Last week, I took a closer look at kumquat-carrying Ben, who, when looking at Kate’s two distinct lists of “esteemed behavior” insisted that there must be a third method. Though he was shot down by the rest of Armbruster’s coterie, he invoked the “common good.” If you’ve been following my updates on facebook or twitter between my posts here, you already know that this inspired me to reread Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons.”

Hardin looks at problems lacking a “technical solution.” Such problems cannot be solved through better understanding or application of the natural sciences. He looks specifically at the population problem:

The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

That’s no short order.

Jacobs’ moral syndromes or lists of “esteemed behavior” were forged through trial and error over generations by rational actors. Without that “rational actors” economics parlance, it means that these syndromes emerged because those who subscribed survived.

Environmental problems, such as those concerning essayist Hardin, fictional Ben, and plenty of other real life parties (including me), fall into this “technical solution”-less category. While problem identification may require technical skill and application, the extension of morality Hardin calls for might only be forged under in the crucible of survival.

Unless…

There might just be some way of appealing to both syndromes, but for different reasons.

Kumquat

• Environmental doomsday-ist, but cheerful
• Carries his own kumquats
• Published a bestseller on planetary destruction under Armbruster
• Mid-40s
• Moral absolutist

Jane Jacobs makes sure to show us just how special Ben is through his kumquat. It couldn’t be an orange or just anything you’d find at the Piggly Wiggly. He’s come to Armbruster’s prepared with his own kumquat to flavor his water.

Jacobs also establishes early that Ben’s a moral absolutist (or at least appears as such at first glance). He’s an environmentalist. Those not subscribing to his moral code are wasteful and ignorant. He’s not so sure he’s included in Kate’s two systems of esteemed behavior:

You’ve ignored a third method, one that’s not based on domination or on dog-eat-dog competition. It’s based on the common good. I’m thinking of the system that’s summed up by this principle: ‘From each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs!’ “Why Two Syndromes?” Systems of Survival (p53)

The rest of Armbruster’s group manages to align his supporting examples with one of the two syndromes: common purse communities into the commercial syndrome and social welfare states into the guardian syndrome.

Jacobs remains every bit the economist here. The systems she establishes through Kate are based on methods of survival—norms that help us allocate goods and resources. This is the kind of thrift that is at the etymological root of “economy.”

Unfortunately, the tragedy of the commons illustrates that the common good isn’t always enough. Maximizing our own economic utility, or ability to survive, may just destroy the commons—and our ability to survive. Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is rife with examples of how this plays out for societies over centuries.

(cc) freeparking on flickr

We don’t know much about Kate, the character Jane Jacobs uses to compile the two lists of “esteemed behavior” in Systems of Survival. Jacobs manages to sneak in a few details and traits about Kate—more than in your average Platonic dialogue—but we’re left with far fewer than for most characters in your contemporary novel.

Here’s the short list I provided earlier about Kate:

Kate:

• 30
• Academic - Biologist
• Enjoyed popular success with book on animal memory published by Armbruster, to dismay of peers
• Volunteers to go first; needs just over four weeks to research the systems behind morality

I also forgot that during the first meeting, while everyone else but Ben is drinking alcohol, she chooses coffee. Jacobs also applies the adjectives “tired” and “rumpled” to her appearance at this meeting.

Also, she’s not just your run-of-the-mill biologist. The academic denegration she’d received for the popular success of her book had landed her on a project involving rabbit neurobiology, edging out her research on squirrel behavior. In other words, she presents as both a generalist and a specialist: presenting her passion popularly while pursuing a very specific target in her academic discipline.

Within all this, Jacobs presents Kate as a keen observer of all manner of systems. In Kate’s words: “I like uncovering systems…” (p21) While her specialty is neurobiology, she proves that the same observation skills apply to systems of morality. Jacobs proved herself as a keen observer of urban systems in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (tags: organized complexity, processes).

That’s not to necessarily equate the real Jacobs and the fictional Kate, but I would imagine Jacobs’ methods to ferret out these systems of morality were similar to Kate’s. The latter, though fictional, has the advantage of age, position, and eagerness on the real Jacobs, yielding results in four weeks, compared to Jacobs’ 15 years.

Kate: First I immured myself in the library, opening to closing. Read, read, read, and took notes.

…Biographies; business histories; scandals; sociology, although that was less help than I expected, except for some of the Europeans. I dipped into general history and…skimmed some cultural anthropology. Nights at home I clipped newspapers.

I drew on three kinds of evidence. Whenever I ran across a behavior that was extolled as admirable, I cast it in the form of a precept….

I did the same with behavior that was laid out as expected or proper….

My third type of evidence was behavior that was deemed scandalous, disgraceful, or criminal….

…I kept running across much the same underlying moral principle in [other] contexts…I cast it as the more embracing precept…

Then I holed up at home and tried to make sense of my notes. First I sequestered off the universals….

…I noticed that specific precepts were repeatedly associated with specific others…. Aha! Precepts came in linked clusters! Each kind overlapped with other clusters. Combining the overlaps resolved the clusters into these two lists…

~”A pair of contradictions” Systems of Survival (p25-27)

The other characters bring different perspective and modes of thinking to the dialogue, but it’s comforting to see some of the habits Jacobs relies on in other works reflected in Kate.

Commercial Syndrome

• Shun force
• Come to voluntary agreements
• Be honest
• Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens
• Compete
• Respect contracts
• Use initiative and enterprise
• Be open to inventiveness and novelty
• Promote comfort and convenience
• Dissent for the sake of the task
• Invest for productive purposes
• Be industrious
• Be thrifty
• Be optimistic

Guardian Syndrome

• Shun trading
• Exert prowess
• Be obedient and disciplined
• Adhere to tradition
• Respect hierarchy
• Be loyal
• Take vengeance
• Deceive for the sake of the task
• Make rich use of leisure
• Be ostentatious
• Dispense largesse
• Be exclusive
• Show fortitude
• Be fatalistic
• Treasure honor

The fact that these lists hang together so well is a bit difficult to explain without various examples and illustrations. Jacobs compiled 15 years’ worth, if not more. It all appears so remarkably basic. That is, as noted last week, these differences are so easily taken as a given. Because of this, I’m caught explaining the contrast, rather than the syndromes themselves. I’ll try and do both.

I’ll be linking back to this post just so I won’t have to clog up my future posts by typing both lists. If you want to read ahead, I think I’ll be using guilds as an example of the commercial syndrome, among others.

[T]he government did such a really good job of scaring the jeebers out of us that this recession has creating what he called a legacy of doubt. And that may be the case.

~Bob Moon, “Economy really not as bad as it looks” Marketplace

Through Kate, Jane Jacobs points out that newspapers formed for the sake of business:

Business people are forever trying to protect themselves from nasty surprises. They try to penetrate the future with forecasts, surveys, and voracious consumption of the news. “Kate on the Commercial Syndrome” Systems of Survival (p43)

This would be why I enjoy the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, even though I don’t always agree with their viewpoint: their coverage of the world’s events is excellent. This obsession with security and forecasting may not seem in line with one of the virtures of the commercial syndrome: be optimistic. However, Kate makes the point that the very preoccupation suggest that commercial people aren’t fatalistic, which will come up in discussion of the guardian syndrome. Rather, they hope to forstall misfortune.

Failing to follow other attributes of the commercial syndrome, commerce failed. Recession. Optimism has been in short supply. The government has been catapulted into fulfilling the roles of both the guardian and the commercial syndrome, doing better at the former than the latter.

That should be worth exploring next week.

Jasper: “Historians and social observers have plenty to say about the [Guardian syndrome] attitude itself but not the reasons for it. They take it as a given—as if it were so natural it did not require explanation. Maddening.”

…

Kate: “Few people are like Newton, who said to himself, ‘Why is that?’ when he saw the apple drop instead of sailing off. For most people, finding an answer, right or wrong, precedes recognizing that a valid question even exists.”

“Jasper and Kate on the Guardian Syndrome,” Systems of Survival (p59)

Does Jane Jacobs belong in the same category as Newton? Remember, from Dark Age Ahead, that many fail to ask a fruitful question. Observation is Jacobs’ primary tool (and criticism).

Moral Syndrome A

• Shun force
• Come to voluntary agreements
• Be honest
• Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens
• Compete
• Respect contracts
• Use initiative and enterprise
• Be open to inventiveness and novelty
• Promote comfort and convenience
• Dissent for the sake of the task
• Invest for productive purposes
• Be industrious
• Be thrifty
• Be optimistic

Moral Syndrome B

• Shun trading
• Exert prowess
• Be obedient and disciplined
• Adhere to tradition
• Respect hierarchy
• Be loyal
• Take vengeance
• Deceive for the sake of the task
• Make rich use of leisure
• Be ostentatious
• Dispense largesse
• Be exclusive
• Show fortitude
• Be fatalistic
• Treasure honor

Ben starts a moral absolutist tirade, pointing out the contradictions between Kate’s two lists. Jasper begins a bit random in his musings, which later become rather pointed, attacking the convenience of the binary pairing. Armbruster turns to Plato to give Kate some backing. As Kate elaborates on syndrome A, Ben tries to forge a third path; Hortense, the lawyer and moral relativist, provides insight into contract law and Kate’s first list.

This play by play will make more sense as I look a little deeper at each character. The important result of these initial discussions during their second meeting: names for the two syndromes.

1. Moral Syndrome A: The Commercial Syndrome
2. Moral Syndrome B: The Guardian Syndrome

The syndromes - these lists of “things that hang together” - become apparent because we have two ways of living:

1. We trade.
2. We hunt, gather, take, occupy, etc.

Kate, the biologist, recognizes the latter behavior in all animals. The former is unique to humans, around which the morals of the Commercial Syndrome hang.

Comments are a bit beyond me. I’d love to have more, but this material’s alot to take on. I don’t expect many readers to follow along with me through much of this. Sometimes I barely get a chance to reflect on the material. I feel like I’m giving short shrift to the material that’s only undergoing my first read.

Jacobs recognizes the difficulty in expository dialogue concerning the material at hand in Systems of Survival - one of the reasons she uses multiple characters. However, it also makes it difficult to follow my usual form: expository with a dash of wise Jacobs voice.

Before I resort to Cliffs’ Notes-ing my way through Systems of Survival for all of you, I’ll try out a couple of different post formats:

1. Annotated outline
2. Character sketches
3. TBD

I got excited when starting Dark Age Ahead because of familiar subject matter. I joked with someone yesterday that I sleep with The Death and Life of Great American Cities under my pillow. Here, with Systems of Survival, I’ll have to rely on my affinity for unpacking systems and my amateur stints at writing and editing fiction.

And any feedback you’ve got would greatly benefit the system here.

This is no novel… This is a tradition older than the novel. Dialogue—didactic talking heads, if you will—goes back to Plato and possibly to the dawn of consciousness about right and wrong, whenever that was. “Armbruster’s Summons” Systems of Survival (p20)

Jane Jacobs is about to leave most of the devices of fiction behind. The only thing more we’ll learn about the characters is from what they say. She’s front loaded the book with their back stories - the details I shared last week in the character guide I’ve updated below.

Jacobs, surely, is not a master of fiction writing. I’ve sat in workshops where she’d be thoroughly taken to task for the sake of the craft.

But craft is not her concern.

She’s using the characters to advocate for different views and positions. She’s using just a touch of back story and character revealing action to cast the players to take these didactic positions. There’s no plot.

Back to Armbruster:

The form—disagreements, speculations, second thoughts, questions, answers, amended answers—it’s suited to the problematic subject matter. “Armbruster’s Summons” Systems of Survival (p20)

Before the first evening of discussion is up, before Armbruster can make this proposal, we’ve already lost Quincy, the banker (updated below). I’ll speculate about his purpose later. I’ve also added new labels for Ben and Hortense. Ben is a moral absolutist. Hortense is a moral relativist. That is, for Hortense, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the circumstances. Kate has also agreed to take the floor the next evening the five remaining characters can reconvene—but only with enough time to do plenty of research.

Updated character guide:

Key:

• New information
• No longer relevant
  

Armbruster:

• Host, in modest Manhattan apartment
• Retired publisher

Jasper:

• Crime novelist, published by Armbruster
• 50, writing his memoirs

Kate:

• 30
• Academic - Biologist
• Enjoyed popular success with book on animal memory published by Armbruster, to dismay of peers
• Volunteers to go first; needs just over four weeks to research the systems behind morality

Ben:

• Environmental doomsday-ist, but cheerful
• Carries his own kumquats
• Published a bestseller on planetary destruction under Armbruster
• Mid-40s
• Moral absolutist

Quincy:

• Banker
• Former business relationship with Armbruster now friendship
• Busy

Hortense:

• 43
• Divorce lawyer
• Legal aid worker
• Widow
• Armbruster’s niece
• Reluctant attendee
• Moral relativist

The last thing I’d suggest is concocting another ideology… Nor am I interested in conspiracy theories to explain the world, another name for madness. And I’m not searching for what could be if only things were run my way. I’m strictly thinking about what goes on, and I’m hazarding that morality may afford a handle, on the assumption—I may be wrong—that morality is not another name for chaos.

…

So I’ve come to the conclusion…that we must try to think in a systematic fashion about morality in practical working life.

“Armbruster’s Summons,” Systems of Survival (p19-20)

As unbelievable as this may be, at this point, Armbruster parlays his night as host into the chairmanship of a committee to systematically explore morality. That’s above your standard cocktail chatter, eh?