Where does nihilism come from?
Nihilism is not a choice or intellectual commitment, but a feeling that simply arrives.
09 January, 2021
Photo by Boglárka Mázsi on Unsplash
Friedrich Nietzsche was most famously concerned with the problem of nihilism.
<p> All societies, in his view, rely on implicit value judgments. If the foundations of these are lost, he predicts terrible consequences: widespread apathy or violent, fanatical attempts to reclaim a sense of purpose, or perhaps both. We talk about values a lot, and we know they do <em>something</em>, but we have little idea how. Compounding this is uncertainty over their loss. Nihilism is not a choice or intellectual commitment, but a thing that comes upon you. As Nietzsche put it in 1885: 'Nihilism stands at the door. Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?' </p><p>Part of the answer comes from understanding how values connect to knowledge and action. In <em>Seeing Like a State </em>(1998)<em>,</em> the political scientist James C Scott classifies knowledge in two ways: epistemic knowledge, which can be quantified, theorised and transmitted in abstract, and <em>metis</em> (from the classical Greek), which concerns knowledge gained from practical experience, such as personal relationships, traditions, habits and psychological states. <em>Metis</em> governs local experience: farming the family's land, for example, rather than agronomic study. We all recognise it; it's why we hire for experience. For instance, Jane and Martha have identical diplomas, but if Jane's first shift was on Tuesday and Martha's was in 1970, then Martha will have certain tricks and habits to expedite her work. Still, it's not easy to quantify just what that is: Martha has <em>metis</em>, and <em>metis</em> can't easily be reproduced. If it were trainable, it would have been in Jane's training.</p>
<p>Scott's genius is to compare <em>metis</em> to local traditions. Over a long enough time, habits and behaviours are selected for and passed down, just as evolution selects helpful traits. A successful group will institutionalise an irreducibly complex set of cultural tools that relate to its environment. Since these are <em>metis</em>, and not epistemic, they won't always be obvious or quantifiable. Scott recounts dozens of examples of customs that might appear backwards, confused, unscientific – yet when they're banned or discouraged, productivity collapses. He calls this the problem of 'legibility'.</p><p>Epistemic theories rely on isolated, abstracted environments capable of taxonomy, but these are far removed from the dynamic, interconnected systems of nature and human culture. <em>Metis</em>, by contrast, develops within complex, 'illegible' environments, and thus works with them. But that also means its application is limited to a specific act, rather than a broader theory. Outsiders want to know why something works, but locals will explain it in a language unintelligible to them.</p><p>These practices and traditions are, of course, more than work experience. They're used to efficiently solve political problems. In <em>The Righteous Mind</em> (2012), the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes Balinese rice farmers who needed to coordinate irrigation along a river. Since they were politically divided into small familial units – called <em>subaks</em> – they needed to rely on means older than governance to ensure cooperation:</p><blockquote>The ingenious religious solution to this problem of social engineering was to place a small temple at every fork in the irrigation system. The god in each such temple united all the <em>subaks</em> that were downstream from it into a community that worshipped that god, thereby helping the <em>subaks</em> to resolve their disputes more amicably. This arrangement minimised the cheating and deception that would otherwise flourish in a zero-sum division of water. The system made it possible for thousands of farmers, spread over hundreds of square kilometres, to cooperate without the need for central government, inspectors and courts.</blockquote><p>This still occurs. A 2017 <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2938751" target="_blank">paper</a> by the economists Nathan Nunn of Harvard University and Raul Sanchez de la Sierra of the University of California, Berkeley mentions <em>gri-gri</em>, a magical powder that witchdoctors manufacture. In 2012, following a period of widespread banditry and state insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, <em>gri-gri</em> came to a village elder in a dream. Applying this powder made the user bulletproof, and it worked so well that neighbouring communities swiftly adopted it. The reason was simple: groups fight better than individuals, and more people will dare to fight if they believe they are bulletproof. Hence, a village using <em>gri-gri</em> was more likely to survive.</p>
