These are hard questions to face, and the answers are more complex as well. You present examples about systems that work more for the citizens in Nordic countries as Richard points out, and I see the points that both of you are making.
I don't claim to have any better responses, just adding my two cents here...
I see that the underlying systems drift more towards extraction than serving the people. Every nation that has served as a superpower had a lifespan with similar features that eventually collapsed when they decoupled themselves from reality on some level.
We seem to be doing the same thing...and we're on the declining end of the process.
I should point out that on average, Chinese dynasties lasted around 250-300 years.
All this to say that I am also looking at this after a few years of observing a microcosm of the process on social media that has surprising parallels...human nature hews towards the systems that it operates in, and apparently scales.
They are hard questions to face, and I feel like the distinction is “is this how humans will always choose to arrange themselves” or are we capable of overcoming these systems.
I personally believe that part of human adaptability is overcoming brute nature, but we’re yet to do it.
Response to Josh Walker's "How Do We Actually Solve Problems?"
"Those aren’t moral questions. They’re structural ones."
Well, that'a s better take than I expected from you. It's not far from my take. However..
I disagree that singling out "Scandinavian states" is necessarily a distinction of merit. I had to look up exactly what you were referring to. It's called "the Nordic Model" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model.
While it seems the model works for a more or less homogeneous population of 27 million, extrapolating that to the rest of the world is problematic.
Note that you're talking about constitutional monarchies in the three main countries. I think we already have "WeirdKingTrump - as I like to call him - which is not a good example here. The US was founded on getting rid of monarchies.
The US - and many other countries formed out of historical conflict - are also not homogeneous. If anything, this argues against your thesis. If the only countries where the Nordic model works is one with only a few indigenous peoples and little migration - which, by the way, is a hot topic in the EU these days - it almost argues for my point that it IS "human nature".
As I've said, humans are hierarchical social primates who get along only with their own "troop" - whether that troop is the 200-400 that existed in prehistoric times or 27 million now. You'll still find that the degree of empathy between members of that troop drops off drastically the further degrees of separation there are. And between ethnic groups, there is almost ZERO empathy and emotional responses.
I'll also note that those three countries are the three most hostile to Russia at the moment (next to the Baltic states) - partly due to historical conflicts and partly due to US and EU geopolitical pressure.
None the less, I would agree that "structure matters" - depending on the structure and how the structure emerged and where and how many people INDIVIDUALLY support the structure.
The problem is humans have been trying different SURFACE "structures" for ten thousand years - and look at where we are: on the verge of WWIII.
So the structure is not the be-all and end-all. The basic problem remains - even in those Nordic Model countries - that humans on the individual level are not primarily rational. The "split brain" model simply is not working. From an evolutionary point of view, other species that were once dominant have gone extinct - and it's not impossible for humans to do so as well, if not by geographical or climate reasons, then by technological and military ones.
But I applaud your efforts to look past the surface level bullshit and dig deeper into actual human behavior patterns.
My view is that **IF** humans were rational, at least consistently, then free market economics - no states, no corporations, only free trading individuals and groups of individuals - were be sufficient to provide the necessary structure to construct a rational, stable and progressing civilization.
But that's not the case here and now and for the foreseeable future. Because under the current conditions, humans can not be made consistently rational, because the existing dysfunctional historical influences will sabotage any such effort, by education or politics or any other means I can think of. Only technology itself can produce such a result.
Addendum: Just happened this minute to run across this document which is interesting and more or less directly addresses the question from an anarchist point of view.
I really enjoyed reading this what a great shift. Asking if the system is designed for some to fail.and some ro rise I think is so important. Placing blame and shame on people without reflecting on the systems we live in only seems to widen inequality.
In my current understanding, human civilization is externalized human cognition: we built these artificial structural systems, with their rules and constraints. The internal human cognition, where all these are sourced from, is mostly linear: do A, get B. It was a useful survival mechanism evolved out of necessity.
By looking at this linear thinking, we form the idea of an ego: I began, thus I can end. Everything conventional is downstream from that source. Pure self-preservation, benefit at the expense of another, and so on.
Different cultures have different solutions to this problem, and have successfully solved the problem locally in some individuals' own internal cognition. However, there's no way to solve the civilizational-scaled, externalized cognition that we see everywhere unless all humans have somehow changed their cognition to another state. This external world reflects the internal state of current humans.
I hope the above was a good food for thought, Josh.
These are hard questions to face, and the answers are more complex as well. You present examples about systems that work more for the citizens in Nordic countries as Richard points out, and I see the points that both of you are making.
