Wednesday, June 15, 2005
There are various theories about what can make power legitimate. Do you think that one theory is more convincing than the others?
Tonight's task was some orderly, linear and focused thinking about my essay title (above) . Maybe some tables, lists of key points and then a plan.
Three hours later my whole desk is strewn with scribbled mindmaps, dashing arrows, many coloured highlights and underlines so bold they almost go through the paper. Not a neat list in sight.
And it's been glorious. From a neat pros and cons evaluation of various theories I've ended up with litters of ideas that pull together cognitive science, political philosophy, evolutionary biology and management theory. My conclusion, that no one theory is most convincing, but some of the 'big ideas' from each theory are.
From Utilitarian thinking (Hume, Bentham), that morals have simply been constructed by societies to serve various purposes (consciously and unconsciously).
From Marxism, that many people are subject to power that is not acting in their interests so we have to explain their acceptance in terms of why they don't realise that this is the case and/or act against it. (Who decided what morals people developed, whose interests were they in and how did they encourage them to be accepted?)
And this is where I went off on one:
From Cognitive Science, that we have core beliefs or rules that guide our decisions (religious or not) and these can be helpful or unhelpful (you've heard this before!)
From Evolutionary Biology (Richard Dawkins) that these rules are an example of 'memes'. These are things like concepts (freedom, legitimacy), sayings ('hard work pays off'), myths, religious ideas and so on, that mutate and replicate as they spread through populations. Some are successful and spread widely, some are not and die out.
I guess 'contraception must not be used' is a good example. For every two Catholic parents who thought it sprang ten or so more Catholics likely to believe it. For every protestant not thinking it sprang two more protestants without the idea. Simplistic, obviously, but interesting.
But I guess the point is, what have been the ideas about legitimacy in the past and how have they spread? Which have been the successful ideas, which have been the least successful and where does that leave us? Interestingly, where it leaves me is essentially agreeing in equal measures with the Utilitarians and Marx while being more aware of how much I'm driven by my own set of 'memes' to think that Rawls is spot on with much of his thinking about how political societies should behave in order to be accepted as legitimate.
Heck. It'll be interesting turning this into a coherent essay!
I also must say at this point that Wikipedia has changed my life and today I found the best entry I've ever read (on Memes). How on earth did I do my degree without the Internet?
Three hours later my whole desk is strewn with scribbled mindmaps, dashing arrows, many coloured highlights and underlines so bold they almost go through the paper. Not a neat list in sight.
And it's been glorious. From a neat pros and cons evaluation of various theories I've ended up with litters of ideas that pull together cognitive science, political philosophy, evolutionary biology and management theory. My conclusion, that no one theory is most convincing, but some of the 'big ideas' from each theory are.
From Utilitarian thinking (Hume, Bentham), that morals have simply been constructed by societies to serve various purposes (consciously and unconsciously).
From Marxism, that many people are subject to power that is not acting in their interests so we have to explain their acceptance in terms of why they don't realise that this is the case and/or act against it. (Who decided what morals people developed, whose interests were they in and how did they encourage them to be accepted?)
And this is where I went off on one:
From Cognitive Science, that we have core beliefs or rules that guide our decisions (religious or not) and these can be helpful or unhelpful (you've heard this before!)
From Evolutionary Biology (Richard Dawkins) that these rules are an example of 'memes'. These are things like concepts (freedom, legitimacy), sayings ('hard work pays off'), myths, religious ideas and so on, that mutate and replicate as they spread through populations. Some are successful and spread widely, some are not and die out.
I guess 'contraception must not be used' is a good example. For every two Catholic parents who thought it sprang ten or so more Catholics likely to believe it. For every protestant not thinking it sprang two more protestants without the idea. Simplistic, obviously, but interesting.
But I guess the point is, what have been the ideas about legitimacy in the past and how have they spread? Which have been the successful ideas, which have been the least successful and where does that leave us? Interestingly, where it leaves me is essentially agreeing in equal measures with the Utilitarians and Marx while being more aware of how much I'm driven by my own set of 'memes' to think that Rawls is spot on with much of his thinking about how political societies should behave in order to be accepted as legitimate.
Heck. It'll be interesting turning this into a coherent essay!
I also must say at this point that Wikipedia has changed my life and today I found the best entry I've ever read (on Memes). How on earth did I do my degree without the Internet?
# posted by Liz @ 10:39 pm 