<p><em>Gri-gri</em> and water temples are kinds of <em>metis</em>, but they require belief in larger structures: respectively, magic and gods. However these structures first developed, it's critical that they rest on more than mere faith or tradition. Shared values provide conviction for greater actions, but those values are certified by the success of those actions. <em>Gri-gri</em>'s success is an empirical testament to magic, and its utility inclines one towards trusting more activities by witchdoctors. Nunn and Sanchez de la Sierra point out that</p><blockquote>many of [the spells] appear to provide individuals with a greater sense of security and confidence, which could serve to … reduce their anxiety and thus improve their performance. For example, most of the spells provide protection, whether it be from drought, disease, attacks on the village or even to harm potential thieves – and thieves also believe in their efficacy, which acts as a deterrent.</blockquote><p>In other words: these practices and institutions serve several different roles, all bound up in one another. This intermingling exacerbates the problem of legibility.</p><p>When we discuss changing values, we often think top-down: a new and persuasive ideology that took hold for intellectual reasons. What Scott and the adoption of <em>gri-gri</em> suggest is the opposite: the motive force of values requires a degree of certainty that is dependent on action. It was <em>gri-gri</em>'s empirical demonstration that allowed it spread it to neighbouring villages, not its poetry. The inverse to this is also important: we can improve on a specific task, but other roles need time to sediment and evolve. Trade the temples for a government, and you have zero-sum bickering. Explain the game theory behind <em>gri-gri</em>, and no one will fight with it. The utility of a cultural institution first allows adoption, but its maintenance allows <em>metis</em> ample time to tinker and perfect.</p><p>If we've lost faith in certain values, then I doubt this was because of academic debates. The 20th century profoundly changed labour, technology and social organisation in the Western world. It's hard to imagine that this didn't change <em>metis</em>, or render older forms of <em>metis</em> irrelevant. While the values of <em>metis</em> might still be desired – or even identified with – they lack the same certainty they once had. Nothing can prove them and thus justify the higher claims. 'Faith without works is dead,' as the Bible said, but faith without <em>metis</em> is unbelievable.</p><p>A top-down view of value implies that we can simply create new reasons for living, that the ideology itself is its own proof. But if values come bottom-up, then man's quest for meaning cannot be separated from his labour. They are the same.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/c3ebc7b8-c9df-445f-8385-c04cd6076a2c.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Lou Keep</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/whence-comes-nihilism-the-uncanniest-of-all-guests" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Why moral people tolerate immoral behavior
As morally sturdy as we may feel, it turns out that humans are natural hypocrites when it comes to passing moral judgment.
16 December, 2020
- The problem with having a compass as the symbolic representation of morality is that due north is not a fixed point. Liane Young, Boston College associate professor and director of the Morality Lab, explains how context, bias, and tribal affiliation influence us enormously when we pass moral judgments.
- Moral instinct is tainted by cognitive bias. Humans evolved to be more lenient to their in-groups—for example excusing a beloved politician who lines their pockets while lambasting a colleague for the exact same transgression—and to care more about harm done close to them than harm done farther away, for example, to people in another country.
- The challenge for humans in a globalized and polarized world is to become aware of our moral biases and learn to apply morality more objectively. How can we be more rational and less hypocritical about our morals? "I think that clarifying the value that you are consulting for a particular problem is really critical," says Young.
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Are humans cruel by nature?
Historian Rutger Bregman argues that the persistent theory that most people are monsters is just wrong.
20 November, 2020
- How have humans managed to accomplish significantly more than any other species on the planet? Historian Rutger Bregman believes the quality that makes us special is that we "evolved to work together and to cooperate on a scale that no other species in the whole animal kingdom has been able to do."
- Pushing back against the millennia-old idea that humans are inherently evil beneath their civilized surface, which is known as 'veneer theory', Bregman says that it's humanity's cooperative spirit and sense of brotherhood that leads us to do cruel deeds. "Most atrocities are committed in the name of loyalty, and in the name of friendship, and in the name of helping your people," he tells Big Think. "That is what's so disturbing."
- The false assumption that people are evil or inherently selfish has an effect on the way we design various elements of our societies and structures. If we designed on the assumption that we are collaborative instead, we could avoid the "self-fulfilling prophecy" of selfishness.
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'Muscular bonding': The strange psychological effects of moving together
Synchronous movement seems to help us form cohesive groups by shifting our thinking from "me" to "we."
18 November, 2020
Credit: yoemll via Adobe Stock
- Muscular bonding, a term coined by the veteran and historian William McNeill, describes how individuals engaged in synchronous movement often experience feelings of euphoria and connection to the group.
- Psychologists have proposed that muscular bonding, or interpersonal entrainment, is a group-level adaptation that helped early human groups outcompete other groups.
- Muscular bonding can help people form cohesive groups, but it could come at cost.
