(No subject)

November 28, 2000

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In my psych class, we were asked to explain a scenario where some teenagers

hanging around a rest stop, robbed and killed a tourist.

This concerns those teenagers who hung around a rest stop, and killed a

tourist. -explaining that behavior.

I would explain their behavior using Bronfenbreners ecological approach theory

as a backdrop or perspective, and B.F Skinners operant conditioning.

>From pg 10 in our text: "Sociocultural Forces

People develop in the world, not in a vacuum. If we want to understand human

development, we need to know how people and their environments interact and

relate to each other. In other words, we need to view an individual's

development as part of a much larger system . . .

. . The system also includes institutions that influence development such as

schools, television, and the workplace."

My question is, what are these boys hanging around the rest area for anyway?

Why aren't they doing something constructive as part of the larger society?

In prehistorical times, humans milled about in groups in the absence of any

great organizational society much greater than themselves; attempting to develop

that greater organizational structure whereby they accomplish much more working

together in a group; than separately as individuals. Of course, their early

attempts at this, weren't very impressive. Basically they got together and

hunted something. The youth gangs of today, where a dominant individual emerges

and directs the group, and they go out and hunt tourists; is the same attempt at

group dynamics and group action, as starting from ground zero, out of a vacuum

of any other alternative.

It takes awhile for groups or societies to realize that destructiveness is

something to be avoided; but eventually they do; and so develop law enforcement

against basic things like murder and killing. Soon a system -a way of social

organization based on punishment and law enforcement, grows up. And so, BF

Skinner's operant conditioning comes into play.

The thing about punishment, is that it is destructive. Now when punishment is

used to punish killers; since killing is also destructive; this is thus

destruction used on destruction. And this is a valid thing to do (I feel), as

it is just forcing destructiveness to live with what it produces; which would

happen naturally anyways, just that punishment brings it about much sooner, so

as not to waste time, and so as not to involve the rest of us who don't want to

be involved in destructiveness.

But when the system of law enforcement/punishment grows to punish behaviors that

are not themselves destructive (because it is being used as a system to modify

behavior); then it introduces destruction where there was none before; and is

then itself the instigator. (But now, I am getting off track.)

Our book defines punishment as not only adding something adverse, but to deny

something positive.

Do you recall, in BF Skinners operant conditioning experiments where a rat was

being trained and its behavior modified? The researcher would use food pellets

or droppersfull of water to reward the rat for modifying its behavior (after

initially training the rat to get the reward with an associated stimulus).

But in order for the food pellet or water to become a reward, the researcher

would deny the rat these things the night, or a couple of nights before, so that

the rat was really thirsty or hungry by the time the researcher worked with it.

This denial of a positive thing, is defined to be a punishment -and not

associated with any behavior the rat did. This punishment was not attempting to

modify any behavior of the rat: its purpose was instead, to turn the water or

food pellet in the hand of the researcher, into a reward in the rat's mind.

In our society today, I feel we have relied excessively heavily on this operant

conditioning psychology to modify human behavior . This operant conditioning

psychological system in place within our greater society, I feel, must share

some of the blame for the heinous act these teenagers did in killing the

tourist. You see, even a person's place in the greater society; their very

ability to be allowed to participate in and be a part of the group, and to work

together in a group; even to serve and work for and with the group; is made to

be a privilege and a reward itself.

So, in our society, being allowed to participate in and be a part of the group,

is denied to newcomers just as a matter of policy, in order to make them hungry

for this: so it can be used as a reward to modify behavior. The good jobs and

positions of society can be doled out as rewards to those who modify their

behavior favorably towards those who dole out these things, (as directed by

those who dominate the larger society).

Since teenagers are newcomers, as they didn't even exist before 19 years ago,

they must be starved and made hungry for their places in the greater society;

for this operant conditioning to work. It is this starvation and living in a

vacuum concerning being able to participate in and be part of the group and the

greater society, that sets the stage for these caveman type groups and gangs to

try to fill that vacuum, as best as they are able (and they don't do it very

well). It's like abandoning a baby to wolves so it can be raised by wolves.

Now, if these teenagers at the rest stop have picked out a tourist who is an

active part in a society's denial of access and opportunity; in an odd way, they

can be seen as frontier lawmen punishing a rouge society for its

destructiveness.

Now, even though I have explained and understand these teenager's behavior (from

a very different perspective); I would not accept their path for myself, as I am

against going into law enforcement, due to the destructiveness inherent in that

occupation; as it is destructiveness that I seek to avoid.

Now, if we understand this, we can know that (corporate) society is not leaving

us alone, but is punishing us, not for anything we have done; but in a blanket

action to all who haven't secured a place with them, in order to make us hungry.

