The Structural Linguistics of “Draw Something”
A preoccupation with language is a preoccupation with meaning. That is, by focusing on language, we become fixated on what language means. Language as a “meaning project” has dominated philosophy for about a century, but the recent trend has been to focus, not on what language means, but on what language does.
It’s difficult to engage this topic, because we have to engage it with language. In other words, we think in language, so there are subtle but powerful limits on our ability to be self-reflexive. Because we think in language, the best way to understand “outside” of language is to relate in a language that isn’t verbal. Draw Something presents such an opportunity.
Before we get to Draw Something, I’m going to explain Structural Linguistics. Structural Linguistics is an early attempt to develop a theory about how meaning is created in language. (Remember, presently, we don’t care about meaning-as-such, but the early adopters of this theory didn’t know that yet.) Structural Linguistics came about after a couple thousand years worth of philosophy that was preoccupied with meaning – particularly in how meaning is created in the contrast between the sensible and the intelligible – what we could experience and what we could think. Its predecessors offered arguments for finding meaning in the world of experience or the world of reason, but Structural Linguistics ignored that problem by unifying the two: the sensible and the intelligible were no longer separate realms; they now represented opposing sides of the same construct – the Sign.
The Sign is the focus of Structural Linguistics. On the inside – within the mind – exists all of the content of the Sign – what we would call our knowledge or understanding of a concept. When we think of “iPhone”, we don’t conjure every impeccable molecule of a tangible object; we conjure our familiarity with that kind of object from past experience. (This could include memories of how to use the iPhone or memories of an important phone call; these don’t necessarily have to do with the object as such.) All the stuff on the inside is the Signified.
On the outside is the Signifier. The Signifier is the sensible content of the Sign. Now, the iPhone is actually a physical, tangible object, but language is deeper than a particular object. The Signifer is the perceptible sound “iPhone”, as it is spoken from one person to another. But, more than that, it carries a content with it in how the recipient hears the sound (or reads the words on a page). That content is created, not by the sound itself, but by what holds the sound up (or what sets it apart from other sounds). This is how we can tell the difference between “iPhone” (or whatever) and mumbled nonsense. “iPhone” is sensibly meaningful because it sounds different than other sounds that exist within our language. It also sounds different than the purring of a cat or a crack of lightening, but we don’t care about that; we care about the System of our language – which includes all of the sensible Signifiers within it – and how they are different from each other. In fact, if two Signifiers have no difference from each other, they are the same.
The Sign has two sides – the Signifier (outside) and the Signified (inside). This departure from classical philosophy finds meaning, not in the difference between mind and experience, but in the difference among sounds (or written words) in a language. An “apple” isn’t an apple to each of us because of some objective content to that sound. It means apple to us because “apple” isn’t “orange” or “banana” or “chair” or “postmodernism”. It assumes meaning by contrast – through Difference. Sign, Signified, Signifier, System, and Difference – these are the tools of Structurlism. Now we’re ready for Draw Something.
Draw Something has a sensible content (the picture) and an intelligible content (the artist – or, whatever the artist happens to be thinking of when she draws the picture). Note that the artist also knows the “word” that she’s drawing. At first glance, this seems duplicitous – as if I’m trying to force Structural Linguistics on some derivative form of communication, to which it is arbitrary. Here’s why that word doesn’t matter: the word is a prompt or a motivation, but there are no boundaries on how the artist will conjure a mental content for that word. Some words, like “apple” seem a little blunt. But for the word “tie”, you could draw a person wearing a tie, or people tying in a race, or a shoelace that becomes tied, etc. The prompt word is merely the motivation or prompt for conjuring a Signified – a Signifier without Difference.
Once the Signified is conjured (internally, intelligibly) the artist makes it sensible, by “uttering” it onto the screen. And, the manner in which it inhabits the screen is governed by Difference. As I begin to draw my Signifiers (the marks, lines and colors that distinguish my Sign), they assume meaning in Difference. If my prompt is “shell”, I don’t just draw a white blob on the screen and assume my message will be effectively communicated; I might start by painting some light blue blobs on top of the screen (which could mean anything), then some brown blobs below that, and finally some darker blue blobs in the middle. Based on our System of shared experiences, it’s reasonable to assume that I’m painting “sky”, “sea” and “beach”. These Signifiers can’t mean anything by themselves (how could they?), but they assume meaning by difference. Then I add a yellow circle, which assumes the meaning of “sun” by its difference from the rest of the setting. Finally, I draw an off-white flowery blob, or a hermit crab with a nautilus shape and point an arrow to it. These strokes mean nothing by themselves: they assume all of their meaning by their Difference from whatever else is in our System and from whatever else is being painted.