<p>Humans have a penchant for moving together in unison. From ancient cultures dancing around campfires to modern armies marching in lockstep, synchronized movement often emerges in groups, even when there's no obvious benefit. But why?</p>
<p>In his 1995 book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674502302/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=farnamstreet-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0674502302&linkId=9002b54bbaf082c1666a7add18217a86" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History</a>", historian and veteran William McNeill recalled the strange, euphoric feelings he experienced while participating in military drills as a young man:</p>
<p>"Marching aimlessly about on the drill field, swaggering in conformity with prescribed military postures, conscious only of keeping in step so as to make the next move correctly and in time somehow felt good."</p>
<p>McNeill noted that military drills seem utterly "useless" in the modern context. After all, soldiers no longer arrange themselves in tight columns to fire muskets at each other in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_fire" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">volley fire-style</a> attacks. Yet incessant drilling has remained a fundamental part of military culture. </p>
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Muscular bonding and the 'hive switch'
<p>McNeill thought there was more to drilling than meets the eye, something beyond forcing soldiers into compliance and conformity. He called it "muscular bonding." The term describes how individuals engaged in synchronous movement experience feelings of euphoria and connection to the group.</p><p>This phenomenon, McNeill said, is "far older than language and critically important in human history, because the emotion it arouses constitutes an indefinitely expansible basis for social cohesion among any and every group that keeps together in time."</p><p>Since McNeill first described muscular bonding, researchers have been trying to better understand the phenomenon and how it affects group dynamics. In the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt proposed a bold hypothesis: muscular bonding serves as a kind of "switch" that, when activated, helps individuals transcend selfishness to act in the interests of their group.</p><p>To illustrate this idea, Haidt said humans are a lot like chimpanzees (self-interested) and a bit like bees (group-interested, existing to sustain the hive). He framed muscular bonding as a "hive switch" that pushes us away from chimp-like behavior toward bee-like behaviors. This ability to "lose ourselves (temporarily and ecstatically)" would help explain why people, under the right conditions, can come together in an "all for one, one for all" mentality. It'd help explain why some soldiers sacrifice themselves in battle for the group.</p>Forming cohesive groups
<p>Over the past two decades, psychologists have conducted various experiments on muscular bonding, also called interpersonal entrainment. These studies generally involved groups of people doing physical activities (or simply imagining them) synchronously or asynchronously, and then playing economic games with each other, or rating how much they like or trust the people with whom they've entrained.</p><p>A <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/psych/1/1/article-p273.xml" target="_blank">2019 review of research on interpersonal entrainment</a> (IPE) found that people generally report higher levels of deindividualization after engaging in IPE. In other words, they view themselves more as a group member than an individual. What's more, some studies suggest that engaging in IPE can also increase performance in domains related to memory, attention and physical movement.</p><p>Together, the research suggests that muscular bonding helps individuals form cohesive and effective groups. It's easy to see how this would be an advantageous group-level adaptation in human evolution: The tribe who's better able to move together toward shared goals is likely to outcompete less coherent tribes. Then, individuals in the successful group passed down genetic traits, making future generations more likely to engage in the same kinds of cohesive behaviors. (That's one idea, at least.)</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3390f8276b91a82b4f7824f7a30373ba"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CueyX_LtHeo?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>But muscular bonding can have a dark side, too. The authors of the 2019 review noted:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Losing oneself in the crowd can lead to behaviors that are not part of an individual's ethical codes and moral values (e.g., aggressive acts toward members of other groups). This stems from the fact that acting for the benefit of one's group typically means acting against the interests of competitive groups."</p><p>Group-level risks aside, it's worth considering how modern, urbanized society might be missing out on the ancient benefits of muscular bonding, especially in a time when surveys show that <a href="https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/why-is-anxiety-so-common" target="_self">depression, anxiety</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/23/798676465/most-americans-are-lonely-and-our-workplace-culture-may-not-be-helping" target="_blank">loneliness</a> are rising.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It is and always has been a powerful force at work among humankind whether for good or ill," McNeill wrote. "Our future, like our past, depends on how we utilize these modes of coordinating common effort for agreed purposes."</p>
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Should we pay ex-drug users to help them get clean?
What is more important, that a treatment helps keep people healthy or that it meshes with our morals?
06 November, 2020
Credit: /.lkmlPixabay
- A novel treatment aims to help former drug users by paying them to stay clean.
- Some moral objections to the idea of paying people to not use drugs help keep the program underused.
- Many other treatment methods face similar issues.