So now, we no longer need wonder why we are being punished when we haven't done

anything wrong. We are punished, as part of a mechanism to control us.

We now know that we are alone in this society, and that we need to get together

and do things, expecting no help from the larger society; as our larger

(corporate) society is out to lunch in this area; and it is up to us to fill

that vacuum.

Then I jump to my sociology class:

The self proclaimed economic experts came. A conscious effort was made

over improving the economy and over material goods. The economy was overseen by

thinking minds and was centrally planned, instead of being left to its own

devices. In comparison, a free enterprise system ran competitively alongside

this: based, reportedly, on human greed. At the end of the cold war, the

competition was over, with the free enterprise model seemingly outperforming the

experts model, hands down. And so those living the sweet life at the expense of

others under the free entrprise system, say the trouble, pain and heartache

their system causes, is just a necessary evil(a necessary part of doing business

if you will), to make the best system on earth run. And they thus press on

ahead with it.

But what I see as being proved or shown from the competitive run, comparing

Soviet communism vs US capitalism, is something much simpler and more obvious.

-That controlloing people is counterproductive. -That a government or system

pays a price for the control it requires of its people. recall "the

dictatorship of the proletariet", and the absolute control over all areas of

life required by the communist system.

-That if people are treated well, they will in turn produce well. I feel the

technological sucess of our free enterprise system is from the effects of being

rich itself, not from the PROCESS that brings about riches for some.

The question is, what brings about these innovations in technology that fuels

the industrial revolution? As this is what makes this system great.

-Individual people do. Individual people who are free from being controlled by

others or overly so by their necessities (who have some free time/resources).

Every person has a mind to think and has ideas. All these are valuable. But a

person controlled by someone else, must follow someone elses ideas, and cause

their own ideas to be set aside, unfulfilled -being unable to act on or express

them. It is this existance of these ever unsatisfied ideas within a person,

that slows them down and reduces their productivity (I claim), not to mention

preventing new technological ideas from emerging.

The industrial revolution, when it first appeared in England, caused a marked

hardship on the peasants of that day. Their quality of life was sacrificed so

that the lives of others could be improved (or made rich). It is the effects of

being rich (being free) -not having to one sidedly do the ideas of others, but

being able to do and express your own ideas and/or cooperate with others on

equal footing. -not having to work in drudgery and have no energy left at the

end of the day, just to make enough to survive. -being rich enough to be free

from that; which allows some of these free (rich) people to come up with even

more inovative ideas, and advances in technology. So the sacrifice of some,

allowed others to be free of hinderences so they could come up with advances in

technology, (and also gave them something to fight for and increase).

If the ideas of all humans are valuable, then the people who had to be

sacrificed to make this free enterprise system run, represent lost ideas, and

represent that this system is not the best, and that there is much room for

improvement. But this point would be mute if the system eventually worked its

way out of sacrificing people, and improved the lives of all. (But a system that

has come up with a way to sacrifice people, and not only sacrifice people, but

turn that sacrifice into much goods and services for others; is a temptation to

treat people as comodities; and that will never be 'worked out of'.)

There is a problem with being rich. Actually, its not with being rich itself;

but is a problem with the material that makes people rich, being used as a

reward to support a reward system. You see, if your system doesn't produce

well, then you've nothing to offer people. But if your system does produce

something, then you have a reward with which you can get things done. The down

side of this, is when you start making sure that as many people as possible

(just as a matter of blanket policy), will be starved and hungry, so that what

you have, will be a big reward to them, -to increase your control and power over

the largest number of people -no matter how well your system does, that people

have to be starved. -When this kind of system gets to working, then the ideas

of many will be lost (due to having to live in starvation, or as slaves busy

doing the master's bidding), and the system will stagnate. Freedom from others

trying to exert absolute control over you: isn't that w!

hat makes our system (country)great? It will be difficult to use resources to

make people rich, I mean, free; when there is always the temptation to use those

resources to run a reward system, with a corresponding starvation backdrop so as

to boost the effectiveness and scope of one's control. No, instead, we need to

learn to work together in voluntary cooperation. We are denied even learning

cooperation because these systems of control fill that function instead. So

don't come to me and say that I must bow to the excesses of the free enterprise

system, because that process is what makes our country great: No, it is freedom

that has made our country great and will continue to make our country great;

-even freedom from the excesses of the free enterprise system. So don't just

lay down and let the excesses of a free enterprise (reward) system roll you

over, thinking that this is what you must do for greatness of country: No, get

the heck out of the way of these excesses and !

do not put up with them. Hey, prove me wrong. Otherwise I pay the argument for

accepting the abuses from the free enterprise system, because it all works out

well in the end; NO mind. My article's purpose is to show the falseness of the

argument that because our free enterprise system won the cold war, it has the

right to its excesses and to do excesses to us.

