727. How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

727.   How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

The biological spoils of war
Study finds those who take part in violent conflict have more wives, children

The study, ......  found that, among members of an East African herding tribe, those who engaged in conflict - in the form of violent raids carried out on neighboring groups - had more wives, and thus more opportunities to increase their reproductive success through having more children

In an analysis of 120 men, Glowacki said, the data was clear - those who participate in more raids had more wives and more children over the course of their lives.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/hu-tbs122914.php

In a scientific study, observed and observable data are presented.    From a very different point of view, I am looking at the suffering caused to individuals.   

• Raids cause deprivation and often the subsequent risk of perishing
• Raids often cause deaths, serious injuries and mutilations 
• More children mean women suffering more often the agony of giving birth.   
• There is often the additional suffering of those women, who are forced to share a husband in a polygamous situation in spite of wishing monogamy and/or to procreate more than they wish to. 

This is a clear example, how two instincts reinforce and enable each other leading to aggravated suffering.   

• The raids are an expression of the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.    The more the distinction between the groups is accentuated by this instinct, the less inhibitions there are against the ruthlessness and cruelty, upon which depends the success of raids.   Thus the success of raids both depends upon and rewards the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.   
• Procreation depends upon the combined strength of the procreation instincts and the means and occasion to act upon this instinct.   The more men are driven by the procreation instinct, the more they consider the acquisition of more wives and children as a desirable goal and a reward for embarking on a raid.  Thus a strong procreation instinct serves as a motivation for raids, such men's additional procreational behavior is enabled in the case of the raids being successful.

Would one instinct be absent, individuals would suffer less:

• Without the procreation instinct, there were less or no reasons for raids, depending on the own resources.   
• Without the ingroup-outgroup-instinct, raids were not possible, less procreation were possible due to less resources.

 

One should not shrug this off as if it were merely a remote problem in Africa.   The simple and therefore obvious mechanisms described in the study can be generalized and recognized in the sad every day occurrence, that people force disadvantages upon outgroup members in favor of advantages for their own progeny.    

• The raid can be replaced by the wider concept of exploitation in situations of asymmetrical power.  The same mechanism, that has been shown in the study above, is also at the bottom of all the outrageous injustice and cruelty of the world wide globalized system of exploitation.  
• Having more wives and more children can be replaced by the greedy accumulating of control over resources.    A person, who dies without offspring has no reason to amass more wealth than what he needs for the preferred standard of life during his own lifetime.    But someone leaving behind wealth as an inheritance bestows advantages to further generations of bearers of his own genes.   His offspring have a better chance of healthy survival, in turn they may have more offspring than without the inheritance.  

Whenever someone in the situation of direct or economic power exploits other humans, expecially slaves, illegal immigrant workers or inmates of labor camps, he has first defined them as an outgroup.   Only by this he is able to apply very different standards to them than to those people, whom he considers as his ingroup, while nevertheless not feeling cognitive dissonance with his idea of behaving morally.  

In the complex globalized system of exploitation, there are layers of ingroups and outgroups, as the example of this documentary shows.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gktid0YO9s

• To the privileged social class of plantation owners, the slaves are the outgroup.   These landlords are the most directly and knowingly cruel persons.  
• To those Ivorians, who abduct people from Mali, these are perceived as outgroup by being citizens of another country.   This is a form of raids, which are not a part of remote tribal life.  
• To the companies importing the cocoa beans and to the consumers of chocolate, all Africans are outgroup.  The majority of the uninformed customer are in denial or even truly ignorant of the sufferings caused by chocolate as an apparently inland product.   But those managers, who dictate the prices, are aware of the unavoidably dire situation of workers not being paid sufficiently.  

The worst cause of human suffering are the instincts, which humans share with animals.  There cannot be a better world, until people recognize the damage done by instincts and until the control of the instincts is eliminated and replaced by the rational concept of global equality and global equal rights.         

659. The Innocent Targets Of The Exploiteds' Displaced Revenge

659.   The Innocent Targets Of The Exploiteds' Displaced Revenge

In entry 658 I pointed out, why those, who have the power and position to dictate the world market prices of products from poor countries, are robbers and sometimes even murderers by proxy.   In the case of the killed textile workers in Bangladesh, the victimized women had no other options.

Elsewhere, things are sometimes different.   What is the textile industry in Bangladesh, is cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast.   The cocoa farmers are under a similar pressure of dictated low prices as are the textile factory owners in Bangladesh.    The farmers just like the factory owners behave as heartless, cruel, evil and psychopathic perpetrators, but the true culprits are those, who have the power to decide and determine the price paid for the cocoa to the farmers.

  
According to this
http://documentaryheaven.com/the-dark-side-of-chocolate

Ivorian Coastal cocoa farmers are paid 1 € per kilo cocoa beans, which suffices for 40 chocolate bars.   But according to the above and other sources, those who are exploited on the cocoa farms are often not locals.   They are adults and even children from neighboring countries, who are forced into slavery.   They are abducted, detained against their will and not paid.  

There is one difference: The slaves on the farms are from neighboring countries, because the Ivorian Coastal young men have found a method to avoid being exploited on the cocoa farms.

From both my own observations when targeted as a victim to be and by many sources I have learned, that the Ivory Coast is at least a major, if not the main home of scammers targeting French speaking people.   The damage suffered by the victims adds to huge sums.   
This French documentary gives a lot of information: 

http://www.escrocs.net/reportage-des-escrocs-du-web-en-cote-divoire.htm

I am far from justifying or condoning scamming and slavery.   But the culprits in the Ivory Coast are not proactive criminals, they are reacting to a dire situation, which they have not created or chosen.  These young crooks and criminals and their parents had been deprived of any chance for a decent and honest income long before the internet enabled them to begin scamming.   They have turned in hostility against all citizens of rich countries, who from a distant perspective appear as if they were to be blamed for the Ivory Coast's misery.  The scammers are not aware, that the victims of the scams are themselves just as powerless as are the scammers to stop the exploitation.  

The real crooks are those, who use economic power to dictate the cocoa price.   

I am convinced that any of the scam victims would gladly pay a fair price for chocolate, it this would prevent hopeless youngsters from experiencing hurting others by crime as their only option.   

The Ivory Coast scamming cannot be stopped, unless the farmers are receiving a considerably higher price for the cocoa and for all other exported produce.         

455. Epicurus And The Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain

Epicurus And The Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain

This continues entries 452, 453 and 454.  

One of Epicurus' principles is not to harm and not to be harmed.  This principle makes his philosophy coincide so much with my own needs in how to live.  Yet equality or inequality and the pain caused by humiliation and indignity due to be forced into a lower position was never mentioned in what is known of Epicurus' philosophy.   For a long time I was very puzzled, how he could even own slaves and appear oblivious of their pain.  

I was projecting my own strong egalitarian emotions indiscriminately upon others.   Epicurus' brain was obviously strongly hierarchical-gregarious and so was the brain of all those, who were his disciples by their own free choice.    I am completely void of the hierarchical-gregarious instinct.  

Epicurus lived in a society, where there were three categories of people, free men, free women and slaves.  About 30% of the population were slaves.  Free women were very restricted in their lives.   Their main function was to reproduce.   They were excluded from schools, from public offices and from entering many public buildings and from participating in public events.   They were free only as far as not being owned or sold, but they were not free to do, what they wanted, their life was restricted by their dependence on husbands or other men to act on their behalf.

Epicurus seems to be completely void of any empathy, consideration or responsibility for the harm done by pushing people down to and holding them in inferior conditions and situations.   Not all people experience this as equally harmful, because their subjective experience depends upon the predisposition of their either more egalitarian or more hierarchical-gregarious brain.   But at least some people do get harmed by enforced hierarchy.   

A philosopher teaching a general way of life supposed to be valid for everybody should take such harm into consideration.   Therefore there is a contradiction between his benevolent philosophy of homeostasis and enjoying life on this earth and his unconcern about the pain, that he was inflicting himself upon those hierarchically lower.    He himself did own slaves.   He did allow women and slaves to enter the garden community, but it was doing them a merciful favor as exceptions.   He seems to have been void of any comprehension for the unjustified humiliation of this attitude.  

Epicurus was the infallible guru, the never erring teacher, whose wisdom was above the criticism of his disciples, whose veneration and reverence was ascertained by an oath to adhere to his teachings.    He was someone, who enjoyed the power, praise, prestige and influence of being the guru on the pedestal.    He had a narcissistic need for veneration, but he earned it with real achievements, so he was successful in fulfilling his needs.   The benefits from his place on his pedestal were his motivation and compensation for the certainly hard work, stress and exhaustion of doing, what was expected from him.  
The followers accepted their devote role as the price to be allowed into the community.   Those free men having a choice, whose egalitarian brain was determined by the need for the dignity of being equals, were not attracted to become Epicurus' disciples but deterred to stay away.   The slaves of course were not asked.  Women with an emotional need for equality got treated better than elsewhere and had to be content with the emotional alms given to them.   There were no places offering the appreciation of full equality to women, they had to take the best there was.              

Epicurus had a psychological need for submissive disciples, succeeded in attracting them, got reinforced by their willingness to allowing him the place on his pedestal.   People with egalitarian brains were deterred from getting near him, therefore he was deprived of even noticing their existence.  The entire garden community including Epicurus' himself were driven together by the shared very strong hierarchical-gregarious instinct.   The hierarchy established was logical only to those choosing it, while it was a deterrent to those with an egalitarian brain.    Epicurus' blind spot was the conclusion, that the deliberate submission of his disciples was not the choice of some self-selected persons, but a ubiquitous human trait.

Epicureanism as it has come to us from 2300 years ago needs to be adapted and modified by two major additions:  

Apistia and egalitarianism.    

453. The Egalitarian Or Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain Scale

The Egalitarian Or Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain Scale

This continues entry 452.  

I speculate that there is a bell curve of the innate strength of the gregarious instinct.  

1. At one extreme end of the scale are the people with the hierarchical-gregarious brain.   They are very much driven towards other people by a strong gregarious instinct.   They accept domination, deliberate and enforced submission as morally acceptable.  They perceive the acquiescence with any position in a hierarchy as a natural part of life.  They accept this not only concerning positions due to individual differences, but also to externally ascribed and enforced differences, that are sometimes haphazard, irrational and not justified by any trait or quality of the individual.  

They are equally prone to accept disadvantages from having low positions on the hierarchy and to ruthlessly inflict suffering upon those, who are on a lower position.   They inflict such pain on those, whom they have pushed down by competition and by power struggles and on those, who have such positions by haphazard circumstances.    They are often either not aware of causing pain or they are in denial.

2.  At the other extreme of the scale are the people with the egalitarian brain.  They are void of the gregarious instinct.  They consider all people as entitled to have equal chances in accordance with their individual traits, talents and skills.    They accept only individual differences as reasons limiting what someone can get and achieve in life.   They do not want to form hierarchies, they prefer a just exchange between people.   They choose to interact with some individuals and to avoid others.    They prefer to stay away from hierarchies and to cooperate selectively.    By consideration and responsibility they refrain from pushing people down to a lower position, because they are aware of the pain of being forced into an undeserved inferior position.       

Unfortunately, the innate inclination on the scale often does not correspond with the possibilities and circumstances.  The position in the hierarchy of external options is not a choice.  Racism, slavery, discrimination by gender, discrimination by the place of birth are examples of reasons morally accepted by those with a gregarious instinct as a justification to force a low position upon individuals without allowing them an alternative.   
A person with an egalitarian brain, who happens to be born in a privileged position has the choice to refuse the option of a high rank.   A person born into an underprivileged position does not have any choice.    
This has very detrimental consequences:  A person with an egalitarian brain suffers emotional pain when forced into a low position for unjustified reasons.    This person feels humiliation, indignity, abasement.   But the person with the gregarious brain, who has a high position and who is well meaning, caring and patronizing is unable to understand the pain of the egalitarian brained subordinate. 

Slavery is a good example.   A master and a slave of equal intelligence and talents experience the hierarchical situation very differently.    While the slave with an egalitarian brain suffers extreme pain from being in such a predicament of unjustified indignation, the master with a hierarchical-gregarious brain is oblivious of doing any harm, if he subjectively treats the slave with care and consideration for all his ascribed and alleged needs.   Instead he feels to be a good person for treating the slave better than required by law and social norms.   He may even feel entitled to gratitude from the slave for such mercy done to him.  

445. Epicurus And Inequality

Epicurus And Inequality

In entry 442 I explained, that while philosophy suggests goals for a specific way of life, it needs psychology to understand the dynamics of reaching the goals.   

But to understand the definition of goals by a specific philosopher, it is also important to understand the sociological and psychological background, which influenced his thinking.  

A philosopher, who lived 2300 years ago, can only be evaluated by understanding his historical context.

Epicurus omitted to include any concept concerning equality into his philosophy.   He also seems completely void of either mentioning or noticing the harm caused by inequality.    

To find an explanation for this omission, I googled about the social situation in Athens in Epicurus' times.  A boy like Epicurus grew up into a world, where there were three different categories of people:  Free men, free women and slaves.   He grew up to take this for granted, as if there was no alternative available to get aware of.    It was a natural and normal condition of life.

He also grew up by seeing the outward behavior of women and slaves, who had submitted externally to their plight.    How much they suffered harm, was most probably not directly visible, especially not to a child. 

Free men were the only people, who had the choice, how to live.   They were the only persons, who were free to decide over their own lives and which philosophy to follow.   Schools admitted only boys, who thus had the option to read books and make choices.     

Women were excluded from public live, they were considered to exist for the purpose of procreation or as a utility for male use.   They were denied public functions and the access to many public buildings and events.   They were excluded from education but taught to do household chores.   Women from rich families, who did get education, were an exception.  Women were impeded from developing their potential and excluded from where they could give evidence of their abilities. Then they were considered as not equal, based upon having been made so.  

I read an estimation that about 30% of the population of Athens were slaves.    The life of a slave in the Roman empire is well illustrated in the move Spartacus.   I have no doubt, that a slave's life about 200 years earlier in Athens was not much different.   Those beautiful Greek temples were certainly built by slaves, and most probably also the people's houses, including the one, in which lived Epicurus and his community.   Even if a slave did not physically suffer from hard toil, the lost dignity of being owned like an object is certainly a form of emotional harm.   

The admittance of women and slaves into Epicurus' garden is used as an evidence of his progressive thinking.   Obviously, Epicurus did not hesitate to own slaves or accept his community members to do so.  Without first owning someone as a slave, nobody could have ever brought a slave into the garden community.   

In the absence of any expression of his disagreement with such blatant and brutal inequality, I consider his merely making exceptions as inconsistent and a contradiction to his principle of not harming nor being harmed.   Allowing women and slaves into the garden was a humiliating act of mercy, of generosity and a condescension, as long as he did not doubt their ascribed general inferiority as justifiable.  
 

Making exceptions without vehemently condemning inequality was obviously the limit of how progressive and humane Epicurus was able to be as a product of his social environment.   

But I am convinced, that would Epicurus live today, he would include equality in his philosophy.