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Wow. Thank you so much for this again, Blair, these pieces were stunning and really took me for a heck of a ride. Sorry again that my response isn’t especially timely, I was trying my best to roll around Ulf’s hypothesis for the origin of social power into this larger frame of big history. [I, too, was initially thrown off by Stewart’s choice of language with “management”].
Stewart has raised the question in my mind: As humans are only one of many branches of the grand phylogenetic tree, did humanity arise prior to social power? If not, and we recognize that social power exists in many other social organisms and forms of social organization, then what is the “first instance” of social power?
Stewart proposes his “management” hypothesis to explain the emergence of suppression mechanisms in groups that are able to mitigate the in-group selection against altruism, and the trend towards increases of complex cooperation throughout all major cooperative evolutionary transitions. Yet, in the examples proposed Stewart never quite answers how an organism becomes a manager in the first place. In fact it would seem that his hypothesis would necessitate differential power relations within a group prior to management. Stewart suggests “…it is possible that in some circumstances a proto-manager may discover ways to control a group so that it can harvest an on-going stream of benefits from it… A proto-manager that organizes the group by supporting beneficial cooperation (including group-level functionality) will potentially be able to harvest a much greater stream of on-going benefits from the group”.
I haven’t found a satisfying way to solve any of this, unfortunately, yet I would be remiss not to propose at least some constructive theorizing on Ulf’s hypothesis on the origin of social power: perhaps it is the capacity to create formations against entropy (not necessarily “resistance”, as we see social power arising in some cases prior to and even independently of “resistance”)
-sorry I haven’t gotten back to y’all yet! I’ve been doing my best to digest all of this!
Jonathan, your daughter’s video on apoptosis was lovely, and I am definitely saving it for any chance I might get to teach an intro class again!
Shoot, I realize now that we’re getting into matters of epistemology, that the model of the mega-machine is being used to describe a process of simplifying human interactions over time, with the intent (from the perspective of power) to produce perfectly predictable outcomes (a process I still do not think of as very machine-like, frankly).
You are absolutely right in that trying to categorize every person and define them based on their functions as some form of cell is far too literal an application, and at that point it seems I’d be playing the same game that Marxists are when they try to invent distinctions between classes.
My concerns with Ulf’s work remain, and I expect that I’ll have to do some digging there! Perhaps we could sift out some problems by applying their thought experiment for the origin of social power to historical instances of the formation of social power?
[Of course, this means plenty more reading for me, if I’m to be of any help here!]
Jonathan, I should have clarified that from the perspective of the nervous system, the perspective of power, all humans are defined relative to their function within the nervous system. Social nervous systems theory postulates that planet earth is the “body” of all social nervous systems. With this premise in mind, perhaps I might be able to plug some of these holes you’ve poked in my bucket!!
I believe it’s crucial at this point to define what we mean by internal “conflict”, as it incorporates some varied conceptions, I think here we should distinguish between competition, resistance and violence.
On Internal Competition: When viewed from the perspective of evolutionary development, the nervous system has always been in competition with other organ systems: with the development of ever more complexity, brains have become greedier, requiring ever more inputs of energy and ever more volume relative to the overall volume of the organism (in order to support a larger cerebrum an organism would need more space in the cranium, more vasculature to carry nutrients and oxygen etc.) Today the normal functioning of the human brain utilizes approximately 20% of the bodies energy (while at rest), while accounting for a mere 2% of its biomass. It is singly the most energy hungry organ system in the human body.
On Internal Resistance: Resistance exists in a literal, physical form as voltage across the cell membrane of every nerve cell. The actively mediated polarization of the cell membrane is the necessary precursor to the transmission of action potentials.
On Internal Violence: Here I will bifurcate my argument once more, as you asked me to explain both the violence the nervous system enacts on the body, and the violence between cells of the nervous system.
When viewed relative to the developmental lifespan of a nervous system, we can observe the nervous system doing violence against the planet (the “body” of the social nervous system) in the interest of short-term betterment or pleasure (imagine any opioid addict pushing their next needle, or me, eating a big juicy burger when really I oughta be having a darn salad, here our nervous systems are being duped into self-harm by it’s own expectation of serotonin production!) Even now that our social nervous system is perfectly aware of the long term consequences of extractivism and industrial colonialism, it still has organized itself in the interest of short term reward, to the detriment of the long-term health of the planet and to the long-term health of the nervous system itself.
And on internal violence between the cells of the nervous system: the phenomena of necrosis and apoptosis offer a fascinating glimpse into the real world of the developing nervous system, where what appears to be an interoperative “resonance” reveals itself now as a veritable quagmire of necessitous violence, homicide, suicide and cannibalism, all enabled and ensured by a grand predestined ritual of mass death.