Speaking of great empires, the roman empire comes to mind. From what I

understand, theirs was a culture based on more complex rules over economic

activity, compared to other surrounding simpler cultures based on religion and

control by religious officials. Apparently, the roman system was able to

extract more resources on demand from its population using its systsem, (kind of

like the free enterprise system of its day) and was thereby able to conquer the

simpler surrounding cultures; and enslave them. But once everybody had been

conquered, and become romans; (after several generations), the burden of

(economic) slavery had to be internalized. The Christians had a problem with

these economic control systems: 1 John 3,17: "But whoso hath this world's good,

and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from

him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"

Of course, the roman elite would cause the rest of the population to hunger and

starve, so that they could dole out what little reward they had (little, because

there were no more conquered people to extract reward from), and this was their

system of maintaining control. Without humans being needy and dependent, a

system of rewards with a backdrop of starvation, is ineffective at control. But

in order to have need and be starving, one must be alive -there must be life

there. Unfortunately, living in starvation long enough, causes the life there

to die. This is the dying to the flesh the Christians espouse. After living in

starvation for enough generations, the Christians died to the finer things, and

with what life they had remaining, they were able to live more or less self

sufficiently with what little they had. -Wild men in the wilderness (recall

John the Baptist). As such, instead of going to work; (Jesus didn't have a job

in his ministry, after his carpentry work),!

they would roam about the countryside preaching; and eventually the roman

control system broke down, after the Christians suffered much persecution.

Where once the superior roman system conquered the simpler religious cultures

surrounding them; this roman economic culture was replaced with a religious

culture. Not to be outdone, economic culture came back as there then developed

a hybrid religious and economic culture, where the people who attempted to live

the spartan life and die to the flesh, were attempted to be controlled, as monks

and nuns, instead of letting them go off wild on their own, stirring up the

population with preaching and such; -they were isolated away from the

population, never to be seen from much, again. The downtrodden now always had

the refuge of the church, so that they were not starved completely to death: now

the system of starvation was not so harsh, so that the corporate world could not

take your life for not responding to its rewards. This ke!

pt the system from collapsing so much, so there was now always some life in the

finer things there to be starved. This has continued in stability for quite

some time, but now in the past few hundred years, the industrial revolution has

occured, and things might get out of hand, but authorities are doing their best

to maintain stability and control. With the high technology they now posses,

they are presumably keeping track and sorting out who receives the rewards of

society, and who is left to starve; -possibly even evesdropping on mailing

lists. Hopefully they won't suceed, as this control business is getting quite

tiresome, and eventually will be escaped from.

Because the human animal, even the U. S. human animal, depends on producing

certain essentials (that is, food, shelter, and clothing); the human animal can

be coerced into all manner of economic servitude in exchange for these

essentials. The 'surplus value' that they produce from such servitude, then

becomes the profit of the capitalist, as Marx points out. Thus systems have

grown up among groups of humans, even in the U. S., that under the direction of

a few, exploit and dominate others in order to benefit from that exploitation

and domination.

In order to make a reward system work, those who rule such a system need to

ensure that everybody goes through a period of starvation so that they will be

hungry for the reward the reward givers are doling out. It is this backdrop of

starvation or poverty that represents the people who have not responded

favorably enough to the reward givers. This is why we have so much poverty in

the U. S.. It is because it supports the reward system that is the operating

system used here in the U. S. to organize us in getting together in groups and

producing. Yet the power of getting together in a group for economic activity

can be organized in ways much better than this reward system way. These better

ways don't depend on a backdrop of poverty and starvation to make people hungry

enough for the reward in the hand of the system so that they will conform to

economic servitude. So, if better ways exist, why hasn't the U. S.

implemented them? Well, once a system is in place it develops an inertia; and

then it isn't easily replaced. Certain people develop a stake in seeing it

continue. As long as it continues to function, there isn't enough motivation to

replace it. Only if it were disrupted and shut down, would we then replace it

with a better system. One might think violent disruption would be the way to

go. But actually, non violent methods are more effective. One might think our

political system could be the vehicle for change. But that hasn't happened.

The political avenue for change is an indirect route. We are trying to change

the economic system, not the political system. We don't elect the CEO's of

major corporations; and that is the system we are trying to change. We need a

more direct approach than trying to change the economic system through the

political system. What has happened to the political attempt!

