From the Boston Tea Party to the World Trade Center Massacre

White Rock, September 30, 2001

http://www.goodshare.org/boston.htm

At first glance, it may seem ridiculous to compare these two historical 'protest' events, and indeed there is no comparison in terms of the severity and inhumanity of 'what happened'.  But these two events nevertheless manifest a common geometry of 'genesis' the exploration of which can yield insight.

'Taxation without representation' by the 'governors' of the global economy is inducing global protest.   The finite resources of the global commons, in the form of  the products and derivative wealth of;  earth (e.g. mining of mineral deposits for industrial consumption),  air (e.g. oxygen for combustion engines and factories),  fire (e.g. petroleum and other energy resources) and  water (e.g.  fresh water resources for agriculture, consumption, lawns, toilets),  is being rapidly consumed by the 'first world' without representation by the 'third world'. That is, the third world is the victim of 'taxation without representation'.

The United States, as the leader of the first world trading block or 'G8' has been much mocked for insensitivity to this 'global taxation without representation'. A British poet has tried to capture this shift away from the US' early empathic sensitivity to the balanced 'opportunizing' of the people of the world by revising the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty --- 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, ...--- to instead read;

 fuck off, you poor, you weak, you huddled masses,

 toxins r'us, we give you greenhouse gases, ..

 This 'rough' satirical revision was in the wake of the US' continued refusal to respond to demands for international representation to combat excessive 'taxing' of the resources of the global commons.

The underlying 'political' or 'systemic' geometry of this conflict, whether on the scale of an 'Empire' colonizing community and its colonies or the scale of the 'global village' and its 'global villagers, is in terms of the manner in which 'community behaviour' relates to 'constituent behaviour'. That is, does the community determine the constituent's behaviour or do the constituents determine the community behaviour?  Or more specifically, does the global community-of-nations as represented by the first world bloc determine the behaviour of the constituent nations, or do the constituent nations determine the behaviour of the global community?

It may seem reasonable to answer 'yes' to both, but since these two modes of influencing behaviour proceed in opposite directions, the method of achieving a dynamic equilibrium in this dipolar opposition will be important.

In fact, within the United States right now, there is a major debate going on as to whether the community, as represented by the 'majority' government in power should determine the behaviour of the constituency, or vice versa, with respect to responding to the September 11th world trade tower massacre.  That is, should the constituents be held to account for their solidarity or not with the community 'if you're not with us you're agin us' position?

Those that support the 'community-determining-the-behaviour-of-the-constituents' mode believe that centrally-coordinated action management to eliminate the evil is the way to go.  Those that support the 'constituents-determining-the-behaviour-of-the-community' mode believe that centrally-mentored opportunity management to cultivate community harmony is the way to go.  While the former represents 'imposed' change (eg. as in a machine), the latter represents 'induced' change (e.g. as in a whirlpool).  

From a systems point of view, the two poles in this dipolar opposition do not have to oppose one another in the binary sense of opposition.  In nature, dipolar opposition is resolved via transformative dynamics.   For example, the torque-converter in the drive mechanism of an automobile makes the mechanical gearworks subservient to the inductive influence of the vortical flow of the transmission fluid.  And in the game of pool, the skilled player makes the shooting transactions subservient to the inductive influence of the shape of the space between the balls.

Both of these examples illustrate the simultaneous compatibility of the 'community imposing constituent behaviour' and 'the constituents inducing community behaviour'.  In fact, this 'masculine-feminine' dynamical complementarity to resolve dipolar opposition is the general case in nature.  In our solar system the 'masculine' dynamics of the planetary constituents reference (in a simultaneous reciprocal manner) to the enveloping 'feminine' community dynamic, allowing the system (i.e. 'planetary community') to sustain a resonant togetherness. 'The rainforest makes its own climate' as is said in the case of ecological systems.

