In Praise of Base and Superstructure

The base-superstructure idea may well be one of the most useful things from the Marxist conceptual canon. That’s because it’s a good way of thinking about primacy.

Marxism holds that society is like a building: its basis or foundation is the economy while the superstructure is everything else from law to politics to religion. The base has primacy, it conditions the superstructure, it determines in the last instance. The base has primacy because it is dynamic, and eventually must transform the whole. Changes in the base lead, sooner or later, to changes in the superstructure. All this applies on the epochal scale, it should be needless to say, not on the day-to-day scale.

That core claim—that the most dynamic part of a system has primacy—is clear and compelling.

Of course later reformulations allowed for increasing amounts of mutual influence between the two as well as plenty of relative autonomy to the superstructure.

I would like to pilfer the base-superstructure notion from the Marxist canon and put to other uses. After all, Marxists can hardly claim it as their own private property.

So, we can imagine a Darwinian version: the base is our genetic infrastructure and the superstructure is everything else. Naturally, the superstructure can affect the base. There is mutual influence, just as there is plenty of relative autonomy to the superstructure. But overall the base has primacy, it conditions the superstructure. Changes in the base eventually bring changes in the superstructure, likewise continuities in the base limit the scope for changes in superstructure. Again, all this refers to an epochal timeframe, not necessarily to day to day events.

Maybe one day others too will be talking of other bases and superstructures.

Nisi Evolution Frustra

Claude Levi-Strauss, the most celebrated anthropologist of his time, once said:

I see no reason why mankind should have waited until recent times to produce a Plato or an Einstein. Already over two or three hundred thousand years ago, there were probably men of a similar capacity

I see a reason why: it is this thing called evolution.

Without evolutionary thinking, Levi-Strauss remains trapped in the primitive, mythic, prescientific thought of creationism, for there is no other way for his just-so story to be true than that some cognitive genesis 300k years ago suddenly took us from hominid brains to genius-level Platonic-Einsteinian cognitive ability in one miraculous creation. After that, uniformitarianism must have ruled.

It is depressing that creationism and uniformitarianism were refuted all the way back in the 19th century, yet mid-20th century cutting edge intellectuals continued the faith.

Moral of the story: except in light of evolution, not much makes sense.

(nisi dominus frustra means “without the lord, all is in vain”.)

Reference

Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1968. The concept of primitiveness. In R.B. Lee and I. DeVore (eds.), Man the Hunter. Chicago: Aldine p. 351.

Mapping Acceptance

We like a good infographic here at The Brev. This is a nice one:

In the bluer countries, fewer people said they would not want neighbors of a different race; in red countries, more people did.

A question on the World Values Survey asks if respondents (in 81 countries) would not want people of a different race living nearby.

The more accepting countries are Anglo and Latin (except Venezuela and the Dominican Republic [next door to Haiti?]). Scandinavian countries also scored high, as did Pakistan.

The less accepting: India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong head the pack. Also low tolerance are the Middle East, much of Asia and Africa (though most of Africa was not surveyed), plus South Korea.

A major proviso to all this is that answers probably reflect social desirability bias. Still, if it is valid, then one thing is clear: the West — commonly accused of all manner of evils such as orientalism, eurocentrism, racism, bigotry and the like — turns out to be comparatively innocent.

Another major proviso, though, is that wanting to live in a cohesive, united community, with similar neighbours, is not in itself an evil. It can be a key source of social capital.

Reference:

Max Fisher, A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries Washington Post May 15, 2013.

 

Are We Getting Less Smart?

I’m generally inclined to think that things have been getting better, that there has been some progress. But a new study means I’d better re-examine my assumptions.

Reaction times – a reliable marker of general intelligence – have declined steadily since the Victorian era from about 183 milliseconds to 250ms in men, and from 187ms to 277ms in women.

The slowing of our reflexes points to a decrease in general intelligence equivalent to 1.23 IQ points per decade since the 1880s or about 14 IQ points overall, researchers said.

That’s a significant decline — one standard deviation.

Actual IQ scores from different decades cannot be directly compared because people today enjoy better teaching, health and nutrition which would help improve their results, the scientists explained.

So, what does that mean for the so-called Flynn effect?

But the reaction times signify that the genetic component of general intelligence – which leads to the type of creativity and invention typical of the Victorian era – has been dwindling over the past century.

Dr Michael Woodley, who led the study published in the Intelligence journal this month, identified the trend by comparing reaction times from trials conducted by Victorian scientists against those carried out in recent decades.

A simple but brilliant idea for research.

Our declining intelligence is most likely down to a “reverse” in the process of natural selection, he explained. The most intelligent people now have fewer children on average than in previous decades, while there are higher survival rates among people with less favourable genes.

“The pressures of modern life, a nine-to-five modern lifestyle, have created all these pressures against very smart people having break-even numbers of children,” he said.

Makes one wonder if, instead of steady advancement, we have seen a great cycle of increase then peak and decrease.

Reference:

Nick Collins, “The Victorians were smarter than us, study suggests” Daily Telegraph

Origins of The Glass Revolution

The medieval West generated a great glass revolution (noted a couple of days ago.) Why? Why was the West peculiar in glass?

