Will the hunger for "power" ever be satiated?
Greetings Human Beings,
I watched an interesting documentary last night called "Amandla".
It was about Apartheid in South Africa and the role that music played in the revolution. For those not familiar with "apartheid", it was where segregation was made law; blacks (who were themajority I might add) were thrown out of all of the prospering areas in South Africa and forced to live separate in poor government established ghettos. Whites and blacks in South Africa were given "passes" that allowed them to only stay in their respective areas; however, the whites lived in all of the good areas, and the blacks were forced into the shit areas.
In a nutshell, this was a phenomena that has repeatedly taken place throughout history from Asia, the middleeast, europe to even here in America...
My question is this, what is the origin of man's appetite for power and do you think it can ever be satiated?
Cognitive psychology has shared with us that our brains have evolved to be "classification machines",making sense out of the world in order to survive; is there ever hope that we may "socially" evolve to unite and appreciate differences without infringing upon the rights of others?
Perhaps the evolution of "self-consciousness" coupled with a greater range and complexity of "emotion" is adouble-edged knife slitting our abilities to truly "evolve"?
Disclaimer: I'm not talking about the true"evolution" which is not about a choice of adaptation, but rather the mutation of a species that, "coincidentally", is best suited for the nature of the environment in which it lives. We are talking about "social evolution": the ability to further the effectiveness and functioning of our society through conscious influence, decision, and development.
I'm going to get some coffee, talk amongst yourselves.
I watched an interesting documentary last night called "Amandla".
It was about Apartheid in South Africa and the role that music played in the revolution. For those not familiar with "apartheid", it was where segregation was made law; blacks (who were themajority I might add) were thrown out of all of the prospering areas in South Africa and forced to live separate in poor government established ghettos. Whites and blacks in South Africa were given "passes" that allowed them to only stay in their respective areas; however, the whites lived in all of the good areas, and the blacks were forced into the shit areas.
In a nutshell, this was a phenomena that has repeatedly taken place throughout history from Asia, the middleeast, europe to even here in America...
My question is this, what is the origin of man's appetite for power and do you think it can ever be satiated?
Cognitive psychology has shared with us that our brains have evolved to be "classification machines",making sense out of the world in order to survive; is there ever hope that we may "socially" evolve to unite and appreciate differences without infringing upon the rights of others?
Perhaps the evolution of "self-consciousness" coupled with a greater range and complexity of "emotion" is adouble-edged knife slitting our abilities to truly "evolve"?
Disclaimer: I'm not talking about the true"evolution" which is not about a choice of adaptation, but rather the mutation of a species that, "coincidentally", is best suited for the nature of the environment in which it lives. We are talking about "social evolution": the ability to further the effectiveness and functioning of our society through conscious influence, decision, and development.
I'm going to get some coffee, talk amongst yourselves.
posted by Don the "Head Chimp" at
3:59 PM
5 Comments:
Yes, provided eolution causes us to see Thermal vision (ala the Preditor) that way we can't tell what race someone is. Either that or we breed ourself into one race.
By
Anonymous, at 10:10 AM
Danny B. is hungry...
I knew it wouldn't take long before you joined the fold! I welcome thee.
I recently read (or made up... I can't remember which) a journal article which stated that man's thirst for power stems, basically, from one thing: chicks. Chicks dig power. Thus, the monkey who displays the most power has the widest selection of monkette’s to, um, swing on the vine with.
Each evolutionary push is realy about gettin’ more tush.
- mdbm
By
D a n i e l, at 8:52 PM
(Repost from the original old-school e-mail)
Hi everyone-
Here is my caffiene inspired ramblings on the nature of power in society...
I would propose that the idea of power is closely related to the idea of scarcity. There is often a perception of scarcity in resources in societies, so the natural reaction is to form together in groups in order attempt to collectively control the distribution of the resources and limit other groups' share of the resources. I believe this happens over and over again in societies, and groups are formed upon arbitrary criteria such as race, religion, sex, social class, geographical location, language, etc... Any criteria that is relatively easy to distinguish. People will then create justifications for why their group is entitled to a greater share of the resources (more intelligent, morally superior, stronger, etc) and then attempt to gain control of resources, either through laws or through less civilized means. Once a group has control over a majority of resources, they will attempt to retain their power by limiting the ability of other groups to change the status quo. All of this is related to the idea of scarcity, because if there is a perception that resources are limited, then people will be motivated to do what they need to gain control of the limited resources, often at the expense of others. So until the idea of scarcity is changed, this pattern will continue to repeat itself in human societies.
By
Anonymous, at 11:07 AM
(repost from original old-school e-mail)
Hello. How is everyone? Gas tanks filled?
And, yes. Before you go any further...remember, out of 10 million (give or take a few) sperm --I won.
I can't think of a time that power was never an issue.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve wanted the power of choice. And, if you want to go the theological route; they were the first two people on this Earth. (Although, if I was going to have a choice, I don't think I would make it an apple. I would make it some pizza. Or maybe some nachos.)
Caveman times.(35,000 B.C. -24,000 B.C., roughly): After the ice age had ended (and is still ending), man spent most of his time hunting and gathering food. The biggest deal here was survival. (key).
They would beat the women with their crazy branches and have offspring. Sadly, I know some men like that now. They wanted the power over the women. They wanted power over the animals.
(I am going to leave out a few. I am not meaning to write an essay here)
Egyptian: Cleopatra, the dirty slut, had sex with her brother to gain power. Then, she decided to have sex with Antony; and gained control of Rome. I suppose this is the beginning where women decided it was OK to sleep with the boss in order to get ahead.
Anyway, I will continue my thought instead of just giving a history of the world.
We have lived in a materialistic society since the beginning. In order to get goods and services we need; we must stand out above others. You have to be smarter. Stronger. Faster. More wiley. Clever.
I also think this thirst for power made us who we are today. If no one "stood out", inventions would not have been made (thanks, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison). We would be a lazy society - with nothing to gain. Not to mention, some people are wired differently. We are lazy now, don't get me wrong. But some are not. And, like Bill Gates, they have power...or they will.
However, there is the concept of sharing. People are afraid to do so; as they may run out of the resources at hand.
I am going to say the key here is Survival. We have been taught, since we were all born, to get a good education, an even better job, and a wonderful person in which to produce children. The only way any of this is going to happen is if we are in the running. People who are destitute, jobless, and have serious medical conditions have a hard time getting in the game. Appreciating differences would be nice; but you must realize there are assholes out there who never have and never will.
Basically, everyone wants to survive. Having "stuff" and "resources" means having money, and in our society that is god-like. You can distribute, you can hoard. You can do what you want. And we go back to power.
It will be me just sitting around, going round and round and not knowing the answer. But are we REALLY supposed to? That just MAY make a positive change. And we know (or we should), that humans are unable to live without strife. Without it, would we know what happiness is?
Survival and power. Power helps you survive. Without survival, you would not have power.
Again, remember, out of millions of sperm...I won. So did you guys.
I am going to go now.
By
Anonymous, at 11:09 AM
It's all about Breeding and Bananas baby!
Thus far we have posited the origin of man's desire for control and power is based upon "the instinctual drive to survive."
I would argue that the "scarcity of resources" would be a component of the environmental conditions in which we wish to survive, and "greed" is but a concept of hording those resources. The desire to pass on one's seed would support Dan's "chick" theory. In a nutshell, it's about the "bananas" and "breeding".
I'm assuming what Terry was implying is that we have traditionally used "race", as an obvious factor to distinguish groups in our quest for the control of resources (bananas). Since we are "group mammals" who have used our groups to survive based upon multiple salient factors (i.e. religion, education, race, etc.).
Basically, even though we're top chimp on the hierarchy of evolution, complete with our intellectual capacity for complex problem-solving, ability of self-consciousness, and an expanded pallette of emotions, we're just a society of animals killing each other (figuratively in the business & political world, and literally in the world) for a few extra bananas and group survival?
With that said, is "capitalism" then a reflection of the instinct of "survival of the fittest" indoctrinated into a political model?
and if so, would "socialism" be a more socially evolved political model in which we work for the greater good and survival of society rather than individual gain?
Have we just created a world environment of political Darwinism that has us consuming each other for capitalistic survival?
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 11:45 AM
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