see these two classic psychological studies, here and here. I see these studies as giving teeth to my belief, which you phrased quite well, that businesses are not simply "a tool of humans and their nature." That is, people will do things in organizational structures that they would never even think of doing on their own. Think of the now-proverbial health insurance claims officer denying claims at will, no matter what the human cost or terms of policy, in order to satisfy organizational imperatives, or the executive at, say, a chemical company or tobacco company who knows his product will kill people, but sells it anyway in order to increase profits, satisfy share holders, obeying the corporate imperative. These two businessmen aren't necessarily bad people - they're really only pushing paper - but their behavior results in real evil: to the best of my knowledge, Adolph Eichmann never personally killed anybody, but his paper-pushing resulted in the deaths of six million Jews, and lower but significant numbers of Gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and dissidents.

(According to a corollary of Godwin's Law, I've just lost the argument. Of course, I don't really believe in Godwin's Law.)

Yes, businesses are run and staffed by human beings, but, in some very important situations, businesses behave in very inhuman ways. They are not to be seen as simple projections of human nature.

As to your second point, if I'm really being honest with myself, I have to admit that my blogging is ultimately more about "self-righteous rhetorical masturbation" than anything else. I mean, if I was one of those bigtime bloggers, I might actually think I was doing some real good, but the number of hits I get strongly suggests that I'm simply not reaching the kind of audience that might result in some real change. In short, I really do enjoy howling at the universe, for its own sake. On the other hand, given the corporate media stranglehold on public discourse, I've come to the conclusion that only smalltime discussion, person to person, has any chance of changing attitudes and provoking the kind of cultural change I think is necessary before we can be really serious about political change. That is, I have hope that my chronic masturbation might actually be good for the country. Masturbating is definitely good for me.

Wait a minute: what were we talking about? Oh yeah, political change.

Again, my beef with Obama is that he's trying to get elected, which is a very different goal from changing culture, which is utterly necessary to provoke the kind of change he invokes in his speeches; without the culture behind him, he's doomed to failure, if a real change in political goals and actions is what he's after--the pro status quo forces he will be facing from within the White House have eaten other far more experienced politicians for lunch; think of President Clinton's failed attempt to integrate gays in the military, or his failed health care reform package. Harry and Louise are still out there, stilettos in hand, just waiting for Obama to turn his back.

On the other hand, I agree with your basic belief that politicians need to be pragmatic. After all, Republican slavish adherence to ideology that doesn't work in the real world is probably most blameworthy for the fine mess our country is now in. They just couldn't adapt to a changing situation that their ideology never predicted. However, my sense is that Obama is being intentionally vague simply because his opponents cannot attack what they don't know. If you don't talk too much about what you stand for, but offer some vague good vibes, it's easy for people to project their own desires and hopes onto you. It's all campaign strategy.

No sir, I think this restaurant does indeed have a bottle or two of Cabernet stashed somewhere. I'll tip you forty percent if you can find it and bring it to my table.

That is, I continue to believe that radical change is very possible. We're just not doing what it takes to get there. We're checking with the bar to see if there's Cabernet, but not willing to go to the wine storage locker in back, where we've had a case of the stuff all along.

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