In the western culture, we have become so conditioned to the over-simplified notion of 'causality' (the masculine dynamic of imposed action-management) as being all that is necessary to describe our enveloping world-dynamic, we tend to forget that this is not 'really' how the world works (as Henri Poincaré says, we can impose such simplified notions on our science, the product of the unconstrained activity of our mind, but we cannot impose them on nature.).  The deeper view of the way the world works, that goes beyond the 'voyeur' descriptive view of pre-relativity science, is the observer-including 'view from inside'; i.e. the 'relativistic view', and the relativistic view reminds us that we reference our constituent actions to the enveloping opportunity-to-act.   And as we all do this together and at the same time, we co-produce our enveloping opportunity-to-act.   This 'inclusional' relativistic view informs us what 'community' in nature is all about; i.e. communities in nature have an inductive feminine dynamic forming out of the relationships amongst the assertive masculine dynamics.  The simultaneous complementarity of the feminine dynamic with the masculine dynamic, in the manner of the solar system, is what sustained the resonant togetherness of ancient communities.

The point is that current conflict in our society over whether-or-when to have the community determine the constituent behaviour OR the constituents determine the community behaviour is the product of rational abstraction and is not seen in nature.  Neither is it present in 'exceptional teams' (i.e. exceptional mini-communities') because there is an awareness in exceptional teams that the enveloping world-dynamic cannot be fully attributed to masculine assertive dynamics (the 'rational-cause view').  Instead, exceptional teams recognize the over-riding role of the 'feminine inductive dynamic' and that its complementarity to the 'masculine assertive dynamic' must be taken into account.

At the level of human social systems, the feminine dynamic and masculine dynamic which co-produce the sustaining resonant togetherness of the community-constituent system can be described as follows;

Masculine assertive dynamic (MAD): ... The progressive refinement of rational ideas and plans along the axis of time for the purpose of centrally coordinated (one-to-many) action.

Feminine inductive dynamic (FID): ... The deepening of  insight into the collective conscious by bringing a diverse multitude of constituent perspectives into connection in our minds for the purpose of inducing (many-to-one) resonance in our actions.

For example, in the global peace campaign that has emerged in the wake of the September 11th massacre, it is the FID rather than the MAD which characterizes the powerful hurricane-like ordering force that has been 'cooking', ... an ordering force that those aspiring to cultivate peace and community harmony are 'co-producing' and whose strength we can 'feel' in us even before the advent of significant realizations of centrally coordinated action; i.e. it is 'the FID' that is inducing order into the thoughts and actions of the distributed constituents and which is encoded into the disparate everyday actions of the participating constituents.  Like the force of a hurricane, it is not 'imposed' by a central agency, but is in the form of an induced 'phase-coupled spin' modulating the 'regular' multifarious activities and engagements of the constituents, a spin induced by the deepening 'eye of a collective consciousness' that comes from bringing the diverse perspectives of the constituents into connection in the mind.   This swirling, highly ordering 'shaping force' has the potential to take over the leadership from the 'gearworks', without 'bringing down the gearworks' in the manner of the 'turbo-drive' by letting the explicit and tangible gearworks of MAD be in the service of the implicit inductive resonance-inducing force of FID as occurs in nature (as exemplified in the game of pool).  In fact, FID and MAD are simply reciprocal views of each other, FID being the transcendently deeper and more comprehensive view that includes the space-time phase relationships (that inform us of resonant or dissonant coordination) amongst the constituent actions.

That is, like the 'game of pool' natural systems can be viewed in shallower or deeper terms; i.e. we can view the system in the sole terms of MAD; i.e. the masculine assertive dynamic represented by the actions and transactions of the constituents, or, we can view it in the transcendently more comprehensive terms of FID; i.e. the feminine inductive dynamic represented by the transformation of the geometry of  interball space, ... space that represents 'opportunity-to-act'. [Note:  while the standard MAD-based theory is 'transactional' and considers each 'turn at play' as a separate in-its-own-right transactional sequence that can be 'optimized' in its own right,, ... FID-based theory is 'continuing' and 'remembers' that each action simultaneously reciprocally impacts the enveloping 'opportunity-to-act', thus the imposition of pre-relativity MAD theory simply 'imposes' the notion that transactions are independent of one another.  This illusion of discreteness is no more than an illusion as the deeper relativistic FID-based theory clearly shows.]

