Perverse Spontaneous Orders and Stories

Nona Martin and Virgil Storr on how stories can contribute to the creation of a perverse spontaneous order/culture that further undermines and perverts other spontaneous orders in civil society. Of course, good stories can also create healthy cultures that provide the foundation for the creation of other spontaneous orders, the economies they create, and the civil society all their interactions produce.

Perhaps more work needs to be done along these lines, investigating the societal effects of stories, stories' roles in the creation of cultures, and their roles in the kinds of spontaneous orders which emerge. There is a few lifetimes of work for someone and their students.

Be Suspicious of Stories

Tyler Cowan warns us to Be Suspicious of Stories. Stories have plots; spontaneous orders do not. Of course, he is really warning against simple -- and the "moral of the story is . . ." -- stories. Of course, complex stories, such as novels, do take a long time to get through and contemplate. We should be novelists, not short story writers, of our lives.

Inductive Reasoning and Stories

Plato: "Those who tell the stories rule society."

I believe those interested in learning more about stories and storytelling, about why we tell stories and want to hear stories told, have much to teach economists and other social sciences. This is one of the main places where my interests overlap. And my interest in stories and economics both are why I subscribe to the Austrian school of economics.

Mainstream economics is a deductive science (involving logic and math). And it is for this reason that it repeatedly fails to accurately describe any actual economy that has ever existed -- or will exist. The reason for this is that economies are made up of agents who primarily engage in inductive reasoning, creating very complex patterns. Inductive reasoning allows one to see complex patterns, meaning the system that emerges from agents using inductive reasoning is best understood through the same approach. An economy of deductive computers would be more likely to be understood using deductive methods. And even that would have to involve very complex math. An economic science should of course have deduction -- but it should have the right deductions. But a complex science will also need -- will indeed require -- induction as well. The most inductive school of economics is the Austrian school.

Eric Beinhocker, in The Origin of Wealth, argues that "Stories are vital to use because the primary way we process information is through induction. Induction is essentially reasoning by pattern recognition. It is drawing conclusions from a preponderance of evidence" (126). This should sound familiar to those familiar with Hayek's argument that all we can ever really do is engage in pattern predictions, not actual predictions. We are pattern-recognizing, pattern-making, pattern-predicting machines, and as such are able to deal with complexity far, far, far better than do deductive computers (or mathematical methods). And stories help us to do this.

What are stories for? "We like stories because they feed our inductive thinking machine, they give us material to find patterns in -- stories are a way in which we learn" (127). The study of literature allows us to concentrate on how stories work, how they teach us. History is primarily transformed into stories. And if you want to really drive home a point in the social sciences, you tell a story. Stories are so powerful that they can be used to override statistically significant data (induction beats deduction). I can talk about how over 90% of the population has health insurance and are happy with their insurance, but the guy with the story about the mother who dies because she doesn't have insurance wins the argument -- not because his argument is in fact better, but because he is taking advantage of the fact that humans are primarily inductive, not primarily deductive (129). As any good rhetorician knows, you need both, but the balance should lean heavily toward stories and anything else that takes advantage of our inductive reasoning. Learning how stories work thus allows us to learn how to be more persuasive in politics or when doing scholarly work for the social sciences.

Patterns and pattern-recognition are central to our thought processes and, thus, to our actions:

Humans particularly excel at two aspects of inductive pattern recognition. The first is relating new experiences to old patterns through metaphor and analogy making. [...]

Second, we are not just good pattern recognizers, but also very good pattern-completers. Our minds are experts at filling in the gaps of missing information. The ability to complete patterns and draw conclusions from highly incomplete information enables us to make quick decisions in fast moving and ambiguous environments. (127)

This again points to the importance of understanding literature. It is through literary studies that we learn about metaphors and analogies. And one of the contributions of poststructuralist theory is its emphasis on narrative gaps, at where there is incomplete information, and thus to the different ways we fill in those gaps. Why do authors leave gaps? Perhaps they do so precisely because we perceive a world full of gaps, that we learn to fill to make sense of the world. Stories reflect the world even at this level of structure.

The better we learn to understand stories, the better our inductive reasoning will become:

induction is essentially a problem-solving tool that an agent uses to further its goals. The collection of rules, shaped by feedback from the agent's environment, creates an internal model of the agent's external world. The agent then uses this internal model to make predictions about what will be the best responses to the various situations that it encounters in pursuit of its goals. (130)

Reading or hearing a story also creates this internal model such that one can learn from others' experiences. Our ability to empathize combined with this ability to create internal models allows us to experience others' experiences, to essentially have an experience without doing so in the real world. It wold certainly be safer for us to learn to avoid dangerous situations by hearing someone's story about having been in that dangerous situation than to have to each experience such a situation ourselves. The more internal models we have, the better able we are to act in the world and to understand that world. Indeed, the more stories we have, the more complex we understand the world to be. One of the dangers of this is that we can misunderstand this complexity as demonstrating incommensurablility among the different patterns. This is where many postmodernists have taken the high level of complexity in their heads. However, it may be that they don't have enough data, enough stories. It may be that one needs a truly astronomical number of stories from a variety of cultures to see both the differences and the commonalities. Without understanding both, we do not really (and cannot really) understand the social world.

