James Brody
August 6th, 2004, 10:04 PM
"...Excellence exists and it is time to acknowledge and celebrate the magnificent inequality that has enabled some of our fellow humans to have so enriched the lives of the rest of us." (Murray, 2003, pp. 449-450)
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Hooray!
Murray, however, believes that we do great things because that's what humans sometimes do, especially when religion tells us that God values individual achievement. China, Islam, and Rome offer foils to Murray's explanation. China in 1100 provided purpose but handicapped individualism; Romans in 800 valued knowing how but not simply knowing. (They haven't changed!) According to Islam, scientific laws that limit Allah's power are blasphemy. Christianity, however, linked individuals with God in a way that God gloried in their individual achievements. There is, however, another view that makes us a part of nature rather than apart from it. I find that Michelangelo with a religion has his equals in creatures with more legs but no religion aside from flocking.
First, Camazine, Deneubourg, Franks, Sneyd, Theraulaz, & Bonabeau (2001) describe emergent products from termites, bees, ants, and fish. Termites mix feces and dirt and deposit their stucco where other termites have already done so. The first daubs are random but tiny variations in height attract more deposits that lead to mounds 30 feet tall, constructed over generations, and cooled by external ventilation shafts. Michelangelo's stuccos would not surprise the termites. Neither would our preferences for large art and for art that is up high, whether on ceilings or cathedral walls. It could be that the same sensory biases that led to tall giraffes also spun our childlike preference for looking upward and finding faces and angel skirts in clouds in the same manner that we once found our mother.
Second, many synchronized phenomena in insects, fish, and birds may arise from each participant's monitoring and copying his immediate neighbors (Camazine et al, 2001. See also Pinker, 2002; Sowell, 1987). The color and clutter in the nest created by a male weaver bird may be influenced not only by female standards but by the choices that other males offer. We sometimes find greater painting or writing when talented people clump together and we can predict faster NASCAR laps when there is a cluster of drivers with equal ability. Thus, greatness rests within one talented, driven, individual in a cluster of similar individuals.
Third, religion does for humans what flocking does for starlings and nothing more but there need not be anything more. Given the wide occurrence of mobbing, clumping, schooling, flocking, herding, and schmoozing in other metazoans and our common ancestry with all of them, we can expect our religions to have unrivaled power, especially in scarcity or crisis. 911 was only one demonstration of that power: sound the alarms for sex or death and we obsessively copy whatever works and punish anyone who doesn't. Three thousand people died and our nation stopped bickering about race.
A Transcendent Selectionism
I believe in our union with other living creatures. I find purpose and transcendence not in God or gods but in being one of selection's children: heir, guardian, and advocate for the emergents from 500 million years. I expect that secularists will make the same opportunities for our faith that Christians sculpted for theirs. My aspirations, thus, are the same that Murray admires: individual purpose, responsibility, and autonomy, an inner hunger for the ideas and choices that satisfy not only my peers and Murray but, most importantly, my parents' genes and examples as I, too, seek the good, the true, and the beautiful. I have my own form of personal rather than "free" will; I think, dream, anticipate my future, and pursue sometimes noble goals. But I think that my cat does, too, especially when we make parallel trails, separated by 20 feet, through a grassy field under a cool October moon. As to the excellence for which Murray and I hunger, we yet find it crafted by living forms, first here on Earth but some day in the stars.
References:
Camazine, S., Deneubourg, J-L., Franks, N., Sneyd, J., Theraulaz, G., & Bonabeau, E. (2001) Self-Organization in Biological Systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Murray, C. (2003) Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts & Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 NY: Harper Collins.
Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. NY: Viking.
Sowell, T. (1987) A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. NY: Quill.
Note: This was abridged from "Magnificent Inequality: A Review of 'Human Accomplishment.'" The editor for an e-zine promised to have it published within a weekend. Two months passed and Alice Andrews rescued my paper when she included a revision in "Entelechy."
Copyright, James Brody, 2004, all rights reserved.
------------
Hooray!
Murray, however, believes that we do great things because that's what humans sometimes do, especially when religion tells us that God values individual achievement. China, Islam, and Rome offer foils to Murray's explanation. China in 1100 provided purpose but handicapped individualism; Romans in 800 valued knowing how but not simply knowing. (They haven't changed!) According to Islam, scientific laws that limit Allah's power are blasphemy. Christianity, however, linked individuals with God in a way that God gloried in their individual achievements. There is, however, another view that makes us a part of nature rather than apart from it. I find that Michelangelo with a religion has his equals in creatures with more legs but no religion aside from flocking.
First, Camazine, Deneubourg, Franks, Sneyd, Theraulaz, & Bonabeau (2001) describe emergent products from termites, bees, ants, and fish. Termites mix feces and dirt and deposit their stucco where other termites have already done so. The first daubs are random but tiny variations in height attract more deposits that lead to mounds 30 feet tall, constructed over generations, and cooled by external ventilation shafts. Michelangelo's stuccos would not surprise the termites. Neither would our preferences for large art and for art that is up high, whether on ceilings or cathedral walls. It could be that the same sensory biases that led to tall giraffes also spun our childlike preference for looking upward and finding faces and angel skirts in clouds in the same manner that we once found our mother.
Second, many synchronized phenomena in insects, fish, and birds may arise from each participant's monitoring and copying his immediate neighbors (Camazine et al, 2001. See also Pinker, 2002; Sowell, 1987). The color and clutter in the nest created by a male weaver bird may be influenced not only by female standards but by the choices that other males offer. We sometimes find greater painting or writing when talented people clump together and we can predict faster NASCAR laps when there is a cluster of drivers with equal ability. Thus, greatness rests within one talented, driven, individual in a cluster of similar individuals.
Third, religion does for humans what flocking does for starlings and nothing more but there need not be anything more. Given the wide occurrence of mobbing, clumping, schooling, flocking, herding, and schmoozing in other metazoans and our common ancestry with all of them, we can expect our religions to have unrivaled power, especially in scarcity or crisis. 911 was only one demonstration of that power: sound the alarms for sex or death and we obsessively copy whatever works and punish anyone who doesn't. Three thousand people died and our nation stopped bickering about race.
A Transcendent Selectionism
I believe in our union with other living creatures. I find purpose and transcendence not in God or gods but in being one of selection's children: heir, guardian, and advocate for the emergents from 500 million years. I expect that secularists will make the same opportunities for our faith that Christians sculpted for theirs. My aspirations, thus, are the same that Murray admires: individual purpose, responsibility, and autonomy, an inner hunger for the ideas and choices that satisfy not only my peers and Murray but, most importantly, my parents' genes and examples as I, too, seek the good, the true, and the beautiful. I have my own form of personal rather than "free" will; I think, dream, anticipate my future, and pursue sometimes noble goals. But I think that my cat does, too, especially when we make parallel trails, separated by 20 feet, through a grassy field under a cool October moon. As to the excellence for which Murray and I hunger, we yet find it crafted by living forms, first here on Earth but some day in the stars.
References:
Camazine, S., Deneubourg, J-L., Franks, N., Sneyd, J., Theraulaz, G., & Bonabeau, E. (2001) Self-Organization in Biological Systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Murray, C. (2003) Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts & Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 NY: Harper Collins.
Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. NY: Viking.
Sowell, T. (1987) A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. NY: Quill.
Note: This was abridged from "Magnificent Inequality: A Review of 'Human Accomplishment.'" The editor for an e-zine promised to have it published within a weekend. Two months passed and Alice Andrews rescued my paper when she included a revision in "Entelechy."
Copyright, James Brody, 2004, all rights reserved.