Glen -
http://blog.cas-group.net/2013/07/fascism-and-cancer/
Thanks Jochem!
Great post! But, as usual, the metaphor prevents me from thinking more
than it helps me to think.
Very good point. I find that metaphors help me *express* but they
often muddle or misdirect my thinking. They offer *perspective* and
provide *synthetic thinking* but fail in *analytical thinking*.
It seems fairly obvious to me that cancers are failures at the cellular
scale. (Am I wrong?) The coarser and finer constructs are all useful
mechanisms that only go bad when the cell scale goes wonky. In order to
make this metaphor between totalitarianism and cancer into a useful
thinking tool, we have to identify the analog of the cellular scale
within the totalitarian system. Does the cell map to the individual?
... if not, then what?
I think that if there is a mapping, the the cell in the target domain is
any sufficiently small sub-unit with sufficient coherence (membrane?)
and self-sufficiency to allow it identity... "nuclear family", "small
business", maybe "congregation", or "club chapter" might fit this...
If we push the metaphor, I would argue that the humans that constitute
totalitarian regimes are _normal_ humans.
Very much so! And this is the fallacy in *most* thinking about any
abberant form of society or government... the individual citizens, and
even "statesmen" are not necessarily abnormal... or if they are, their
abnormality is as much a *product* of their circumstance, their
embedding in a crazy system as it is a *cause* of it. While certain
behaviours or perspectives or "values" if you must may help steer the
group toward or away from particular abberations (a relative term in
it's own right?), I don't think we get to blame as directly as we would
like, individual personality (types)?
The merged sub-systems that
you're mapping to tumors aren't (to my mind) like tumors at all.
They're more like resonant frequencies than misgrown tissues. This
brings us back to Arlo's concept of kindling homogenously strapped to
the handle of an ax.
I didn't speak up then, but I believe the "image" of the fascia Arlo
Brought up is backed by an anecdote about how "divided we break, united
we don't"... and it was I think a rallying concept between the original
13 colonies... this was like 3rd grade "government" class I thought...
telling me that the fascia on the dime had 13 sticks to represent those
colonies? I'm too lazy to Google... and besides you don't need to read
the residue of the rathole I would probably find myself going down if I
went there.
It's a systemic pattern that, if broken, could
snap back to a healthy regime.
I don't think the Fascia really suggests that. Unbundle the sticks and
start breaking them, and they don't unbreak and the remaining sticks are
weaker for it.
That's definitely not the case with
cancer. Just breaking the resonant pattern so that the cells can float
around amongst the their healthy brethren won't do much good at all, and
would probably make things much worse.
Hmm... I think that is somewhat true... not unlike with Ideological
terrorists... busting them up in say Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, probably
just *makes* them metastasize, go systemic.
But I suppose you could counter with the idea that the individuals who
have been _trained_ by a resonant frequency like capitalism are (over
time) broken/damaged by that coarser forcing structure.
I don't need to say "damaged" so much as to say "deformed in a plastic
mode" or even softer yet, "entrained". You can yank the guy off the
front of the peleton and you will still have a peleton. Or the lead
crane in a migration V.
But I think the
cause vs. effect is flipped for the two systems, making the analogy fail
in an important way. In one the resonant structure causes the broken
individual. In the other, the broken individual causes the neoplasm.
I think you demonstrated two counterpoints here in general. Metaphors
*can* be useful for thinking about something *and* they can also
interfere with the thinking.
Once again, I think the main power of metaphor is in explanation,
exploration, or discovery, not so much in critical analysis.
- Steve
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