The Social Conditions for Creativity

Philosophy is part of the gift economy, and as such, what we can learn about the sociology of philosophies is equally applicable to the other spontaneous orders (the sciences, the arts, etc.) within the gift economy.

Given this fact, consider what Randall Collins has to say about the necessary conditions for creativity. He points out that "A conflict theory of intellectual life emphasizes opposition as the generator of creativity" (162), but then notes that there were strong periods of intellectual conflict in China during which there was little creativity. Thus, agonistic relations is necessary, but not sufficient, for creativity.

We have abundant evidence that conflict is sometimes creative. The law of small numbers gives a structural shape to this struggle. The issue is to show what kinds of structural rivalry drive innovation by opposition, with associated shifts upward in the level of abstraction and critical self-reflection, and what kinds of conflict have the opposite effect on intellectual life, producing stagnation and particularism. (163)

There are two things of note in this section. One is that Collins notes the importance of institutions in whether or not a period is creative. This of course only raises the question of what institutions are important for periods of creativity. The other is that focusing on small changes is the definition of intellectual stagnation. We see this in the arts at the present time, where all the new developments of Modernism are being exhaustively investigated in Postmodernism. How, then, do we move to a new era of creativity?

It turns out that during creative eras, class is not an important factor; but when class does become an important factor in a society, creativity drops off:

I have argued that class determination is not a very useful theory for dealing with the highest levels of creativity, the sequences of abstractions produced within the core of the intellectual community; but class determination is applicable in periods when structural bases of autonomy are absent. These are typically periods of intellectual stagnation for an abstract discipline such as philosophy. What innovation occurs will be at a more concrete and particularistic level (164)

Autonomous individuals are more creative than those tied to class or other collectives.

Left to themselves, intellectuals produce their own factions and alliances. Their competition over intellectual attention space leave behind a trail of abstractions which constitute the inner history of ideas. When intellectual autonomy is low, this self-propelling dynamic is absent. Instead, new ideas occur at the moments when the class structure changes, when there are new external bases for intellectual life---new political conditions fostering religious movements, new economic and administrative conditions raising or lowering the salience of court aristocrats, state bureaucrats, or propertied gentry, and other such shifts. These changes in external conditions are much more episodic. Intellectual changes, typically in the form of concrete religious doctrines or of lifestyle ideologies, come about when a new kind of structure is created. (164-5)

Periods of social stability are bad for cultural creativity; periods of social instability are good for cultural creativity. This may go a long way to understanding the progressive-conservative division in the concept of culture. This is why creative types are typically progressive in the sense of change for the sake of change, and why conservatives defined as those who want to conserve what we have, no matter what it is, are typically perceived as anti-intellectual and anti-art. In any case, those who are freed from what has been the stable structures and institutions of a society are most creative. This is not surprising, if we consider the move from one stable era to another as a move from one equilibrium to another, through a far-from-equilibrium state.

The far-from-equilibrium state is the most creative, whether we are talking about biological processes, mental processes, or social processes. It is not impossible to remain in a far-from-equilibrium state, however. It is likely our brains are in such a state. But it is clear that our societies can be in equilibrium or far-from-equilibrium states (or even multiple equilibria or cyclical). If a society is at equilibrium, negative feedback processes have been dominating. If positive feedback processes dominate, you get boom-bust cycles and/or multiple equilibria. If you have bipolar feedback -- that is, if agonal paradoxical tensions dominate -- you get a far-from-equilibrium, or high creativity, state.

What are the social conditions and institutions that result in negative feedback dominating? What are the social conditions and institutions that result in positive feedback dominating? What are the social conditions and institutions that result in bipolar feedback dominating? And if the latter is in fact most creative, is it possible to create such conditions without having conditions like the pre-Han Warring States in China, the time of the ancient Greeks warring with Persia through the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath, the wars and social upheaval of the Renaissance, and WWI and WWII giving rise to Modernism?

Happy Birthday Hayek

Today is F. A. Hayek's birthday.

Were it not for the work of Hayek, this blog would not exist.

While I was introduced to free market economics by my undergraduate Intro. to Philosophy professor, Ronald Nash, it was in Frederick Turner's "Game Theory and the Humanities" where I was introduced to Hayek, through his essay "Individualism: True and False." I had been interested in self-organizing systems before, and Hayek's spontaneous order theory fit well into that interest.