From Apoptosis and the Nervous System by P. S. Sastry and Kalluri Subba Rao:
On apoptosis in the nervous system:
“… in many parts of the CNS and PNS, roughly half of the neurons undergo an additional stage in which regression leading to death ultimately occurs. This relatively large loss of neurons is a common feature in many types of neurons, occurs in all vertebrates, and appears to have evolved as an adaptive mechanism during the development of the nervous system.”
On necrosis in the nervous system:
“…developing neurons also require signals from other neurons that innervate them, some require specific hormones, and perhaps some require signals from neighboring glial cells as well. Thus the survival of neurons depends on a complex interplay of several factors, and any imbalance in these inputs may lead to cell death. The beneficial effect of this mechanism is that although many types of neurons are produced in excess, only a portion of them get sufficient neurotrophic support for their survival, and the rest die facilitating appropriate neuron-target cell innervation.”
Jonathan, I feel I oughta mention that my disagreements are always in the interest of fortifying the theory of capital as power, truly I feel it has afforded me an opportunity to invigorate my own dialectical attempts in a way I never before imagined!
My concern is that both Mumford’s theory of the mega-machine and Ulf Martin’s theory for the origin of social power contain intractable logical problems, so while the capital theory of power remains a remarkable model for the underlying forces “powering” and creordering society, it could be left without any explanation for what this very social power [and capital as a symbolic representation of social power, of course] is “powering”!
It appears to me that Mumford’s overall mission was to proffer an explanation first for the development of “power societies” and also for the drastic qualitative difference between societies pre- and post- the global dominance of the capitalist mode of power. I am of the opinion that these developments could be better explained with a theory of the social nervous system.
A nervous system is well defined as follows: a group of interoperating neurons and glial cells that can interpret information from the exterior and interior environments of an organism; collect, organize and selectively store information vis a vis responsive self-reconstruction [synaptic plasticity/creorder]; and finally, direct motor functions to respond to internal and external stimuli (relative to the organism).
Here, individuals are either neurons, glial cells, or disassociated particles dissolved in interstitial space.
The development and qualitative difference between dominant power societies which we see emerging circa approximately 3000 B.C. and egalitarian societies (tribe v. state, clan v. fiefdom etc.) -sometimes referred to as the “great divide” by anthropologists- is imagined by Mumford in Technics and Human Development as the first successful attempt at creating machines, albeit exclusively social machines [a supposition hampered and ultimately refuted by the rigidity of Reuleaux’s definition of a machine, as I’ve mentioned in my prior posts]. I believe the emergence of hierarchically organized power societies is better modeled by the emergence of early nervous systems in nature: when cells first specialized to be able to respond to changes in their local and distant environments via depolarization of the cell membrane (action potential), and began organizing into functional hierarchies and major functional systems to facilitate ever greater economies of information transfer, retention, and organization. All of these processes are mediated by the nerve cells selectively and responsively creordering themselves, their immediate environment, and all adjacent or functionally connected cells (both nervous and glial) through the positive feedback loop of synaptic plasticity.
The next major qualitative shift in human societal development is explained by Mumford as the final construction of the “true” social machine. This new era is marked by what Mumford imagines to be the successful mechanization of humans and their interactions in society, but as I’ve mentioned before, this is impossible. This final step of fully automating a person is not materially possible and not a logically consistent theoretical assumption in the slightest. This astonishing epochal shift in human development I believe is more analogous to the evolution of the neocortex: finally the social nervous system – specifically the single dominant social nervous system, or the “nervous hegemon”- developed consciousness.
This theoretical framework offers us an answer for the “why” of increasing complexity in power societies: societal organization is the brain’s attempt at understanding its own consciousness by recreating itself in social space, by forming ideologies the way our brains form thoughts, and ultimately coming to “understand” consciousness by creordering its own super-consciousness within the nervous hegemon.
I am hopeful that this theory could solve the logical inconsistencies that exist in Mumford’s theory of the mega-machine, and of course, I’m really only hoping to bolster the explanatory capacity of the CASP method and I submit to y’all the unrestricted rights to throw out my suppositions as you see fit!
(Seriously, thank you all so much for the responses, this is truly an honor and a pleasure!!)
Jonathan! Without gushing too much I must say its an honor to receive a critique!
Unfortunately, it seems that Ulf Martin’s work on The Autocatalytic Sprawl of Pseudorational Mastery doesn’t solve the problem of non-linearity in nervous organisms, in fact it avoids it all together. This particular oversight is what has given me issue in their work, as although I very much appreciate and revel in Ulf’s conceptions of autocatalysis and symbolic representations, I find I must reject their supposition as to the “origin” of resistance itself, at least when applied to a society.
Ulf begins their argument [actually with a presumption about the nature of time that I don’t accept, but I will accept it here for the sake of argument] by positioning an individual actor against noumenal reality, or the “course of events”. By positioning an actor against nature at large, Ulf is able to incorporate the laws of thermodynamics to conclude that a person “normally [technically this argument should be necessarily] act
against resistance…” of course, as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.From p.3 “Since the course of events left on its own tends to a different state than what the acting person wants, that person will normally act against resistance. Gestaltungsvermoegen, or power, is the ability to create formations against resistance. This is a very general definition and, when applied to formations in the physical realm, can be translated on-to-one into the physical term power = work per time, work (or energy being so to say, the quantification of the amount of what there is to do divided by the time over which the action is necessary.”
