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This is not a drill. Security of the SCP has been breached. All project personnel should check for local prenetrance of security firewalls and other deterrents. Activity logs have been forwarded to their respective supervisors. Remain calm.
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Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Selfish Gene, Part III
The natural progression of selfish gene theory is genetic sociology, and in fact, sociolinguists such as Steven Pinker have used the Computational theory of mind to explain the power that language has using the evolution of the human brain. One example of this can be found in the politics that we have been discussing.
Berkeley professor of Cognitive Linguistics George Lakoff argues that there are two types of metaphorical thought in America, both using the explanatory metaphor of “Country as Family.” Conservatives and liberals both accept different metaphors about the relationship of the state to its citizens, within the context of the family. The conservative, or “strict father” model, portrays a family structured around a strong, dominant "father" (the government), and assumes that the “children” (public) require discipline to become self-sufficient “adults” (financially and morally independent). Once “children” are “adults,” the “father” must remain apart from the business of those in society who have proved their responsibility.
The liberal, or “nurturing parent model,” of the family is based on “nurturing values,” where both “mothers” and “fathers” work to keep the essentially good “children” away from “corrupting influences” (poverty, ecological pollution, social injustice, etc.).
That Lakoff’s ideas have become a major guide for political operations in America is a testament to a new relationship between the state and the individual. “Governmentality” is Michel Foucalt’s catch-all term for an apparatus of control, be it one’s control of one’s self, or the government’s control over its citizens. Conceptually, Governmentality relies on Foucault’s notion of “bio-politics,” which deals with the population as individual units, and, as the name suggests, begins to conflate the biological with the political. When bio-politics is the operative paradigm behind a political system, there is no issue too sacred for politics, and the government is placed in a position to govern the individual’s body or genes.
Foucault suggests that the supposed legitimacy of the seventeenth century notion of the Social Contract is simply the formalization of Governmentality. He writes, “This art of government tried, so to speak, to reconcile itself with the theory of sovereignty by attempting to derive the ruling principals of an art of government from a renewed version of the theory of sovereignty,” and this lead to the “[formalization] or [ritualizing] of the theory of the contract.” If, as Foucault convincingly argues, the notion of Governmentality predates the institution of the Social Contract, than the philosophical and social legitimacy of the Social Contract itself can be called into question, and so to can the “plane of reality” (as Foucault puts it) of economics.
Luckily for us, the current administration shares this view of the future of politics. The following is an excerpt from the New York Times magazine by journalist Ron Suskind, from 2004.
Berkeley professor of Cognitive Linguistics George Lakoff argues that there are two types of metaphorical thought in America, both using the explanatory metaphor of “Country as Family.” Conservatives and liberals both accept different metaphors about the relationship of the state to its citizens, within the context of the family. The conservative, or “strict father” model, portrays a family structured around a strong, dominant "father" (the government), and assumes that the “children” (public) require discipline to become self-sufficient “adults” (financially and morally independent). Once “children” are “adults,” the “father” must remain apart from the business of those in society who have proved their responsibility.
The liberal, or “nurturing parent model,” of the family is based on “nurturing values,” where both “mothers” and “fathers” work to keep the essentially good “children” away from “corrupting influences” (poverty, ecological pollution, social injustice, etc.).
That Lakoff’s ideas have become a major guide for political operations in America is a testament to a new relationship between the state and the individual. “Governmentality” is Michel Foucalt’s catch-all term for an apparatus of control, be it one’s control of one’s self, or the government’s control over its citizens. Conceptually, Governmentality relies on Foucault’s notion of “bio-politics,” which deals with the population as individual units, and, as the name suggests, begins to conflate the biological with the political. When bio-politics is the operative paradigm behind a political system, there is no issue too sacred for politics, and the government is placed in a position to govern the individual’s body or genes.
Foucault suggests that the supposed legitimacy of the seventeenth century notion of the Social Contract is simply the formalization of Governmentality. He writes, “This art of government tried, so to speak, to reconcile itself with the theory of sovereignty by attempting to derive the ruling principals of an art of government from a renewed version of the theory of sovereignty,” and this lead to the “[formalization] or [ritualizing] of the theory of the contract.” If, as Foucault convincingly argues, the notion of Governmentality predates the institution of the Social Contract, than the philosophical and social legitimacy of the Social Contract itself can be called into question, and so to can the “plane of reality” (as Foucault puts it) of economics.
Luckily for us, the current administration shares this view of the future of politics. The following is an excerpt from the New York Times magazine by journalist Ron Suskind, from 2004.
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
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