<p> Addiction is a terrible thing, and there is a lot of it to be found these days. In addition to the ongoing opioid epidemic, an increase in overdose deaths, likely related to COVID-19 lockdowns, is being <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/13/901627189/u-s-sees-deadly-drug-overdose-spike-during-pandemic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported</a>. While opioid addictions and the pain they cause tend to get the most attention in the news, other drugs are also being used at high rates in some areas. Among them are stimulants such as meth. <br> <br> Despite the tremendous length of time humanity has been dealing with addictive substances, we're still not great at actually finding solutions to it. Many treatment programs use a variety of methods of limited effectiveness alongside ones with better track records. However, a rarely used but well-supported program offers a remarkably effective solution to addiction with a straightforward method: paying former drug users to stay clean. It is currently getting increasing amounts of attention. </p>
Kind of surprising it took us this long to try that idea.
<iframe width="730" height="430" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HLwUi7r7_T8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><p> The idea of positive reinforcement to encourage good behavior is familiar to most people. Using a technique dubbed "c<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_management" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ontingency management</a>," these programs apply the concept in a new way. When someone undergoing treatment attends enough meetings and appointments or goes a particular length of time without relapsing, they are given <a href="https://drugabuse.com/contingency-management/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rewards</a>, often in the form of <u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/meth-addiction-treatment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">money</a></u>.</p><p>How this is done differs by program; some just hand out cash prizes, others give out coupons, a few hand out tokens. Many don't offer a consistent amount, and some use systems where cash prizes are mixed with other rewards on a random basis. Despite these variations, the principle remains the same: good behavior that moves somebody towards their goal is rewarded. </p><p> The idea has been extensively studied and found to be very effective, more so than many other procedures frequently used in addiction treatment. It is also very effective when used in conjunction with other <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002715&type=printable" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">therapies</a>. While most of the studies of contingency management appear to focus on its use against <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17907865/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stimulant addiction,</a> studies on its effectiveness against alcohol abuse also <a href="https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh23-2/122-127.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exist</a>. <br> <br> However, you can probably already see the difficulties of spreading the program; the idea of giving people cash for staying off drugs can be a hard sell. Most of the internet pages that explain the idea mention that no study has found people spend the money particularly irresponsibly, suggesting that the notion that they would is widespread. </p><p> A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/meth-addiction-treatment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New York Times article</a> on the subject included the coordinator of a treatment program voicing his concern that this very thing could happen. The same article pointed out that these programs might also, technically, be illegal. Many insurance companies won't pay for treatments that utilize this method. </p><p>This is a shame, as the benefits of this method are beyond doubt.<br></p>The moral questions of treating addiction
<iframe width="730" height="430" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HWrbUwNGoWc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><p> As you might expect, this isn't the only area where moral considerations crash into what is proven to help people beat their addictions or be healthier people. </p><p>The idea of government-backed needle <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ssp/syringe-services-programs-faq.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exchanges</a>, where people in need of needles for what are often illegal purposes can get a clean one despite why they may need it, goes back to a Dutch program in the 1980s. It has a long history of doing what it sets out to do in terms of keeping dirty, disease-causing needles, off the streets. </p><p> Proponents of these programs cite evidence that they reduce the instances of diseases (such as AIDS) often spread by dirty needles, they provide easier access to social services for those who need them most, and they are generally agreed to improve the condition of people struggling with addiction. <strong><br> <br> </strong>Despite this data, many people still oppose the idea on the grounds that providing needs or a space to use them amounts to an endorsement <a href="https://khn.org/news/conservative-indiana-adopted-needle-exchanges-but-still-faces-local-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">of their use</a>. <br> <br> Limited studies suggest therapies incorporating LSD have shown promise in treating <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lsd-should-be-considered-for-alcoholism-treatment-study-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">alcoholism</a>. While the lack of extensive research on the use of psychedelics in this area is enough to prevent a pilot program from coming to a town near you, the objections to treating alcohol addiction with powerful hallucinogens also make it unlikely. </p><p> A similar problem exists with specific treatments currently used to help those recovering from opioid addiction. Methadone, an opioid drug, is used to prevent withdrawal symptoms in patients battling an addiction to make it easier for them to stay off illicitly acquired drugs. These programs are strongly supported by studies demonstrating their <a href="https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/5044/1/5044.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">effectiveness</a>. </p><p> Despite this, some still object to the idea of using one painkiller to wean people off <a href="https://www.careinnovations.org/wp-content/uploads/MATOpioidOvercomingObjections.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">another</a>. </p><p> Drug addiction is a painful thing. Humanity still isn't great at dealing with it. While the evidence in favor of contingency management and various other treatments is increasingly robust, their usage is limited by several factors, including moralizing. If we will end up using this treatment to help end addiction in our communities or shun it in favor of moral purity currently remains unknown. </p>
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