This meaning through Difference is affirmed as we transition back to written language, where our available letters constrain the possible “graphemes” (i.e., different words) that our Signifier could represent. But note, at this point, the Signifier has already referred back to the Signified in your mind, conjuring the intelligible content of “shell” before you begin to look for the letters S-H-E-L-L. If “guessing the prompt” is equivalent to meaning, then meaning is created through the Difference of Signifers as they refer back to the other half of their Sign, the Signified.
However, as I said in the beginning, the purpose of language is not what it “means” but what it “does”. The present trend is to focus on language as a performative act rather than a meaningful one. It’s not just that language breaks down under scrutiny as a vessel to hold meaning, but the idea of “meaning” itself tends to fall apart. But this is a project for Post-Structural Linguistics and another iPhone app.
The Future of Health & Wellness Part II: Chiropractic on the Forefront of an Evolving Wellness Revolution
BJ Palmer wrote, “We are well when Innate Intelligence has unhindered freedom to act through the physical brain, nerves and tissues. Disease is a lack of normal functions.” Chiropractors have known for over 100 years that the principles Dr Palmer wrote about in The Science of Chiropractic transcend time and technology. Mixed or Straight, we treat our patients based on a fundamental and unbiased understanding that wellness stems from genetically congruent lifestyle choices free from the toxic effects of structural, chemical and emotional stressors. Medical scientists validate this on a daily basis but often do not credit Chiropractic philosophy as the lynchpin in the development of an efficacious health paradigm. Although previously antagonistic Chiropractic concepts like “mind-body medicine” are now becoming accepted in scientific circles, Chiropractors are still poised on the outskirts of recognition and will have much work to do to establish cultural authority and take credit for concepts which Dr Palmer and his followers essentially cultivated. In spite of all that we know about human physiology, many still cling to the notion that we can somehow outsmart the Innate Intelligence of the infinitely complex human body with pharmaceuticals and other reactive interventions.
Indoctrinated by traditional medical science with this idea, we as Doctors of Chiropractic often forget what the human body is capable of when it is freed from the shackles of the toxicity and deficiency caused by industrialization and sedentarism. Of course Chiropractic care has been shown to be extraordinarily effective in treating symptomatic back and neck pain, but has never been truly critically and academically studied as a vessel for delivering health. The lack of intrinsic high-quality evidence for the link between Chiropractic care and “wellness” poses a problematic quandary for our profession, because we acknowledge through our case-by-case experiences the power adjusting subluxations has on our patients but have difficulty proving to the rest of the academic world that what we do is not only important, but crucial.
We must also acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that a lack of proof does not mean that proof is lacking. Much of what we know about Chiropractic stems from a deeper understanding that randomized controlled trials cannot possibly reduce the “health” concept into compartmentalized terms of clinical prediction rules and symptom alleviation.
For this reason, it is absolutely vital that we as Doctors of Chiropractic embrace and lead the so-called “wellness revolution.” By complying with medically-imposed recommendations for establishing cultural authority and relegating ourselves to the realm of back and neck pain, we ignore the piles of compelling research showing us that, as Dr Palmer taught, adjustments are more than therapeutically effective. Although BJ’s flamboyant style and often inflammatory and dogmatic rhetoric has been misappropriated over the years, the science which validates our special paradigmatic authority cannot be ignored. No other profession has the tools to help society overcome the dangers of reactive, reductionist medicine. We must tout prevention. We must practice and preach healthy lifestyles. We must continue funding research which will help us break the cycle of medically-funded discrimination and, above all, we must believe in ourselves and the power we wield to help our patients.