This section ends with an actor only ever acting against nature, and as such the laws of thermodynamics function fine, but…
“A society consists of more than one person. Let there be two persons, one person and another person. Given the initial state of affairs, the one person wishes a particular later state of affairs, while the other person would like another later state of affairs. If the two intended later states are different, the two persons are in conflict. The two persons could negotiate or even cooperate. But if they do not and their goals contradict each other, a power struggle ensues.”
The crux of our problem comes at the end of this last block: “…a power struggle ensues.” This assumption is generated by applying the same laws of thermodynamics, but now instead of acting against some object in space/time, we’re acting against another person. And this does not work. No nervous organisms, let alone humans, react to inputs according to the laws of thermodynamics. Resistance is not implied in human interactions, even in human conflicts.
Ulf seems to recognize the necessity to include the non-linearity of nervous functionality, and attempts to shunt human subjectivity to the ventral end of the argument, suggesting “The two persons could negotiate or even cooperate…” But this is the only reference to the non-determinability of human interaction, and Ulf never mentions this again. Yet this same non-determinability will haunt us throughout this thought experiment, not only on the front end.
Again, I must refer to the tongue-in-cheek, but rather elucidating quip that I mentioned in my response to Scot, from Gregory Bateson: “When I kick a stone, I give energy to the stone, and it moves with that energy. […] When I kick a dog, it responds with energy from its metabolism.”
We only have to extend the logic of this to Ulf’s interaction. If I were in nature and I were to kick a rock, it would respond relative to my input. The transfer of energy here is so certain we could observe the distance the rock traveled, I could bring the rock back again, kick it again and by comparing the distances the rock traveled I could extrapolate the power differentials between my two kicks. Imagine this rock is a person. I kick this person. They do not react. Hmmm… okay… I kick this person again. Now suddenly I’m struck in the face and cursed at. If I were to attempt to apply the laws of thermodynamics to these two reactions it seems I’d be in a rather odd place.
Blair, thank you so much for the response. Firstly I must reject for the same reasons as stated in my reply to Scot, the notion that any organism may be functionally defined as machine-like.
The problem you approach next is one of classical importance in anthropology- the question it seems Mumford was attempting to answer with the first volume of The Myth of the Mega-machine –is there a paradigmatic difference ‘tween a simple society and a “state” [or as I’d prefer to define it, a complex society]? Mumford would argue yes, and your biological analogy of a “major evolutionary transition” is certainly a more nuanced adaptation of his original hypothesis. I do agree with your analysis here wholeheartedly, yet your reinterpretation of Mumford seems only to point back at the problem of agency here in the act of evolution, where change is affected in individual organisms ultimately by random mutation in the genome, yet the analogy of the machine requires some degree of exogenous agency. The fundamental constituent of evolution in the genome is random mutation, whereas any machine must “evolve” via deliberate intervention: from Mumford’s Technics and Civilization p.10 “…even in the most completely automatic machine, there must intervene somewhere, at the beginning and the end of the process, first in the original design, and finally in the ability to overcome defects and to make repairs, the conscious participation of a human agent.”
You’re absolutely right in that I find any attempts at defining the “state” prior to Jonathan and Shimshon’s recognition of the “state of power” to be just odd pedantic attempts at rearranging our understanding of government. With this in mind, I prefer to imagine the theory of the mega-machine to be rather a theory of the organization and function of a complex society, which I’ve found a far more productive definition for in Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: p.37 “Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require.”
Dang, thank you all so much for the responses! This is dope! I’m still familiarizing myself with the UI on the site here, so I apologize in advance if my replies are not well organized.
Scot, while I recognize the appeal of substituting cells and functional systems for mechanical components and resistant bodies [within an individual], my problem is in fact with the very premise of your supposition. In fact, I must reject entirely the notion that humans conform to Reuleaux’s classic definition of a machine as defined by Mumford in Technics and Human Development p.191 “…as a combination of resistant parts, each specialized in function, operating under human control, to utilize energy and to perform work…” This definition simply does not apply to living organisms, let alone nervous organisms. This dilemma is rather well elucidated with a fun quip from the anthropologist Gregory Bateson: “When I kick a stone, I give energy to the stone, and it moves with that energy. […] When I kick a dog, it responds with energy from its metabolism.” Now, we must ask ourselves, if I were to kick an automaton, how would it respond? Well, simply put, it would respond only and exactly as programmed [necessarily programmed by some prior, conscious human agent according to Reuleaux]. If we are to imagine humans as simplified, programmed automatons they would be allowed only that reflex to my kick which is afforded by their programming, which I simply cannot imagine to be the case.