The oversimplified 'rational-cause' view focuses abstractly on a particular topic as if that's the only thing that's going on in the world.   It ignores the obvious fact that we are immersed in an enveloping complex, simultaneously-interfering-multi-goal-pursuing world-dynamic that we, through our individual actions relative to the actions of others, are helping to 'co-produce' (i.e. we co-produce the enveloping world-dynamic whether we want to or not and whether we stand still or move; i.e. our actions are relative to the enveloping world-dynamic and simultaneous with our 'relative' movement, the enveloping world-dynamic 'moves'.).   Like balls in the game of pool, as we move relative to the movements of our fellow constituents in pursuit of a particular purpose, we co-produce transformation in our enveloping 'opportunity-to-move'.   And as the skilled pool player well knows (since he looks out through the 'eyes' of all his constituent-balls), the constituents of space must manage their movements in the context of the transcendent 'geometry of opportunity' (FID) rather than managing their movements as if they were 'detached' from the enveloping world-dynamic and moving 'absolutely' and 'in their own right' (i.e. as if the enveloping space were empty).  In other words, in order not to screw up the enveloping dynamical shape of opportunity-to-act, the constituent must manage his movements by putting MAD (his assertive action) in the service of FID (inducing resonance in the relative dynamics of his enveloping fellows).  As the example geometry of the game of pool indicates, this 'management' that has him pursue his own goal while at the same time cultivating 'community harmony' is achieved by putting 'action' in the service of sustaining balanced 'opportunity-to-act' in the same manner as in the solar system functioning or in a system of friendly drivers on a crowded freeway.   The sustaining of dynamical 'flow' is innately beyond the capability of MAD-based optimization and instead  demands putting one's assertive dynamics in the service of cultivating community-constituent-coresonance; i.e. by putting MAD in the service of FID.

Teams (communities) that ignore FID and focus solely on MAD inevitably infuse dissonance in their enveloping world-dynamic.  Teams (communities) that put MAD into the service of FID as in natural systems like the solar system, are not only more productive in a team sense, but put themselves into resonance with their enveloping host communities and improve the performance of those around them as well.  For example, the friendly freeway driving group by putting MAD in the service of FID achieves a traffic flow rate beyond anything that can be achieved by optimizing MAD on its own.  And multiple 'teams', such as families crossing a crowded public square etc. from different directions and heading in different directions (the general geometry), by putting MAD in the service of FID (i.e. action in the service of opportunity-to-act), can not only improve the efficiency of performance of their team but can, at the same time, contribute to the overall efficiency of performance of the 'team of teams' or 'super-community'.

The manager of the large corporation, using 'MAD-only' theory, sees fit to compensate himself 200 times the average employee wage on a 'rational cause' basis, but while he can impose his MAD-only theory on the corporation, he cannot impose it on reality.   That is, the space-time phase relationships amongst the employee dynamics and amongst the dynamics of the constituents of the host community (the FID) transcend 'rational cause' in being responsible for 'results', whether we choose to ignore them with our MAD-only theory or not.  The same deeper FID-based reality prevails at the level of the 'effective' manager of the community of national economies, and this brings us back around to where we started from, to this issue of 'does the community determine the constituent's behaviour' or does the 'constituent determine the community behaviour', but this time we are no longer required to think in terms of 'binary opposition' of these two processes but are equipped with the model of the complementarity of MAD, masculine assertive dynamics, and FID, feminine inductive dynamics, as occurs in nature, wherein the polar opposition is resolved by the simultaneous reciprocity of the relative assertive actions and the transformation of enveloping opportunity-to-act.   In locally restricted space, as on the spherical surface of the Earth, the actions of the constituents constitute, at the same time, the shaping of their own enveloping 'opportunity-to-act'.

