A Few Notes on an Inconvenient Universe, part IV

[Cainad (dec.)]

This has really been stewing in me for a while now. Great to see it crystallized in rant form.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This has really been stewing in me for a while now. Great to see it crystallized in rant form.

[Cainad (dec.)]

 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This rant is a rant that is dear to my heart and my interests, and so, so, so unbearably true.

At least this is a thing that has become A THING, now, and there are people who are thinking and talking and even researching this punishment fetish we have, which runs as an undercurrent through, perhaps not surprisingly, most social structures in which the dominant culture is one that is historically derived from a desert society. The punishment fetish seems largely to stem from cultures that are shaped by the ideology of a universe that is vast, monotonous, and arbitrarily cruel; temperate societies  lack many of the most horrific features of desert societies, and also, interestingly, seem to be less pervasive and resilient, perhaps for the same reasons that they are more kind and egalitarian.

Evolution doesn't have morals.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We also may be the only species that has the potential option of planning our own evolution, which may be a far more important distinction than any other heretofore made about the differences between humans and other animals.

[P3nT4gR4m]

This rant is a rant that is dear to my heart and my interests, and so, so, so unbearably true.

At least this is a thing that has become A THING, now, and there are people who are thinking and talking and even researching this punishment fetish we have, which runs as an undercurrent through, perhaps not surprisingly, most social structures in which the dominant culture is one that is historically derived from a desert society. The punishment fetish seems largely to stem from cultures that are shaped by the ideology of a universe that is vast, monotonous, and arbitrarily cruel; temperate societies  lack many of the most horrific features of desert societies, and also, interestingly, seem to be less pervasive and resilient, perhaps for the same reasons that they are more kind and egalitarian.

Evolution doesn't have morals.

The bold part is something I've noticed an encouraging general trend towards. Lots of things have become A THING, recently. I see them dumbed down to bullet points and spread through social media. Knowledge, often leading to self awareness, is disseminating into the general population in a way it never did before.

[Cain]

This rant is a rant that is dear to my heart and my interests, and so, so, so unbearably true.

At least this is a thing that has become A THING, now, and there are people who are thinking and talking and even researching this punishment fetish we have, which runs as an undercurrent through, perhaps not surprisingly, most social structures in which the dominant culture is one that is historically derived from a desert society. The punishment fetish seems largely to stem from cultures that are shaped by the ideology of a universe that is vast, monotonous, and arbitrarily cruel; temperate societies  lack many of the most horrific features of desert societies, and also, interestingly, seem to be less pervasive and resilient, perhaps for the same reasons that they are more kind and egalitarian.

Evolution doesn't have morals.

I wonder if that also goes back to a more basic need for security.  Punishment enforces internal social cohesion (at a cost) which contributes to group survivability.

I've been reading some interesting literature in political science about how American foreign policy seems to exhibit a deep insecurity complex with regards to the world.  Here's an example:

For many analysts of U.S. foreign policy, one belief has remained constant at least since World War II: we are living in dangerous times. Many of those who make and/or comment on U.S. foreign policy maintain that the world is full of enemies and evil, so this (whenever this is) is no time to relax....Constant repetition of this idea has over time generated genuine belief in leaders and followers alike, and substantial, sometimes amorphous fear. A 2009 poll found that nearly 60 percent–and full half of the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–considered the world more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. (p.25)

As Larison notes:

The absence of real major threats gives us the luxury of exaggerating existing dangers to the U.S. That habit of exaggerating existing threats then feeds the belief that the world is much more dangerous for us now than when the U.S. faced a hostile superpower, and that it is becoming more so all the time. Because every minor, manageable threat is built up into a menace that it could never actually be, Americans perceive a largely peaceful and secure world as an increasingly chaotic and dangerous one.

Outward directed insecurity leads to the rash foreign policy decisions which now plague the globe.  Inward directed insecurity leads to punishment fetishes.

It's a theory, anyway.

[LMNO]

I need to keep up my reading of "The Problem of Punishment" for the Book Club.  It appears to be relevant.

[P3nT4gR4m]

This rant is a rant that is dear to my heart and my interests, and so, so, so unbearably true.

At least this is a thing that has become A THING, now, and there are people who are thinking and talking and even researching this punishment fetish we have, which runs as an undercurrent through, perhaps not surprisingly, most social structures in which the dominant culture is one that is historically derived from a desert society. The punishment fetish seems largely to stem from cultures that are shaped by the ideology of a universe that is vast, monotonous, and arbitrarily cruel; temperate societies  lack many of the most horrific features of desert societies, and also, interestingly, seem to be less pervasive and resilient, perhaps for the same reasons that they are more kind and egalitarian.

Evolution doesn't have morals.

I wonder if that also goes back to a more basic need for security.  Punishment enforces internal social cohesion (at a cost) which contributes to group survivability.

