Karen,
The vast majority of us live and work in small group situations up to about
20 or 25 people adults at the very most (although politicians and company
men may well cultivate hundreds of nameable "friends" they can call upon if
there's favour to be sought or given). Once you start having daily- or
frequently-meeting groups above 10-15 males in their prime, then political
tension always starts to enter. A productive committee is no more than
about 5-8 adults which is also about the average size of most science
research groups, most business boards, most government "inner" cabinets
(and the loyal group immediately around a long-term dictator), most games
teams and also about the size of those small groups of geniuses throughout
history who have had disproportionate effects. The whole of the Bush
administration's policies and executive decisions comprised no more than a
dozen individuals at the most -- and probably nearer half-a-dozen.
However, there is no reason why such small groups, if well positioned, and
with appropriate methods of coercion available to them such as police
forces and the military, can't have immensely larger effects and hold down
much larger populations. There's no natural limit to male ambitiousness
laid down in our genes because there never had to be for millions of years
in a savannah-type past where the exigencies of the environment limited the
size of the group. Today, the males (usually) at the top of big empires and
big businesses don't want to yield any power at all if they can possibly
hang onto it. It's not fatigue or goodwill to minorities that defeats them
in the end but strategies that haven't adapted to changing times or
bureaucracies around them which absorb too much of the organisation's
income (and also doesn't feed the power-holders with enough accurate
information).
Keith Hudson
At 08:49 26/11/2006 -0800, you wrote:
Keith, I was surprised at the numbers in the poll (59% and 68%). I cant
help but wonder if there isnt more than tribal comfort levels involved and
the interplay of cultural identity. I wonder about the burden of size, as
you suggested, but also about the tendency of older nations to resent
having too many dependents still hanging around, like older people if they
are not allowed to rest and let the next generation take up the family
burden. In this case, a tax burden strained by social services with too
many new members in a limited land space.
You know, we are just ending a holiday weekend over here that
superficially is a celebration of history and time to be grateful for
blessings, the Hallmark version. Another aspect is how far individuals are
willing (forced?) to travel to be with their family members at least once
a year, like an annual pilgrimage to a mecca of food consumption and
rebonding with family members.
These simple holiday reenactments are now being supplanted by Wall
Street-inspired acts of feasting and spending, much as feasts in the early
centuries did for weeks at a time, and in some cultures, culminated in a
live sacrifice. Many find mates or leave theirs in this pilgrimage,
reinforcing again that we are not so different from other migrating animals.
Thanks to the retailization of America, Thanksgiving, the third Thursday
in November, now kicks off the holiday season of parties, food and gifts
culminating in the New Year. Thanks to a moderate climate and modern
transportation, relative wealth and comfort, we hold these annual feasts
for six weeks. No wonder there is a post-holiday adjustment of fatigue and
spent resources, a resentment by those who cant participate and the displaced.
Arthur commented from an item in the Casey Reports, how interesting it is
that the purchase of take-out holiday food is rising, and my thoughts
after more than a decade of preparing meals and cleaning afterwards for my
local family that now with boyfriends and girlfriends varies from 14-20 is
that I could handle a year or two of that. Not everyone is a foodie. But
as long as the younger ones bring something and do the clean up
afterwards, the tradition will survive.
Wouldnt this ICM poll in Great Britain indicate that citizens feel
relatively safe and dont need the burden of forged alliances to survive,
as they felt before? In the face of the global war on terrorism, one
assumes that the English, Scots and Welsh would still share the British
Army and Navy. And tea.
Maybe Im just a middle aged grump today, tired from deboning two turkeys,
freezing the extra meat and making broth, caring for my elderly, ill,
parents and my young grandson. A fish taco for lunch sounds wonderful but
more likely it will be a shepherds pie to make use of the leftover mashed
potatoes. Or more likely, I cant imagine cultural differences here in the
States progressing from the wish stage of a poll to actual regional
settlements because our American history is less of a simmering melting
pot and more like a blender, tribes and groups arriving at different times
in various amounts, blended and tossed across an expansive landscape, each
batch a different result.
The British experience reflects its island geography, as does Japans. By
comparison, the North American experience is still in mid-development. But
now that the US population is 300 million, I am wondering if our Canadian
neighbors are less comfortable about that long, open border we share. And
thats the point where the history of Europe and the emerging history of
North America gets interesting in this technologically-open borders global
economy.
Bon apetit.
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.16/551 - Release Date: 25/11/2006
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.17/553 - Release Date: 27/11/2006
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