So wWhat happens 'politically' when one 'ignores' FID and goes with a MAD-only view of the world?

One is, in this case, lacking a legitimate 'rationale' for how 'opportunizing' and 'disopportunizing' actually occurs in real (natural) systems.  Imagine several teams playing pool at the same time on the same table (with distinguishable sets of balls).  Pool has a name, 'cut-throat', for the approach where several players (or teams) use the FID to manipulate opportunity-to-act; i.e. to selectively 'snooker' particular 'others'.   This preferential opportunizing and disopportunizing is not achieved by MAD (action) but by the collaborative shaping of opportunity-to-act (i.e. by shaping space-time phase relationships).  It is analogous to two semi-trailers deliberately driving side by side on a two-lane freeway and opening up opportunity-to-move on through on a biased basis, opportunizing their cronies, and disopportunizing unliked others.  This disopportunizing does not come assertive actions but instead from manipulating the geometrical relationships amongst actions to 'induce' an opening up or closing down of opportunity (e.g. a senior position may be vacated right at the time a management crony is due to be transferred back in from abroad, thus opening up preferential opportunity-to-move for the crony (opportunizing the crony) and disopportunizing other aspirants.)

The use of MAD-only theory and the ignoring of FID constrains the explanations of 'performance' to material-results and ignores how the 'opportunity landscape' is being inductively transformed simultaneously with the assertive actions of the constituents.  This leads to great confusion and conflict as groups with differing political views, but that both ascribe to MAD-only theory, try to interpret the FID-effects in MAD-only terms.  An article is appended to illustrate this 'logical bust' wherein the rational argument of both parties searches in vain for 'phantom cause' of social disparity, ... the true cause (FID) not being available to their MAD-only theory foundation.   The article (i.e. excerpts thereof),  'The Assault on the First Amendment: Public Choice and Political Correctness' by Paul Rubin, attacks the 'liberal academic world' because of its manner of support for minorities who show up in 'MAD-only theory' as 'less performant', suggesting that the less performant are less performant because of their genetic deficiencies.  Rubin pooh-poohs the two-pronged argument of the liberal academics; (a) that the performance of minorities is skewed downwards due to environmental factors, and (b) that variants of the Marxian principle.that employers and capitalists are in collusion to exploit workers, are at play.

Rubin maintains that the environmental argument is nonsense saying; ...  "there is no intellectually respectable case that can be made for the idea that behavioral differences between men and women are due solely to socialization processes or cultural influences. This idea of course illustrates the intellectual poverty of much contemporary feminist scholarship", ... and he rejects the Marxian argument saying; ... "Mainstream economics indicates that this behavior is inconsistent with normal self-interested maximizing behavior."

Because of the acceptance by 'both sides' of MAD-only theory and the ignoring of the transcendent influence of the FID, the model and the issues being debated make no sense, and Rubin comes away making the more convincing impression. But the 'fish is not in the net' that they are fighting over thus 'winning the debate' is detached from the true issues underpinning the social disparities.  At the same time, the consequences of taking action when one is convinced that genetic supremacy and genetic defectiveness is responsible for social inequity can be horrendous.

Nevertheless, this type of MAD-theory debate that ignores the inductive role of the FID and searches vainly for 'phantom cause' is a polarizing debate that has real impact on our communities, and there are many who are left believing that genetic superiority and genetic deficiency are responsible for the differences in performance since the counter arguments come across as flaky.   The fact is that the 'rational cause' based arguments presented by both sides in such debates won't hold water, and the actual 'cause' (induced cause rather than assertive cause) cannot be brought to the fore so long as all parties subscribe to the MAD-only theory.