I've been reading some interesting literature in political science about how American foreign policy seems to exhibit a deep insecurity complex with regards to the world.  Here's an example:

For many analysts of U.S. foreign policy, one belief has remained constant at least since World War II: we are living in dangerous times. Many of those who make and/or comment on U.S. foreign policy maintain that the world is full of enemies and evil, so this (whenever this is) is no time to relax....Constant repetition of this idea has over time generated genuine belief in leaders and followers alike, and substantial, sometimes amorphous fear. A 2009 poll found that nearly 60 percent–and full half of the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–considered the world more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. (p.25)

As Larison notes:

The absence of real major threats gives us the luxury of exaggerating existing dangers to the U.S. That habit of exaggerating existing threats then feeds the belief that the world is much more dangerous for us now than when the U.S. faced a hostile superpower, and that it is becoming more so all the time. Because every minor, manageable threat is built up into a menace that it could never actually be, Americans perceive a largely peaceful and secure world as an increasingly chaotic and dangerous one.

Outward directed insecurity leads to the rash foreign policy decisions which now plague the globe.  Inward directed insecurity leads to punishment fetishes.

It's a theory, anyway.

And a fucking sound one. Now to install it in the US governance collective, in place of the paranoid asshole model

[Cramulus]

You could argue we got obsessed with punishment in part because the Masters tricked us into thinking we were the ones doing the punishing.

It used to be that we cheered for the Sovereign who punishes the Criminal because we wanted a strong authority to protect us from lawlessness and chaos. But when Power manifests itself into a physical space, like a public execution, that power can be resisted. After the French Revolution people wanted a legal structure which wasn't (a) so dependent on the whims of a sovereign and (b) vulnerable to resistance. That's where Judges come from. And oddly enough, people still wanted to lynch judges. So that's where Juries come from.

The Jury and the Chain Gang serve the same purpose - so that the public feels it is somehow responsible for authorizing the control and punishment of a criminal's body (and therefore soul). The chain gang was invented so that criminals could labor in public, making the public feel that they were being served by the justice system. It exposed the criminal to the gaze and judgment of the public, which as we know, is a normalizing force. The compulsion to be a good citizen comes not from the president, but from our fellow citizens. So we cheer for prisons, punishment, discipline. We all want a disciplined society, right? Sure we do. So do us all a favor, and if you see somebody breaking the law, help ruin them forever.

This.  Exactly this.  Can I repost this with attribution?

be my guest!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This rant is a rant that is dear to my heart and my interests, and so, so, so unbearably true.

At least this is a thing that has become A THING, now, and there are people who are thinking and talking and even researching this punishment fetish we have, which runs as an undercurrent through, perhaps not surprisingly, most social structures in which the dominant culture is one that is historically derived from a desert society. The punishment fetish seems largely to stem from cultures that are shaped by the ideology of a universe that is vast, monotonous, and arbitrarily cruel; temperate societies  lack many of the most horrific features of desert societies, and also, interestingly, seem to be less pervasive and resilient, perhaps for the same reasons that they are more kind and egalitarian.

Evolution doesn't have morals.

I wonder if that also goes back to a more basic need for security.  Punishment enforces internal social cohesion (at a cost) which contributes to group survivability.

I've been reading some interesting literature in political science about how American foreign policy seems to exhibit a deep insecurity complex with regards to the world.  Here's an example:

For many analysts of U.S. foreign policy, one belief has remained constant at least since World War II: we are living in dangerous times. Many of those who make and/or comment on U.S. foreign policy maintain that the world is full of enemies and evil, so this (whenever this is) is no time to relax....Constant repetition of this idea has over time generated genuine belief in leaders and followers alike, and substantial, sometimes amorphous fear. A 2009 poll found that nearly 60 percent–and full half of the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–considered the world more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. (p.25)

As Larison notes:

The absence of real major threats gives us the luxury of exaggerating existing dangers to the U.S. That habit of exaggerating existing threats then feeds the belief that the world is much more dangerous for us now than when the U.S. faced a hostile superpower, and that it is becoming more so all the time. Because every minor, manageable threat is built up into a menace that it could never actually be, Americans perceive a largely peaceful and secure world as an increasingly chaotic and dangerous one.

Outward directed insecurity leads to the rash foreign policy decisions which now plague the globe.  Inward directed insecurity leads to punishment fetishes.

It's a theory, anyway.

Hmm, this is a really interesting perspective. I need to explore it a little. It ties into a lot of the reading I've done lately, and a lot of the stuff TGRR and I have been talking about over the last year.

[Cain]

Of course, that still begs the question of why such an insecurity exists.  It describes the process of how insecurity leads to certain policies and cultural trends being more prevalent, but not why they occur in the first place.

I'm not entirely convinced by either Fettweis' claim that it is ideology, though that certainly plays a part, or Larison that the luxury of not having major threats allows minor ones to be built up (though you could make a complex argument here about how the Cold War privileged hyper-vigilance towards security issues in the government and the media and this continues to have an effect today, with excessive threat-inflation being a form of social signalling about one's credibility as an analyst/pundit/advisor/politician due to how the Cold War warped our perceptions of such things).