As American Chiropractic Association or International Chiropractic Association members, we must take more aggressive steps toward unifying our profession. While the ACA is by far the most organized and politically powerful Chiropractic organization in the United States, it has yet to establish itself as an effective voice in the hearts and minds of most American Chiropractors; in fact, the ICA has done a tremendous job of bridging this gap in recent years. We must put our egos aside and acknowledge the strides made by each organization by creating a notion of “family” amongst our members. By reaching across party lines and meeting with leaders from each organization to further cultivate a culture of collaboration, we may share our special knowledge with the hope of one day uniting against the powerful medical lobbies to spread the vision of health that BJ envisioned. Clearly, when we stand divided, we stand defenseless. This does not mean that we must abandon our core philosophies; to the contrary, we must maintain a strong stance in the face of anti-Chiropractic legislation and continue to develop strong Chiropractic leaders who will lead our profession into the next century and help cement Chiropractic care in the public eye as the primary-prevention modality in American healthcare. Yes, we must continue to argue the importance of sweeping healthcare reform to our legislators and develop literature to educate our peers and patients, but more importantly, we must embrace each other as equals, respect our differences (as long as they are founded on best evidence and clinical expertise) and use our science, clout and esteem to deliver a pure, unadulterated model for wellness to the public.
Viral and Internet Memes – A Clarification
Over the last few years, I’ve come across more and more instances of the terms Viral Memes and Internet Memes in reference to attention-grabbing “things” – Viral Memes doing this undeservingly, without the host’s awareness – Internet Memes because of the commerce of web-based cultural currency.
As a self-proclaimed memetician (or memeologist?… memetic evolutionist), a part of me is pleased to see the rhetoric of memes proliferate into the mainstream. And what could be considered more mainstream than the culture of professional advertising, thinking ‘outside the box’ to latch on to this concept. (After all, they seem to determine what constitutes pop culture, at least). In stark contrast stands the inexplicable, democratic force of Internet Memes – the elusive attention grabbing effect of absurd web content – which captivate the audience that advertisers attempt to apprehend.
So, one kind of meme serves as an institutional tool to indoctrinate (whether implemented intentionally or benignly, for Christianity or Pepsi), while the other kind of meme can only be seen as the symptom of a groundswell interest in an arbitrary object – cats or Star Trek or Rick Astley or something – serving as a lingua franca for trendy power users. What an elegant dichotomy. There’s only one problem:
Neither of these phenomena are memes…
The Notion of Quintessential American Freedom
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what the word “freedom” means. The word is simple enough: I’m sure I learned it at some point in early elementary school; it was an accessible crescendo in Braveheart; as a matter of civics, the concept of “freedom” is at the nexus of the structural antagonism between sovereign state and sovereign people. In short, freedom is important to America. And yet, I keep hearing the word dragged out and beaten in the media. If I had to work out its meaning based on its use, I’d have to conclude that it means the opposite of “Obama-style socialism”. But it’s always troublesome to try and define a word in the negative, so how do we condense this cloud of idealism?
It occurs to me, the determinist, that there’s not actually any such thing as freedom, as we like to conceive of the word. (Not that most people would be aware of this – most people aren’t determinists). So, if there isn’t real freedom – of the variety that free will could have a hand in manipulating – is there such thing as circumstantial freedom? Well, not really. The freedom to “guns!!” isn’t a freedom to do whatever you want with a gun. You have to shoot them in designated areas and times or for designated reasons. In violation of this, you risk consequences (and are therefore often governed by the fear of those consequences). Fear is every bit the same restraint on freedom that a boulder is, for most would no sooner choose to be incarcerated than run full speed into the boulder or throw themselves from it. We have limited resources, which further constrain our choices. (I personally can’t choose to own a Hummer, whether or not I think that Americans should have the freedom to drive them). And, though I doubt anyone could appreciate this, we have limited scope, based not only on epistemological factors, but also on our experience, which is the prism through which we interpret our perception. So, we aren’t free to choose from all “possibilities”, only from the ones for which we have been cultivated. I can choose to take calculus class in high school, but I can’t choose for it to be easy (because I don’t already have the experience of “knowing calculus”). I can choose to live just enough for the city, or to “have been educated enough” to earn more money and live comfortably. These aren’t real choices, they just show different hypothetical paths when viewed in retrospect.
When I hear people talking about freedom (in the context of American politics), I understand that they aren’t actually looking for freedom; they’re simply reacting to the desire for control. According to the Huffington Post (see, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/palin-supporters-struggle_n_367800.html), most Palin supporters can’t conjure a concise mission statement, let alone a cohesive argument explaining the comment. (Even I have some problems with cap and trade, but the flaws aren’t self evident). The clarity is no better coming from the top, where the RNC has mandated the “10 Commandments” of Republicanism. Available online at: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/11/23/2134917.aspx.