Recall the five uses of glass.

1. Decorative glassware: Eurasia but not the Americas or Africa.

This is a common pattern. Eurasia had more technologies than the Rest. The best-known explanation is Jared Diamond’s ingenious idea that Eurasia’s geography – larger, a head start with agriculture—gave it advantage. But geography is opportunity, not response; it is structure, not agency. All technical advances are due in part to cognitive upgrading or rationalization, and this must be so with glass production.

2. Vessels: the Middle East and the West – especially wineglasses in ancient Rome and medieval Venice.

This is somewhat mysterious. Perhaps people enjoyed wine from glass rather than metal or pottery vessels. Perhaps as in China and Japan tea was more suited to pottery. (And yet in Turkey today tea is served in glasses.)

3. Glazed windows: little developed in Asia or Southern Europe, highly developed in Northern Europe after 1000. A great window revolution saw window glass spreading, particularly in churches and cathedrals, later in houses. (more)

Alternative window coverings were paper (China, Korea, Japan) or grillwork (useful in hot regions such as the Middle East). No doubt climate had something to do with it: cool, overcast NW Europe needed light to enter and heat to stay. Absence of earthquakes meant paper was unnecessary. The Church played a key role: compare the large glazed windows of European churches to the windowless or small-windowed temples of antiquity, Hinduism, or Buddhism.

In NW Europe, there were not the courtyard houses common in China, the Middle East, or the Mediterranean. Such houses presented a blank wall to the outside. There is no need for glazed windows. European houses were more open to the outside world. A need for glazed windows arises.

4. Mirrors: largely Western Europe from the Renaissance (elsewhere polished metal served the same purpose).

Since Venice was the core of glass production, I assume the expertise it built was the main cause.

5. Lenses, prisms, and spectacles: Western Europe. Spectacles spread from about 1280.

Quite why medieval Italy invented spectacles is unclear. It indicates a level of inventiveness not associated with the “backward” middle ages.

All five: only the West–by the remarkably early date of 1300.

I do not have a single answer as to why there was a glass revolution. It seems to bring together several influences: geographic, religious, and most importantly a process of rationalization.

Unnatural Vice and Economics

Jeet Heer in The American Prospect uses the brouhaha over Niall Ferguson and Keynes to comment on homosexuality and economics.

He quotes Aristotle’s condemnation of usury from the Politics:

The most hated sort [of wealth-getting], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of any modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural

Here is how Heer glosses the passage:

the idea there was a tension between sodomy and the procreative goal that they [Greeks] saw governing proper household management

Or another gloss:

the curious argument made by Aristotle—that usury was similar to unnatural sex, a case of money being generated by interaction with an outside party rather than the growth of a household through the fruitful union of husband and wife.

A further gloss:

Aristotle’s linkage of non-procreative sex with usury profoundly influenced Christian thinkers.

But these are glossing too far.

The birth of money from money; the breeding of money – this has nothing to do with sodomy, unnatural sex, or non-procreative sex. Quite the contrary: it involves birth and breeding! Sodomy, non-procreative sex, does not go along with birth and breeding. Aristotle objects to unnatural breeding not unnatural sex.

The profound influence on Christian thinkers against homosexuality did not come from the Pagan philosopher but from the Old Testament. It was the Jews, not the Greeks, who objected to homosexuality. Their hostility was passed down through the Old Testament to the medieval Church. (The New Testament has little to say on the subject.)

Why were the Jews such enemies of homosexuality? I commented on that question here. The basic answer is that one of their enemy tribes practiced it. If the enemy does it, it must be bad.

The animus against usury was common in premodern societies. Perhaps because most were kin-based, clannish, social orders—the idea of lending money to kin for interest still today is regarded as distasteful.

Later, if Heer is right, Jeremy Bentham was the first thinker to clearly argue that both usury and sodomy are acceptable.

Glass and the Uniqueness of the West

The West is a very peculiar civilization. It was, for instance, unique in its use of glass.

Historically, glass has had five main uses:

1. Decoration, such as beads, toys, or jewellery;
2. Vessels, such as drinking glasses;
3. Windows;
4. Mirrors; and
5. Lenses, prisms, and spectacles.

The West was the only civilization to develop all five uses, and it did so early on by 1300. Here we see a great Western divergence – much earlier than the industrial revolution.

1. Decorative glass, particularly beads, was produced by all the Eurasian civilizations, though it was unknown in the Americas or Africa.
2. Vessels were produced in the Middle East and the West, particularly Rome (notably wine glasses) and later Venice. The East preferred china vessels.
3. Windows were little developed either in Asia or Southern Europe. A great window revolution around 1000 saw window glass spreading across NW Europe, particularly in churches and cathedrals.
4. Mirrors were peculiar to Western Europe from about the 1200s (elsewhere in Asia polished metal served the same purpose, though less efficiently).
5. Lenses, prisms, and spectacles were unique to Western Europe. Spectacles spread from about 1280.

What were the causes and consequences of these developments? That is a subject for another time.

Sources:

Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin, The Glass Bathyscape (London: Profile Books, 2002).

Alan Macfarlane, ”Glass and Its Effects” (YouTube).