In conclusion, the world trade center massacre can be viewed as a severe form of recurrence of protest, on a global scale, against 'taxation without representation'.  There is a religious overlay in the sense that all three of the major western religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam have incorporated the MAD-only (rational cause) view of the world within their doctrines (not that it is implicit in the behaviours of the prophets nor in the practice of the respective constituents).  For example in Pope John Paul II's recent philosophical encyclical 'Fides et Ratio' ('Faith and Rationality'), he argues that we must guard against 'relativity' and instead use a divinely inspired rationality (i.e. a MAD-only view of the world guided by our divine insight or spirituality).  This approach effectively denies the existence of the FID consistent with the masculine hierarchy tradition of the Church.

Both Islam and Christianity embrace the primacy of the masculine dynamic, but as has been noted in regard to the current conflict, Islamic fundamentalism aligns more with the stern and absolute justice of God while the Christian tradition aligns more with a merciful God, ... but once again, we are dealing with answers to the wrong question.  Proper questions cannot be formulated starting from MAD-only theory.  The theory of relativity is needed to make the over-riding role of the FID in nature, once again visible to us, and when it is, we will have a way of dealing with the manipulation of opportunity that is at the bottom of protests against the 'global economy', both within and amongst the nations of the world.  Meanwhile, in the absence of our continuing to defer the incorporation of relativity theory, we are witnessing the binary opposition or 'head-butting' of divinely inspired rational cause mobilized against 'taxation without representation' (against the global community determining the behaviour of its constituents) with divinely inspired rational cause mobilized in support of the right of the global community to determine the behaviour of its constituents.

 * * *

These following article excerpts should be read in the context of the 'falseness' of such debates as are constrained by the acceptance, on both sides of the debate, of MAD-only theory; i.e. constrained by ignoring the FID (coordinated manipulation of opportunity-to-act)

That is, the author and his adversaries are searching for 'phantom cause' since the social disparities are accruing from 'feminine inductive dynamics', relativistic effects that are beyond the over-simplified scope of theory that is limited to 'masculine assertive dynamics'.   

The liberal academic world view in the humanities has two basic pillars. One is a form of Marxism and the other is the notion that most or all differences between humans are due to environmental factors; genetic elements can have no influence. Neither of these positions is intellectually tenable. However, an entire generation of academics has much of their human capital invested in these ideas, so that if they were rejected this human capital would become much less valuable.

...

Marxism as the First Pillar of Liberal Humanism. Marxist theory is based on the notion of group or class interests. In classic Marxism, employers or capitalists collude and exploit workers. In today's version, men and whites collude to exploit women and blacks. The key assumption is that members of a class act in concert to advance class interests. This perception differs from the mainstream economic view that individuals act to advance their interests as individuals, which often conflict with their putative interests as members of a class.

Collusion by employers to act as racists or sexists would take the form of an implicit agreement to pay members of the exploited class less than they were worth. But any employer who "cheated'' and hired women or blacks without discriminating could make a lot of money because he could get workers at a bargain wage. Employers seeking this money would bid up the wage of the exploited class and thereby eliminate any remaining racism or sexism. Marxist theory would suggest that such collusion would be possible. Mainstream economics indicates that this behavior is inconsistent with normal self-interested maximizing behavior.

Jim Crow laws or illegal terrorist groups such as the Klan can enforce racist policies, but absent these forces, any residual occupational differences cannot be due to discrimination by employers. Differences in earnings must be due to differences in productivity. Discrimination by customers or other employees could cause some of this productivity difference (Becker 1971). Customers might be unwilling to deal with minority employees, or employees might demand a premium to work with members of minority groups. If such preferences exist, capitalists would accede to them. However, capitalists would neither cause nor profit from this discrimination and so could not be blamed for it in any moral sense. Indeed, capitalists would prefer that discrimination not exist because profits, at least in the short run, would be increased if constraints on hiring minority workers were relaxed.

In a way, it is odd that academic Marxism has survived so long among scholars in the humanities. Marx was an economist. Economists (except for a few idiosyncratic "radical political economists'') have rejected his views for many years. The survival of Marxism and its sundry French structuralist variants in the humanities is as intellectually respectable as would be a theory of literary or historical criticism based on other outmoded scientific ideas, such as astrology or phrenology.