- (1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill
- (2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
- (3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
- (4) Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
- (5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
- (6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
- (7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
- (8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
- (9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
- (10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.
Many of these seem like reactions to a perceived lack of freedom. It’s a thought experiment, at best, to argue whether an America committed to upholding these principals would be “freer” than one that didn’t (although, I personally think it would be a more constrained one, and, of course, I reject the principle word in the question on semantic grounds). There’s also the problem of trying to juggle the role of leadership in a rapidly changing society with monolithic rules peculiarly reminiscent of the immutable Ten Commandments. (Does that make them duolithic?). I mean, I absolutely expect this from the political ideology that thinks that there’s a right way to interpret the Constitution. (And, on that subject, I can’t help but plug this gem: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_passionate_defender_of).
This “Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates”, in its most idealistic terms, is wholly inadministrable. (Well, except for the one about retaining DOMA; that actually seems pretty binary, even though it’s a dick move). So, my guess is that if the RNC actually insists on policing its own members with such rigidity, it’s going to fracture the party. But won’t this highlight the hypocrisy all the more if they precipitate their own downfall by taking away the freedom of their own members to do anything other than adopt their version of what freedom looks like?
This is my point. Conservatives aren’t interested in freedom. They’re interested in control. They want to control their own lives because they are so suffocated by their lack of understanding of what is going on around them that the opportunity to yell a bumpersticker at the top of their lungs is a breath of fresh air. Sometimes these slogans putatively champion personal freedom (like the right to bear arms). Sometimes they manage freedom circuitously (like preventing homosex’yuls from destroying their freedom to preserve the America of their revisionist nostalgia).
I suppose my purpose in writing this is to argue that the reactive tactic of yelling statistics and evoking the gods of reason and logic in support of a counterpoint is failing. I think we live at a time in history where there is no future for humanity without social progress. We can’t change the way we use energy, create waste, destroy nature and define enemies unless we change the way we think first. If you’ll pardon the arrogant metaphor, progressives would be better off guiding sheep than butting heads with rams. I offer this perspective to prompt others to think about ways to change minds through changing discussions instead of getting mired in the trench warfare of conservative rhetoric. In the words of Richard Rorty, “[it is] a talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, [that] is the chief instrument of cultural change”.
Common Paradigm and the Chiropractor’s Role as a Functional Neurological Interventionist
aka “The Memetic Evolution of the Chiropractic Paradigm” aka “Chiropractic Paradigm for Dummies, Inside the Profession and Out”
A significant controversy has surrounded the ‘chiropractic paradigm’ since D.D. Palmer first postulated the concept of spinal subluxation in his early 20th century writings. As a consequence, chiropractors have had a difficult time defining their roles in the evolving health care landscape dominated by best-practices and evidenced-based research. For years, chiropractors have maintained that at their philosophical cores, they serve humankind by detecting and correcting spinal subluxations or focal vertebral joint dysfunctions, which are postulated to attenuate some vital neurological force that is essential for survival. Traditional chiropractic philosophy argues that free from the neurological constraints caused by these subluxations, our body’s innate ability to heal and grow can express itself and free us from sickness and disease.
While this simple model seems to get to the heart of the communal chiropractic identity, it has been shown to fail under the weight of scientific scrutiny. Throughout the years, chiropractors have wrestled with the identity crisis inherently caused by their scientifically flawed world-view, as is evidenced by the now clichéd disunity between so-called ‘mixer’ and ‘straight’ practitioners. The aforementioned have elected to forsake their philosophical roots to pursue more evidenced sensory techniques for symptom relief such as physical therapies, soft-tissue interventions and rehabilitation while the latter have staunchly maintained a principled approach to holistic care by addressing only spinal subluxations as dictated by D.D. Palmer and, later, his son B.J. Because of an essentially universal scope of practice that allows chiropractors to perform manual manipulative techniques in every state in the US, often the argument about what doctors of chiropractic choose to do to address patient complaints in their respective offices becomes a matter of semantics and egos. However, as we’re beginning to see through advances in neuroscience, such semantic arguments may soon become moot.