However, it was really when I went to a Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders conference that I was really put on the path to becoming a Hayekian. I presented a paper comparing ecosystems to economies, and after the discussion, Steve Horwitz pointed out that I had not cited Hayek, suggesting that I should, since "We are all Hayekians here." I then found myself invited to a Liberty Fund colloquium on Hayek (not coincidentally attended by Steve). The following FSSO conference, I wrote a paper on "The Spontaneous Orders of the Arts," which, in combination with the Cantor-Cox book, lay the groundwork for this blog.

Since then, most of my published works have been on spontaneous order theory. For me, it is the sociological theory to use. I think with it as much as I think with evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. I think them both in conjunction, in fact. Without Hayek, I might have a job, but I would hardly be the scholar I am, thinking the things I do, understanding the world as it is, in its full complexity.

Out of the wilderness

The New Criterion has an interesting article by Charles Murray on the conditions necessary for a renewal of the arts. Among the things he finds necessary is economic wealth. Indeed, this is something Frederick Turner finds necessary for there to be a gift economy. Without large amounts of transferable wealth, one cannot have a vibrant gift economy. And the arts and sciences are part of that gift economy.

A major stream of human accomplishment is facilitated by growing national wealth, both through the additional money that can support the arts and sciences and through the indirect spillover effects of economic growth on cultural vitality.

He also identifies cities as an important element of high cultural creativity, which should not be surprising to those who understand urban economics:

A major stream of human accomplishment is fostered by the existence of cities that serve as centers of human capital and supply audiences and patrons for the arts.

He also argues that there needs to be new organizational structures. In literature, we had the novel really driving things for a while. Now, he argues, it is film. It might be interesting to think of what other possibilities there are or could be. Of course, the one who invents the next new organizational structure for any given kind of art will be considered one of the greatest artists of all time. And recognizing such things is difficult, usually taking place long after it has been established. Nevertheless, he argues, we are limited by our own evolution: "Human traditions of storytelling suggest that humans are hard-wired to prefer certain narrative conventions."

There is a lot more of interest in the piece. Interestingly, he lists a few artistic movements, mentioned by Steven Pinker, that Frederick Turner is a part of.

Separation of Art and State

David Boaz of the Cato Institute has written a piece for the New York Times on the Separation of Art and State. Much of what he says is familiar: people should not be forced to pay for art they do not approve of, and artists should not want government support since "He who pays the piper calls the tune." And since "the NEA’s budget is about 0.2 percent of the total amount spent on the nonprofit arts in the United States," it is obvious that federal funding of the arts in the U.S. wouldn't even be missed.

The Founders recognized that the divine economy ought to be separated from the political economy (separation of church and state). On similar grounds, it makes sense to recognize that the gift economy ought to be separated from the political economy (separation of art/science/philanthropy and state), and that the market economy ought to be separated from the political economy (separation of catallaxy/money and state).

The Spontaneous Order of Canon Formation

I have previously suggested that spontaneous order theory might tell us something about how the literary canon formed. Insofar as Randall Collins' The Sociology of Philosophies is a theory of spontaneous order applied to intellectuals in general (and, thus, the gift economy), and to philosophers in particular, what he says about canon formation would therefore be a spontaneous order theory of canon formation. He deserves to be cited at length on this. He is talking about "thinkers," but this is equally applicable to artists, poets, etc.

Canons are historically situated; but let us grasp the full implications. We cannot invoke as a foil a reservoir of "deserving" but unknown thinkers in the shadows throughout history, just as "creative" as the ones whose names were trumpeted, as if there were some trans-historical realm in which their achievement is measured. Ideas are creative because they hold the interest of other people. The very concept of creativity implies the judgment of one generation upon another. Shall we say that we are studying not creativity but reputation? The distinction arises from our tendency to heroize, to reify the individual apart from the context. Although it seems to violate our sense that causes ought to be antecedent to what we are explaining, the "creativity" of a particular philosopher is not established until several generations have passed, because it literally is a matter of how sharp a focus that individual's ideas become in the long-term structure of the networks which transmit ideas. (58)

Intellectual greatness is precisely one's effect on the course of intellectual history, influencing generations downstream from one's own.