I don't claim to have any better responses, just adding my two cents here...
I see that the underlying systems drift more towards extraction than serving the people. Every nation that has served as a superpower had a lifespan with similar features that eventually collapsed when they decoupled themselves from reality on some level.
We seem to be doing the same thing...and we're on the declining end of the process.
I should point out that on average, Chinese dynasties lasted around 250-300 years.
All this to say that I am also looking at this after a few years of observing a microcosm of the process on social media that has surprising parallels...human nature hews towards the systems that it operates in, and apparently scales.
They are hard questions to face, and I feel like the distinction is “is this how humans will always choose to arrange themselves” or are we capable of overcoming these systems.
I personally believe that part of human adaptability is overcoming brute nature, but we’re yet to do it.
I hope we do
Though.
Response to Josh Walker's "How Do We Actually Solve Problems?"
"Those aren’t moral questions. They’re structural ones."
Well, that'a s better take than I expected from you. It's not far from my take. However..
I disagree that singling out "Scandinavian states" is necessarily a distinction of merit. I had to look up exactly what you were referring to. It's called "the Nordic Model" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model.
While it seems the model works for a more or less homogeneous population of 27 million, extrapolating that to the rest of the world is problematic.
Note that you're talking about constitutional monarchies in the three main countries. I think we already have "WeirdKingTrump - as I like to call him - which is not a good example here. The US was founded on getting rid of monarchies.
The US - and many other countries formed out of historical conflict - are also not homogeneous. If anything, this argues against your thesis. If the only countries where the Nordic model works is one with only a few indigenous peoples and little migration - which, by the way, is a hot topic in the EU these days - it almost argues for my point that it IS "human nature".
As I've said, humans are hierarchical social primates who get along only with their own "troop" - whether that troop is the 200-400 that existed in prehistoric times or 27 million now. You'll still find that the degree of empathy between members of that troop drops off drastically the further degrees of separation there are. And between ethnic groups, there is almost ZERO empathy and emotional responses.
I'll also note that those three countries are the three most hostile to Russia at the moment (next to the Baltic states) - partly due to historical conflicts and partly due to US and EU geopolitical pressure.
None the less, I would agree that "structure matters" - depending on the structure and how the structure emerged and where and how many people INDIVIDUALLY support the structure.
The problem is humans have been trying different SURFACE "structures" for ten thousand years - and look at where we are: on the verge of WWIII.
So the structure is not the be-all and end-all. The basic problem remains - even in those Nordic Model countries - that humans on the individual level are not primarily rational. The "split brain" model simply is not working. From an evolutionary point of view, other species that were once dominant have gone extinct - and it's not impossible for humans to do so as well, if not by geographical or climate reasons, then by technological and military ones.
But I applaud your efforts to look past the surface level bullshit and dig deeper into actual human behavior patterns.
My view is that **IF** humans were rational, at least consistently, then free market economics - no states, no corporations, only free trading individuals and groups of individuals - were be sufficient to provide the necessary structure to construct a rational, stable and progressing civilization.
But that's not the case here and now and for the foreseeable future. Because under the current conditions, humans can not be made consistently rational, because the existing dysfunctional historical influences will sabotage any such effort, by education or politics or any other means I can think of. Only technology itself can produce such a result.
Addendum: Just happened this minute to run across this document which is interesting and more or less directly addresses the question from an anarchist point of view.
Anarchism and Human Nature
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/francis-dupuis-deri-anarchism-and-human-nature
I really enjoyed reading this what a great shift. Asking if the system is designed for some to fail.and some ro rise I think is so important. Placing blame and shame on people without reflecting on the systems we live in only seems to widen inequality.
Excellent start by focusing on systems.
In my current understanding, human civilization is externalized human cognition: we built these artificial structural systems, with their rules and constraints. The internal human cognition, where all these are sourced from, is mostly linear: do A, get B. It was a useful survival mechanism evolved out of necessity.
By looking at this linear thinking, we form the idea of an ego: I began, thus I can end. Everything conventional is downstream from that source. Pure self-preservation, benefit at the expense of another, and so on.
Different cultures have different solutions to this problem, and have successfully solved the problem locally in some individuals' own internal cognition. However, there's no way to solve the civilizational-scaled, externalized cognition that we see everywhere unless all humans have somehow changed their cognition to another state. This external world reflects the internal state of current humans.
I hope the above was a good food for thought, Josh.
Seeds, for sure, yet as important as ever. 🌱