In any form, chiropractic care is essentially sensory-based medicine designed to stimulate a receptor-driven neurological construct. Chiropractors bombard patients’ nervous systems with stimuli with the intention of creating positive change without having to use pharmaceuticals. In that regard, both ‘straight’ and ‘mixer’ approaches have valid usefulness. The intention and approach to application, as it turns out, is more important than the application itself. Non-chiropractic neuroscientists such as Paul Bach-y-Rita, Mike Merzenich, Edward Taub and Vilayanur Ramachandran as well as scientists inside the profession such as Heidi Haavik-Taylor, Burnadette Murphy and Frederick Carrick have begun to show that the human nervous system is in fact an incredibly dynamic and plastic environment that is heavily influenced by sensory input and receptor potentiation. In short, the brain has been shown to change permanently under the influence of outside forces, such as, say, a chiropractic adjustment, which sends massive amounts of afferent input into the spinal cord, brainstem, cerebellum and cerebral cortex. In this regard, it is not too much of a stretch to see how D.D. Palmer’s original subluxation concept may be have been partially accurate in spite of it’s crudeness. Chiropractors who choose to use additional sensory techniques such as massage, electric stimulation and ultrasound, to name a few, to address subclinical neurological compromise including spinal subluxations are essentially performing treatments in line with traditional chiropractic philosophy without acknowledging it.
A wide and variable scope of practice is, therefore, clearly not a detriment. Since Carrick’s first works, chiropractors have been convincingly shown to be the gatekeepers of neurological well-being in terms recognized by leading non-chiropractic neuroplasticians, regardless of their specific mode of intervention. In this regard, chiropractors have taken perhaps an unintended step away from their traditional role as spine specialists. True, chiropractors address mostly spinal complaints due to the intrinsic and powerful relationship the spine has with the central nervous system, but in reality they treat disorders relating to central neurological integration errors created by cultural, social and genetic maladaptation. In light of the current healthcare renaissance, it is vital that chiropractors embrace this functional appreciation for the care they provide. Regardless of scope, chiropractors must differentiate themselves from physical therapists and physiatrists whose roles may at times overlap. Whether we embrace wellness, pain management or preventative spine care, the intent we bring to our craft delineates our uniqueness. Varying scopes of practice fail to weaken our core philosophy as long as we remain mindful that we serve our patients by acknowledging the research that supports our paradigm and by appreciating the fact the tools at our disposal necessarily classify us as functional nervous system specialists regardless of the techniques we use or outcomes we seek.
Functional Chiropractic Neurology and ‘New-Age’ Healing: A Different Perspective on the Vitality of Clinical Nutrition
aka “The Memetic Evolution of Functional Nutrition.”
By Daniel Bronstein
Dr. Royal Lee theorized that whole food supplementation “harness[es] nutrients as they are found in nature,†and as such include naturally-occurring enzymes, co-factors and catalysts required for proper metabolism. In a society dominated by processed foods stripped of their innate genetic nutrients, it is reasonable to conclude that many modern diseases predicated upon insulin resistance, gliadin sensitivity and GI acidity may be avoided by creating complete nutritional sufficiency, not just by replacing individual nutrients suspected to be missing. It is therefore vital for health care practitioners to teach their patients to differentiate between artificial, calorically-dense foods, which trick the brain into releasing pleasure chemicals and nutritious foods that include the proper nutrients to foster metabolic integrity and create nutritional sufficiency.
For manual care specialists such as chiropractors, enforcing nutritional standards in patient care is not only recommended, but critical. Research has shown that anti-inflammatory diets predicated on raw, whole foods stimulate natural metabolic pathways synergistically. This relationship helps to detoxify, alkalize and maintain the body’s ability to mount appropriate immune responses, but most importantly, helps the body to accept and mediate sensory stimuli. This is especially important to chiropractors who use joint manipulation to stimulate their patients’ central nervous systems (CNS). The CNS requires both proper nutrition and sensory stimulation to foster healthy growth, but the brain, the pinnacle of the CNS cannot metabolically tolerate high-input sensory stimuli from manipulations if it lacks the ability to absorb, integrate and metabolize exogenous vitamins, minerals and neurotransmitters.