In my rankings, greatness is based on the degree to which a philosopher remains of interest to other thinkers across long periods of time. Canons do change, but only among those figures who have entered into the long-term chain of reputation in the first place. The first threshold is reputation that carries down beyond one or two generations. For this reason, the level of structural creativity is not easy to discern among one's own contemporaries. (59)

The dose of realism provided by the long-term view is a salutary (if unwelcome) antidote to our personal egotism, and to that projected egotism which we attach to our hero-ideals, the rare "genius" of generations past whom we pattern ourselves upon in our inner imagination. Intellectuals make their breakthroughs, changing the course of the flow of ideas, because of what they do with the cultural capital and emotional energy flowing down to them from their own pasts, restructured by the network of tensions among their contemporaries. The merit of their contributions, its "intrinsic worth" as well as "social impact," is a mater of how the structure develops after our own deaths. We intellectuals are true eddies in the river of time---perhaps more so than other humans, because it is our business to attend to this connectedness across the generations. (60)

He points out that the "minimal unit of intellectual change is a generation, approximately 33 years" (60), and another generation for that change to have its impact. We cannot judge our own generation because we are too close, and things are still shaking out. And we may be in an epoch of little real change. Still, there are some parlor games we can play with this idea.

If we exclude the current generation -- meaning anyone who created their major work(s) since, say, 1980 -- and take as given Collins' calculations of 1 major intellectual per generation, 2 secondary intellectuals per generation, and 7 minor intellectuals per generation within a given field (he is writing about philosophy, but is applies to all intellectual networks), we would have 3 generations of intellectuals between 1880-1980.

What are the major, secondary, and minor economists of that period?

What are the major, secondary, and minor poets of that period?

What are the major, secondary, and minor novelists of that period?

What are the major, secondary, and minor playwrights of that period?

And, to really cause trouble: who in each category are on the radar now?

 Let the comments war begin!

The Spontaneous Order of Philosophies

I am reading Randall Collins' The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. It's a massive tome, but I think well worth reading, particularly for spontaneous orders theorists. Given he is also the author of Max Weber: A Skeleton Key, the fact that spontaneous orders theorists (and other Austrian economists) should find his work of interest perhaps should not be that much of a surprise.

Collins is quite critical of both Marxism and postmodernism in sociology. He particularly objects to the reduction of everything to politics (as postmodernism does, in its reduction of everything to power):

The personal is political, but the politics of intellectual practice, within the inwardly focused network of specialists, is not the same thing as the politics of gaining power in the state, or the politics of men and women in their homes or sexual encounters. Winning the focus of attention within the contests among philosophers is done with specifically intellectual resources, which are social resources specific to intellectual networks. There is abundant historical evidence that when players in this arena try to win their way solely with the weapons of external politics, they win the battle at the cost of their intellectual reputations in the long-term historical community. These are not the same game; and at those times in history when one game reduces to another, the intellectual game does not so much give in as disappear, to reappear only when an inner space becomes available for it again. Without an internal structure of intellectual networks generating their own matrix of arguments, there are no ideological effects on philosophy; we find only lay ideologies, crude and simple." (12-13)

If the last statement does not sum up the current situation in philosophy -- and increasingly in the arts, literature, and even the sciences -- I don't know what does. Indeed, we can consider not just philosophy, but the intellectual networks of the arts and literature and of the sciences as well. Postmodernism reduces everything to power; power, in the master-slave interaction, is the social interaction of politics; therefore, postmodernism reduces everything to politics. Thus are we dominated by crude, simple lay ideologies.

Has philosophy disappeared from the scene, waiting for postmodernist reductionism to finally be replaced by a more complex world view that can include philosophy? Can we ask the same question of the arts? of literature? of some areas in science?

While The Sociology of Philosophies is on the spontaneous orders of the world's philosophies, a similar book on, say, literature could just as easily be written, with much the same structure as this book. He explains the canons of world philosophy; one on literature would explain those canons. One could probably do the same work on the sciences. I think doing so would really shore up spontaneous order theory as a sociological theory, and draw a connection between sociology and free market economics that desperately needs to be drawn.

Winton Bates on Progress and the Arts

Winton Bates, an Australian economists, discusses Frederick Turner's book The Culture of Hope. He discusses Turner's idea that the arts can be a force for progress. This in turn prompted him to discuss Alfred North Whitehead's book Adventures of Ideas, discussing it in light of Hayek's quote that "In one sense, civilization is progress and progress is civilization."

If Turner is right that the arts are (or an be) a force for progress, then he is arguing that the arts are (or can be) civilizing. This civilizing aspect is beauty. Bates wonders if art is but a way of keeping communication flows open (using Bejan's idea of the constructal law). However, this would relate directly to the issue of beauty, as beauty may be the way artistic communication flows are kept most open and best flowing. In fact, Turner argues that tree-like branchiness is important to understand beauty, time, and the arts. The golden mean emerges out of the constructal law -- and the golden mean is central to our experience of beauty. The same with fractal geometry.

Perhaps our experience of beauty is the brain rewarding itself for recognizing the constructal law in nature.

And perhaps anything that is allowed to evolve according to the constructal law of nature is beautiful.