Although Marx survived for a while the intellectual attack from economists, the game is now over. No one today observing the world can seriously consider Marxist ideas to have any intellectual respectability. Marxism has been the subject of the most decisive experiment ever performed in the social sciences, and this experiment has culminated with the fall of the Russian empire. Breton and Wintrobe (1992) argue that where direct experimental testing of an idea is possible, competition between ideas will eliminate those ideas with little truth value. Defenders of Marxist ideas, or of methods of literary or historical scholarship based on these ideas, can only survive by outlawing any intellectual challenge to their beliefs. This is what the notion of "political correctness'' attempts to do. As it happens the Marxist concept of class interest provides a useful underpinning of the "politically correct'' notion that occupational differences between men and women or between blacks and whites are due entirely to discrimination, thus forging an alliance between advocates of the current civil rights culture and academic leftists.

Environmental Determinism as the Second Pillar of Liberal Humanism. The belief that all differences between individuals are due to their environment is the second pillar of liberal scholarship. This belief is particularly important for feminists. If there were economically relevant innate differences between men and women, then differences in earnings could be due to factors other than discrimination or differential socialization. For example, if there were innate differences between the desire and ability of men and women to spend time raising children, then women's reduced earnings caused by reduced time in the labor force is neither discriminatory nor due to socialization.

The view that there are no innate differences between human beings has been intellectually untenable since at least 1975, when Edward Wilson published his monumental Sociobiology. Indeed, it was never based on any scientific evidence (see Degler 1991). While humanists and feminists have been advocating ideas based on no innate differences, psychologists, and other behaviorally based social scientists have been pursuing research agendae exploring the evolutionary nature of human behavior. [7] While sociobiologists have not examined or theorized much on differences between races (perhaps in part because of the hostility with which such research would be greeted), there is no intellectually respectable case that can be made for the idea that behavioral differences between men and women are due solely to socialization processes or cultural influences. This idea of course illustrates the intellectual poverty of much contemporary feminist scholarship. It is also inconsistent with the view that all occupational differences between men and women are due to discrimination.

Politically liberal academics have understood this challenge. Wilson's ideas and even Wilson himself have been subject of vicious assaults. Marxist biologists have attacked biological theories of human behavior (Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin 1984). Some have even claimed that human language ability arose from non-Darwinian forces, as discussed by Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom (1992). [8] Indeed, there is a widespread attack by the left on science in general (Gross and Levitt 1994). However, despite these attacks, working scientists proceed with their research under the evolutionary paradigm. For political reasons, however, scientists do not attempt to derive the implications of this research for the humanities. Most humanists simply ignore the science.

An analogy to the IQ debate may be instructive. Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman (1988) have compared views of "experts'' (primarily academic psychologists) with the mainstream views of the media on issues relating to IQ. They find that experts' views are significantly different from the views discussed in the media, which are mainly the standard views of the liberal establishment. Experts continue doing their research, but at the same time seem to try not to become involved in public controversies.

As an aside, we should note that as long as there are racial differences in performance on tests and these tests are correlated with performance on the job, disparate impact will be inefficient, no matter what the source (heredity or environment) of these performance differences. Claims that differences are environmental rather than genetic are red herrings, since the source of the differences is irrelevant to an employer. Even if the tests are "culturally biased,'' differences will still be related to productivity since job performance is also culturally determined. As Snyderman and Rothman (1988 108-10) point out, a test may accurately measure differences in intelligence between groups where the differences are not due to heredity, but the test may still be accurate in that its predictions (regarding success in school or on the job) may be useful. [9] Indeed, to the extent that differences in IQ tests are environmental or cultural rather than genetic, "multicultural'' education will increase earnings deficits of minority groups since it will exacerbate such cultural differences.

. . .

[from the Cato Journal, Volume 14, Issue No. 1.  The Cato Journal is published in the spring/summer, fall, and winter by the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20001-5403. The Views expressed by the authors of the articles are their own and are not attributable to the editor, editorial board, or the Cato Institute.]

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