Chiropractors are among the most qualified healthcare specialists to tout the benefits of balanced nutrition to society because they understand the holistic nature of human homeostasis: constant, whole-body, neurological adaptive momentum towards survival. In fact we are hardwired for it. Take, for example, the innate human response to touching a hot stove burner. Recent scholarship suggests that chiropractic adjustments, in fact, create ‘neuroplasticity’ by altering what is termed the ‘central integrative state’ (CIS) of nervous structures. This means that spinal manipulation changes the brain by restoring the input it should receive from a healthy spine by gravity and motion that may be knocked out by a lack of genetic expression vis-a-vis appropriate movement. However, the CIS of any given structure is also inextricably tied to membrane permeability, gas exchange efficiency and rate of ATP production, which is in turn tied to the bioavailability of exogenously-supplied nutrients and co-factors. Consider, for example, the electron transport chain, which mediates the majority of ATP production in the body. Without adequate mitochondrial Niacin, Folate, Co-enzyme Q, a variety of other minor proteins, cytochromes and an appropriate concentration of protons (i.e. appropriate pH), the electron transport chain can break down resulting in lower ATP production and, notably, a resultant down-regulation in neuronal sensitivity to stimulus, otherwise known as ‘transneural degeneration’ (TND). In particularly neurologically unhealthy individuals, chiropractic manipulations are theorized by some researchers to produce less-than-desirable results because neuronal mitochondria cannot produce the protein and energy necessary for appropriate conduction, synaptogenesis and plasticity, and while an acute breakdown in oxidative phosphorylation may require an equally acute CoQ10 nutraceutical intervention, long term sufficiency necessitates balanced natural sources of carbohydrates, B vitamins, essential fatty acids and amino acids to fuel glycolysis.
Teaching patients to embrace whole-food diets, on which our genome is founded and has evolved around for over 10,000 years must take precedent as citizens embrace progressively unhealthy lifestyles founded upon trans-fatty acids, inflammatory meats, fruit and vegetable deficiencies and a lack of exercise. Whole food supplementation represents a still relatively untapped resource on the forefront of ‘New-Age’ healing, where reactive pharmaceutical intervention takes a backseat to a radical preventative health concept. Proper nutrition is therefore not just an ancillary therapeutic possibility, but an essential precursor to innate homeostatic expression.
Memetic Evolutionary Interpretivism – An Adaptive Alternative to Conventional Constitutional Interpretation
The current debate in constitutional interpretivism manifests the irreconcilability of two ideologies. Put simply, one group, the Originalists, believe that under novel circumstances, the Constitution ought to be interpreted based on the meaning of its language at the time it was written. The other group, Living Constitutionalists, believe that the founders intended to draft a document that could change with time so that judges could broaden its applicability without always waiting for an amendment: some passages are literal and inflexible, but others are elastic and can expand to contain new information. Neither side has convinced the other of its merits, and each assumes different quality judgments, thwarting a qualitative analysis of general applicability. Jurists and scholars have spoken this debate in the language of intentionalism, arguing over whose interpretivist rules are the right ones; but that vocabulary stifles the proper inquiry – namely, which expression of the Constitution will allow it to maintain its relevance.
To engage that question, I offer the theory of memetic evolution, which describes the adaptability of cultural information (memes) in changing social environments. I will focus on the expression of two interpretivist memes, Originalism and Living Constitutionalism, in discussing the adaptability of the Constitution generally, as well as exploring other relevant memes to build a broader framework for analysis. This new framework will expose the inevitable failures that flow from thinking in an old vocabulary.
The following article outlines the framework that I will eventually use in a more comprehensive work to provide a qualitative analysis of Supreme Court decision-making:
Free Market Framework Revisited, Part 2 – The Evolution of Corporate Behavior
Just as Richard Dawkins proposed in The Selfish Gene that we should consider biological evolution from the perspective of the biological replicator (the gene), and cultural evolution from the perspective of the cultural replicator (the meme), an evolutionary framework for economics should consider the evolution of corporations from the perspective of the profit motive: if our legal system allows corporations to act as entities (instead of merely viewing them as a bundle of legal rights for their owners), then the profit motive is the most discrete instruction set, the expression of which leads to corporate behavior. Evolutionary theory adequately accounts for changes in corporate behavior by explaining the imitation and internalization of profitable behavior, the systematic removal of unprofitable behavior, and the survival of larger structures – the corporations themselves – only insofar as they are useful to the survival of the profit-motivated behaviors.
