Massive destruction, geopolitical hunger (J. Ziegler)

[sen-no-sen]

Our (slight) discrepancy is that I personally amalgamated liberal capitalism and state capitalism * under the same label, which is why I do not feel the need to introduce derivative terminology.

I got it right!
I believe that we have already touched on this point before.
It is more a semantic story than anything else.

capitalism is not reduced to the lure of gain or the desire for accumulation, behavior very old and linked to personal inclinations, but by no means systemic.

Certainly, but it appears that man has "faults" linked in part to the dichotomy between our instinct and our intellect.
Except in certain cases its bad practices can lead to a terrible outcome!
This is also the case with intra-specific crime which is one of the specialties of our species.
This facility to kill one's neighbor is linked on the one hand to a weak mental barrier (linked to evolution) and to our capacity to create weapons by means of our intellect, always facilitating the practice of murder (from flint to the H bomb!).

It is the same with the economy.
Our natural tendency to want more (good as bad) can become literally uncontrollable within a given system (capitalism, communism etc ...).
It is for this reason that Christians and Buddhists insisted on the concept of simplicity, and that Islam already prohibited the practice of usury at the time.
The sages of the time certainly understood that certain human impulses were not compatible with this or that model of society.

[Ahmed]

The only thing I know for sure about man is that he is a gregarious being.

René Girard speaks of the "mimetic desire" which would be an explanation for these behaviors.
Basically, this means that we desire what is the object desired by the other and that in reality we desire through this, the gaze of the other.
This would have two consequences, in my opinion:
1- the limitlessness of desire since it mistakes the object (confusing the means and the end) as well as the resulting frustration.
2- at the point of departure, this desire institutes society but in a second step (and due to the mediation of goods), it turns into a powerful dissolver of social ties.

Another certainty is that it is a religious being, who needs to understand, but faith is inseparable from knowledge ...

If we are willing to consider these two premises, we realize that the conditions exist for a self-amplifying cybernetic looping to be set up: the need for recognition is amplified both by mirror effect and by its ineffectiveness , the system (any system) offers both a sense in an indeterminate future * (teleological) and a possibility of immediate action relating to the means.

No wonder capitalism adapts to this behavioral pattern, especially since it brings with it this paradox of being the product of human activity and yet of imposing itself on them as pure exteriority. .

* Another paradox: the teleological power of capitalism is measured by its inability to fulfill its promises, because if it succeeds, its success would suppress it as an object of desire. Only a perpetually reiterated promise is worthy of interest, only it is credible (because only what is impossible is credible!).

[sen-no-sen]

René Girard speaks of the "mimetic desire" which would be an explanation for these behaviors.
Basically, this means that we desire what is the object desired by the other and that in reality we desire through this, the gaze of the other.

Yes indeed!
Man is possessed both of a need for recognition on the one hand - because he is a social animal (gregarious as you mentioned) - and on the other of a will to ... domination.
The possession of a good and its accumulation, grants a power on the other and makes it possible to establish hierarchies (from where the class struggle so dear to K. Marx).
Its hierarchies are natural, but they have become corrupt in recent history, because it is no longer a question of being the Alpha (the most beautiful, the strongest or the most intelligent) but of being a skilful manipulator of the system, which leads our species to be led by people sometimes degenerate ... (I know! it's politically incorrect!)

Moreover, given the mass intoxication, it now appears that this desire for "always more" has become mechanical since the emergence of the world economy.

From a biological point of view this time, we can explain the ever more by the notion of reinforcement.

When performing a rewarding act, the sensation felt provides a dose of pleasure.
This rewarding act is then renewed again, in order to regain the initial pleasure.
Lack of luck, the repetition of this act leads after a few attempts a dose of lower pleasure, hence the need to want to increase it. (Represented in graphic form, this one presents a very curious analogy with the situation current systemic crisis !!!)
This behavior is particularly visible in alcoholics and drug addicts, and ends in addiction whose outcome is sometimes fatal ...

Consumption is in reality, and those despite its airs of "progress", a very dangerous addiction, with the difference that it has ended up building itself into a huge level of organization and now represents a threat to the biosphere. whole!

If to this we add the religious aspect (purged of spirituality) and its modern messianism on the belief of a better world by unlimited growth, we will logically arrive at a general collapse ...

