from a little different angle. Actually from a pbs docu: phylogenic developement: the reptile stage leads to mammals.... mammals associated... built onto the reptile layer a mammal specific brain structure, a reward system for association! there is a natural, and an unnatural, variance in the functionality of the system but in general a touch or a sublimated surrogate for touch or the anticipation... releases beta endo morphine! that which morphine mimmicks! Some of you will no doubt be fast on the uptake re the implications of this perspective/frame if it is put strongly before you... but i'll step back some to elaborate. I have long said the teat is natures greatest invention since it is the source of all socialbilty, which means languge, culture, a level of personality, industry etc etc, but here we have a particular mechanism to reward maternal behavior. As time went on a larger area of the brain co evolved with family, troop, tribe levels of association, a social brain layer, all undergirded by the maternal b endorphin reward system. As society grew to state scale from tribal scale some disruptions occurred ( natural societies, depending on their social institutions and rituals seem to begin fragmentation at different levels, cf plato but also hunting groups, social bonding, beta endorph releasing affiliations... ). Large scale, imperial societies tend to break the tribe as a danger to it's power, thus alienating individuals from a close social base... recovered in corporate practice or War. We have learnt that the alpha male dominates, but this is a myth made to the benefit of the writers of national narratives. Often the leader is the weakest, so to quiet the pretentions of the princes... in the animal world the nice guy can win political support to take power from the physically more powerful.


this is a quick note just to get it down here since this is a busy time for me and otherwise i might not get it down.
But further, there are implications in autism and cancer ( Norm Cousins.. ) heart problems, diabetes, most stress diseases/diseases of civilization, alcoholism, manias , compulsions, etc etc.... all brought on by failure of adaption of the beta endorphin mechanisms developed over 50 odd million years or so being disrupted in this balancing act we must needs accept as civilisation ( ie proto civilization ). The myths may help or may be used as lies, but here we have an insight into the historic/functional/structural aspects of human beingness.


Sorry for rougher prose than i'd prefer but otherwise i might have just let the post not happen. Best to all-david

quote:

Large scale, imperial societies tend to break the tribe as a danger to it's power, thus alienating individuals from a close social base... recovered in corporate practice or War. We have learnt that the alpha male dominates, but this is a myth made to the benefit of the writers of national narratives. Often the leader is the weakest, so to quiet the pretentions of the princes... in the animal world the nice guy can win political support to take power from the physically more powerful.

Hi, wblakesex,

I don't know if this makes sense to me, in terms of the power analysis. I guess I'm searching for a definition of "weak." My stereotypic thinking is the "nice guy" who wins political support to "take power" is not all that nice, just dressed up that way. Political machinations are decidedly unfriendly, ... un-nice.

Good to read you.

And I'm wondering what you think of this chat:

(from the Radio forum): Frank Luntz: Being Orwellian is a Good Thing

[edit]

Also, about that "nice guy" ... it occurs to me that you've kind of described a parallel action figure to personify the Staussian "benevolent lie."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: --Kate,

http://social_sciences.science-directory.net/ is a resource link from Innovation Watch, a few headings are related to many subjects on this and other threads.

quote:

a few headings are related to many subjects on this and other threads.

Which ones would you select, douglaslee, and what might you find in them?

Cognitive Linguistics Philosophy Poli Sci Economics [sort of] Kate there was so much, and that was even a link from a link, Innovation Watch is where it started, I'm on their mailing list, and still browsing. Neuro- psych was somewhere too.

Hi again Kate,
``The main intent of the post is to show that we have a built in mechanism whereby we are rewarded for social behaviors with a shot of Beta Endo Morphine. That being underlined:

Ther was an older troop leader, a nice 'guy' and a young up and commer. One day the young guy attacked the troop master, one of the masters buddies, jeeves, stepped in to defend old master but given the way these guys fight... racing through the trees, jeeves was soon left behind. The od guy died in the fracas, his troop standing round quietly, loking at him and each other, occassionally lightly touching the body...
The young guy took over but was abusive of old and young alike. After aferw months, one morning the researchers found young guy had been beaten up, presumably by the females at night. Jeeves became new leader.
Weak leader: Claudius is tyhe paradigm, but look at royalty hobbled everywhere, presidents too by constitutional restrictions and the power of the purse. I had another example but it's slipping my mind, history is full of them tho, the princes elect a weak king so as to have their powers intact. There's alot more to say on this, but ...
Weak in this sense is in term sof physical strenght and audacity. What one needs to survive when there is no social setting. Otherwise weak must have reference to situation/frame.
AS to luntz... my father was Greek, I read aristole as a kid, the usa is experiencing much the same gestalt as the atheneans in the period after beating back persia and in charge of the Delian league. The Greek philosophers were really about how to save the city, the state from collapse, the sophist>demagogues one of the great problems. today the sophists are more or less the same as then.
I'll see you at the strauss folder.
Doug, reductionism is an analytic style, we are incapable of perceiving All. One might say that human conciousness and what we think of as human is mechanism dna developed to reproduce itself. It's the truth, but then there are others which contradict depending on values and what entelechy is being pursued.