Free Market Framework Revisited – The Evolutionary Algorithm in Pricing Decisions
The algorithm of evolution applies to any phenomenon that undergoes replication (producing subsequent generations), variation (occasionally altering composition during replication) and selection (succeeding differentially based on fitness to an environment). The free market system can easily be described in terms of the evolutionary algorithm. Effectively, pressures on pricing – whether to go up or down – is a variation and a selection (the selection occurs at the “market clearing priceâ€). The replication happens at any interval where prices can change. (Not to risk wading into the so-called Social Darwinism paradigm, it’s important to realize that the only quality judgment that manifests here is “fitness of price to a marketâ€, not “fitness of capitalism as a quality judgment to express the value of humanityâ€). It then becomes clear that the god-like invisible hand is no more transcendent than any other imagined patron; changes in the market occur, tiny increment at a time, in response to fitness of price to the environment of demand.
More importantly, the environment in which pricing must compete is a memetic one where the demand meme interacts with other internalized motivations to manifest as a behavior to buy or not to buy. (A meme is a discrete unit of cultural information that internalizes in humans, who express the meme as behavior). Retail companies and advertising firms are well aware of this phenomenon (whether by these terms or not) in attempting to spread viral memes through advertising in hopes of augmenting the “buy†behavior.
Is there any reason to think about free market economics in terms of evolutionary theory instead of any other classical framework? I happen to think that memetic evolution describes all observable outcomes in cultural behavior correctly, so I prefer this explanation for consistency’s sake. More importantly, as I hinted above, we live in an era where we need to move beyond the divine to the practical: if the invisible hand is “god-like”, then the market it controls is subject to omniscient wisdom and absolute quality-judgments. This paradigm leads to outcomes that are good for capital but bad for humanity. However, an appreciation of a cultural evolutionary framework assumes an acceptance of contingency (fitness to environment is the only quality judgment – survival doesn’t speak to any broader notions of Good or Right or True). And if we appreciate contingency, we free ourselves to make better, long-term decisions.
In this vein, memetic evolution accurately describes social constructs in “value-addingâ€. The purpose of branding, for example, is to differentiate fungible goods. Without differentiation, a company has no incentive to add to the quality of a product above the normative fungible level. Branding, however, allows an investment in the quality of a product that consumers in the marketplace can identify and appreciate when making a purchasing decision (selection). The characteristics of a brand are social construct – a memetic content. Q-tip brand cotton swabs have more cotton on the tip. Organic produce is more wholesome. American Apparel clothing is manufactured by local labor. “Green†products are better for the environment. All of these products are probably more expensive than their counterparts in the marketplace. Where they are successful in spite of this cost disadvantage, it is due to a memetic ecosystem that creates a motivation to value the differentiation above the additional cost. The environment of a brand’s fitness is the culture of the consumers who are in a position to demand it. Of course, a culturally created motivation only evolves when there is evolutionary pressure for it to evolve – i.e., behaviors tend to result from self-interest. Global warming has been an imminent threat for decades; but the entire explosion in human opulence from the industrial revolution forward can be neatly attributed to discovering how to put coal, oil, and natural gas to good use. The environmental externalities are far too attenuated for an average consumer to voluntarily bear substantial cost in an attempt to internalize these social costs: Americans only began driving hybrids when gas prices substantially increased.
This framework demonstrates that long-term, pragmatic social change systemically cannot come from price evolution and product content evolution. Even branding differentiation can only add value to the extent that consumers wish to internalize the cost: this is easy with Q-Tips, where the cost is nominal and the individual is the beneficiary of the cost-internalization; it is much more difficult with global warming, where our entire system of material comfort rests on a paradigm of unsustainable energy with a terrible benefit-to-externality ratio. I’m curious to see what other conclusions result from this redescription of economics…
Yes on Eight: Dogmatic Hate – A Social Contract Primer for Segregation Enthusiasts
On November 4th, after Steven Colbert called the election for Obama, I felt confident that I could leave the house for a bit and not return to the electoral map surprises that I had come to expect from major news networks in the last two elections. I walked, celebratory beer in hand, towards the direction with the loudest noise. This happened to be a political-rally-slash-block-party-discotheque in the Castro district of San Francisco. I’d guess that there were about five thousand Obama supporters crammed into two blocks, drinking and dancing in the intervals between serious but optimistic statements by leaders of the “No on 8†movement. I left before the bad news broke, but I doubt it stopped the jubilance. The passage of proposition 8 is a giant step backward in for civil liberties, but “Office of the President†was the bigger play and the results of the amendment are hardly definitive.
Many questions manifest; I only care about one: Can this really happen to a social contract?