, is that the economic system rulers have made getting elected very expensive,

and there is much money involved in political lobbying; so that the economic

system has basically bought off the political system. What I refer to as a

solution, is the reverend Martin Luther King's successful use of the boycott of

the public transit system -where that famous African American lady refused to go

to the back of the bus and was arrested for it; to start the civil rights

movement and make inroads for civil rights. Since he was assassinated, I take

it he was an effective threat. Perhaps we could dust off the boycott to

overtake and force the capitalists to hand over at least some control of the

means of production. Boycotting could be just the tool that would effectively

disrupt our present reward system, to replace it with a capitalist system more

like the ones in Europe.

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What I also suggest, is that for this situation to be changed from the present

corporate operating system, would benefit the overall picture of humans and

mankind.

I feel the present way 'the (corporate) system' operates by, is like a

sickness, a virus, whereby the overall picture of mankind is weakened, and the

best results from working together in a group are prevented from being realized.

The group is naturally more powerful than the individual; and I feel the highest

place for more powerful entities, is to help out lesser positions.

But presently, and throughout most of human history, more powerful groups have

instead, in a deviation from the best, have instead used their greater power,

not to help the individual, but to instead take advantage of the individual's

weaknesses and needs and their lack of being self sufficient. -Just as part of

how they operate, (to help in their system of operation).

Now some would sat that we need the pain of poverty to motivate; and that the

inequalities of our system are the backbone of our growth engine whereby we

advance in technology and greatness. But just saying this, doesn't make it so.

I claim that the inequalities and poverty we have slow us down and stagnate us.

But just my saying this, also, doesn't make it so. In addition, we have

reality, and that exists independent of what people say. Sometimes people keep

saying this is how things are, in attempt to take our attention off what reality

is telling us. So that they have to keep repeating over and over that we need

the pain and inequality to make it work, and that is the source of our

advancement. But they have to keep repeating it over and over, because reality

says something different. I only need say my saying once, as I then let reality

validate my saying. Saying it over and over doesn't make it so. Do an

experiment. Prove it scientifically. Eliminate other fac!

tors and focus in on the factor in consideration. You can't use communism as an

example, at least not in my book, because there is another factor: that of

personal freedom. I claim it is the lack of personal freedoms that led to

communism's decline in Russia. Personal freedom expresses itself in the

political arena, and that is where the leaders decide what is to be done. I

direct you to look instead to the socialist governments of Western Europe; where

personal freedoms are allowed; and also point out that the individual there, has

a good lifestyle.

Given today's technology and our working together in groups, we can produce a

certain amount of economic goodness. We could divide that up evenly among each

individual; or we could divide it up some other way. In order to supply a

reward system, requires that we divide it up other than equally, however.

Our system is based on rewards. To have a reward system, you have to have a

reward. So a major cost to a reward system, is that some group has to be

sacrificed to produce the reward.

Life may be OK for those who earn the big and medium rewards, but for those who

are selected to receive less than an even share of economic goods and who also

are burdened with the harsher tasks of genrating the economic goods; do not find

this reward system they are in very acceptable. In order to get them to comply

in spite of this; a backdrop of starvation is created so the little reward they

are given, is accepted by them. So it would seem this system is working well

eh?

Well, because of the fraction that has to live on less; this system is a

stagnant system. This means it doesn't grow well. Other systems that treat

their members more equally, are better growing and threaten to outgrow these

stagnant systems. This puts pressure on the reward systems to come up with more

growth. And who do they pressure? The same people who they always put the

burden on. So that the people at the bottom receive even less actual reward.

Most people when faced with the backdrop of starvation, choose instead, the

limited reward offered them by the reward system. But what of those who reject

that and choose starvation instead? We'll talk about that shortly, but for now,

when the reward becomes too small, and is nearly the same as the starvation

option; (as the reward system competes against other systems); then a larger

number of people are forced into the starvation option. The thing about the

starvation option is that life doesn't last forever in it. Eventually, that

life dies. Then whatever remaining life is of the person, is free of the reward

system.

What is our life? What is it that denotes that we as humans are alive? Well,

we get up in the morning and do stuff that we choose to do. But

when we do what a reward giver wants (for our survival reward), we must

set aside doing what we want, and do what the reward giver wants. Then, what we

do isn't from us and our life but is from the reward giver and their

consciousness. Thus doing what the reward giver wants, represents a death of

our life, at least a death of the part of our life represented by our higher

consciousness. And what is our life anyway? A) The otherwise inanimate

chemicals that compose our bodies; or B) the expression of our consciousness?

(Choose B.) So, conforming to the control of the reward giver under this reward

system, represents some death of our life consciousness. If we suffer too much

of this 'death', by having our whole life filled only with what the reward giver

wants, we come to realize that dead people do not need rewards, and why are we

killing ourselves for something we no longer need? We then disobey or deviate

from the reward giver in order to be alive in our higher consciousness in some

form, even if it is at the wrong end of the reward syst!

em.

Speaking of reward systems, the roman empire comes to mind. From what I