Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Collective (Un)Consious
In economics, there is a theoretical method to find someone's utility curve, that is the potential imputations or combinations of consumption goods that give someone the same level of satisfaction or, alternatively, the same level of happiness. For now, let's ignore the foolishness that someone may say 4 cokes and 12 bags of Cheetos makes me as happy as I would be if I instead had fourteen cokes and three bags of Cheetos. The "economic model" says that if we observe mix 1 of products and the consumer can't make up his or her mind to exchange if offered a trade of mix 2, the faith is that they offer the same level of utility and the consumer is indifferent.
By offering this consumer a variety of choices, say 3.9 cokes and 12.2 bags of Cheetos, and monitoring the resulting behavior, we can graphically tease out a map showing all the different combinations that the consumer would not be able to say which they liked better such as 0.04 cokes and 31 bags of Cheetos. In theory, truth is revealed by making a series of small (read marginal) changes and see what happens to the choice (assuming the person doesn't die from malnutrition in the meantime).
But this is how we as humans do discover things. It is not quite trial and error, because our brains allow us to jump past many possible iterations because we know that razor blades and babies are not good in any combination (yes, economists would make such a comparison -- even if only in private).
In existentialism, we never really learn the truth. We realize others are judging us and we try to fit their expectations. Our ego, id, self, or whatever is feeling out the constraints placed on us by family, friends, social organizations, community, state, nation, on up. Existentially, we grow up when we fit in and allow the reality of time and space to crystallize us in place. But we feel comfortable there in some fashion because we glow or at least minimize pain.
But is it the truth, or is it just a place of comfort?
I was listening to Terry Gross interview someone on Fresh Air a few months ago and heard someone talking about how truth flows in the rumor mill. You get a bunch of people each with little bits and pieces of knowledge talking back and forth until some type of unified theory comes together. Some would call it detective work. But the funny thing is, although there may still be some holes in the analysis, the general picture is pretty damn good in terms of accuracy as to what actually happened. Emptywheel (aka Marcy Wheeler) at FiredOglake is exceptionally good at this in uncovering many crimes of George W. Bush. And now the documents are beginning to flow, we see that Marcy got it right.
Individually, we may have enough knowledge to be able to find the elephants tail. Collectively, we know what has to be done with or to the elephant. Collectively we may have 643 pieces of a 1000 piece puzzle. But as the HeiligeZeitGeist pulls us together in awareness, we can pull this truth together. Any everyone will be aware and they too will get it -- whatever it is. But together we can work a way forward. And we need to do it in a way where everyone's voice counts. Kind of like a worldwide Quaker meeting conducted over the internet. MarcLord believes that this coming together via the blogosphere and/or facebook is literaly the Body of Christ. Just by saying that term, I used the internet to invoke centuries of theology, millions of peoples' personal experiences, a common metaphor, a cooption toward the future, a lens through which to interpret reality, and a potential call to political action. And hopefully it makes sense that by organizing a movement based upon the call from giddeon's blogspot trumpet, others can say "fuck yea, that makes sense. Count me in." Funny thing is, the body of christ doesn't need a profession of god to take collective action.
Consider the lilies. Or the birds then. How do they take off on a moments notice and act in unison? Instinct? Learned behavior? Trust? I don't think it matters why, rather it matters that they do it. We are getting to the point where we need to take action. Serious action. No, not guns. Democratic action with an informed population that has a reason to care. We are almost there. People are starting to care now that the allotments from the great father in Washington are late in being dispersed. Something about the manufactures of those allotments being crooks or worse. But if the bribes or allotments are not being paid anymore, we don't have to keep out mouths shut about all the injustices in the world. Those natives are getting more restless than we are. And don't we want to be on the right side of history?
Arianna Huffington says you (yes you and everyone) should start a blog. Write what you know. Write what you love. Take back your life and make it your own. It is a first draft of history. It is you defining yourself instead of being existentially defined by others.
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