[Janic]

Sen no sen hello

His hierarchies are natural, but they have become corrupt in recent history, because it is no longer a question of being the Alpha (the most beautiful, the strongest or the most intelligent) but of being a skilful manipulator of the system, which leads our species to be led by people sometimes degenerate ... (I know! it's politically incorrect!)

Rather usual than natural. The animal world shows the immense diversity that everyone adopts to be dominant and others who prefer to be dominated. Can we therefore use the degenerate term concerning the most able to profit from a system? Is trickery less "moral" than strength, finesse less than appearance, etc.? It is therefore rather a question of adapting to the most appropriate means according to circumstances like those of our "modern" society.
Afterwards, as the biblical proverb says "we recognize a tree by its fruits "

[sen-no-sen]

Rather usual than natural. The animal world shows the immense diversity that everyone adopts to be dominant and others who prefer to be dominated.

The hierarchies are established from the nursery and continues at school and in the world of work, it is not usual!
Except in pathological cases, no human being wants to be dominated.
Be careful, not wanting to climb the ladder of the hierarchy does not in any way mean the desire to be dominated!
Moreover, very often it is to protect themselves from the responsibilities and the accounts to be made that many people wish to remain camouflaged in the "mass".
Indeed at the bottom of the ladder, there is a certain consensus of peace!

Can we therefore use the degenerate term concerning the most able to profit from a system?

I mentioned "sometimes degenerate", nuance!
Some people have understood the interest of strategy in coming to power, and this since the dawn of time.
It is an intellectual means corresponding to the degree of complexity reached by our species to avoid the "muscular" confrontation: Sun Tzu said:
"The art of war is in defeating the enemy without shedding a single drop of blood." Wise word!

However, while the current "standards" no longer reflect the natural world - but the world of artifice - it is almost logical that "good people" are not necessarily their place at the top of the rung. .
I wouldn't name a name, but a number of politicians and business people should be in jail for far more horrible things than just embezzling ....

It is therefore rather a question of adapting to the most appropriate means according to circumstances such as those of our "modern" society.

Adapting to a world that has gone mad does not really seem to me to be a guarantee of virtue!

[Janic]

Adapting to a world that has gone mad does not really seem to me to be a guarantee of virtue!

It's obvious, but as you underline above, it has existed since the dawn of time. It is therefore the forms, the circumstances, which do not change the substance. Then there are the lessons of History, cyclical, with the height of civilizations and their fall due to the vertigo of power and the necessary wisdom missing. So the only notable difference is that it concerns the whole earth and no longer a few households here and there with the difficulty of "managing" such a large number of individuals and from different or even opposing cultures (including those who hold powers or who believe they hold them instead!) Our societies therefore function on a short-term basis and the loss of spirituality (including by religious systems regardless of their faults and inadequacies or qualities) since without hope of a future, depending on the present, only the notion of enjoying the present moment regardless of its consequences remains, according to the other expression "after me the flood!"

[Ahmed]

Sen-no-sen, you write:

When performing a rewarding act, the sensation felt provides a dose of pleasure.

There is no contradiction, it seems to me, between the vision of Laborit and the one at René Girard: the gratifying act is compared to the other; it is only because others judge him as he is perceived to have this attribute.

[sen-no-sen]

Sen-no-sen, you write:

When performing a rewarding act, the sensation felt provides a dose of pleasure.

There is no contradiction, it seems to me, between the vision of Laborit and the one at René Girard: the gratifying act is compared to the other; it is only because others judge him as he is perceived to have this attribute.

There are indeed two phenomena at play:
Biological: organoleptic in nature, the receiver receives stimulation, which must be stronger each time in order to renew the first sensation.
To this is added neurology, during the accomplishment of a task, "for the first time" the brain has not created any automatism, it feels a particularity making the experience lived as totally different others.
For example, when you go to a place for the first time, you do not perceive it the way that place really is.
Once the reiteration is done, the neural pattern is in place, and there follows a phenomenon of "déjà vu" which further decreases the gratification, placed in the context that interests us - the consumption - we come to quickly to be "jaded" and become a "spoiled child", "eternal dissatisfied".

Social: when an act is considered rewarding by the group (and it can be anything, including completely absurd things), it also follows a phenomenon not here of re-enforcement, but of reinforcement of conviction.
If I am part of a group of billionaires all having Yachts, the fact of having one (especially if it is larger than the others!), Will lead to a feeling of satisfaction. (this joins your mention on the idea of ​​social mimicry).

[Christophe]

The "conspirator" Jean Ziegler puts the cover back at 88: