Ben's Third Way

You might’ve noticed a fall off in post frequency here. It’s not all Systems of Survival’s fault, though I have been less compelled as Jane Jacobs speaks through fictional characters. The content’s good and I’m determined to get through it.

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.

Esteemed Behavior

Jane Jacobs admits compiling her two lists of “esteemed behavior”, or syndromes, over 15 years:

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.

Commercial Syndrome: Be optimistic

[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.

Naming Syndromes

Kate, the academic systems-loving biologist, undertakes weeks of research to ferret out the systems of behind morality. Through the character Kate, Jane Jacobs introduces two “moral syndromes.”

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.