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Thread: What is Organicism?

  1. #1

    What is Organicism?

    The philosophy of organicism grew for me from architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s descriptions of organic architecture...I began extending the concept...I had thought I had in organicism a virtually new philosophy. I soon found that it was anything but. No one, however, had laid it out fully in the way I envisioned. No one had identified organicists, many of whom we know as geniuses, or enumerated the principles that unite them. While many individuals in various pursuits share a basic philosophy, no one to my knowledge, has applied it consistently to all areas of their life.

    Merriam-Webster defines organicism as “1) A complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole and 2) An individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being.”

    Other dictionaries equate organicism with holism, a philosophy holding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If holism were synonymous with organicism it would have been called whole-ism not hole-ism.

    An individual idea or observation is as important as the larger whole it must fit into. But the whole is only tenable if the individual ideas or observations forming it are tenable. The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful. The organicist is one who tests the strengths and worthiness of individual ideas and observations and fits them into larger ideas and observations, by reduction, expansion, and analogy...

    The distinction between the whole being as important as its constituent parts and not more is most vital when considering society. A society can only approach an ideal of peace and prosperity if individuals are respected. A healthy society requires individuals who think independently and deal with others on a voluntary basis. It is wrong for individuals to aggress against others and no concept of the common good makes it acceptable for the whole of society, i.e., the government to aggress against individuals.

    Principles of Harmony



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  3. #2
    I ain't noone's organ
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
    - Kim Kardashian

    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  4. #3

  5. #4
    I think your writing shows you have some budding understanding of a deep and important set of ideas in economics and libertarian thought. It's radically challenging to the stuff schoolmarms are pumping into kids, so I appreciate you putting your thoughts to text.

    It's nice to work through things and think about abstractions, but when you cast them into words you'll find that if you're sloppy at crafting individual sentences, another person may be reasonably interpret them as nonsense. Does reading this sentence -- slowly, carefully, reflecting on what it means -- parse into any kind of true statement for you?

    " The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful."


    So if i add a non-useful part to a car like a cow-tit-milking-nozzle, this disables the car?

    How about some unneeded extra stitching to a backpack i'm sewing?

    How about a construction site with one worker out of commission with diarrhea?

    How about the average guidance counselor in a high school?

    Do those useless parts make the whole un-useful?
    Last edited by merkelstan; 04-22-2021 at 07:14 PM.

  6. #5
    Alright you've got some descriptions there of stuff many, many people in the history of ideas have written about before.

    How about you start telling us what you've read, that delves into these themes. Because those thoughts aren't original. They're not wildly off the mark but I can better guide you to other writing if I know what you've read.

    Cheers.

  7. #6
    " The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful."

    That sentence is taken out of context, yet it can stand on its own, and that is organicism! Your examples tend towards the ridiculous, but they sort of make the point regardless.

    Principles of Harmony

    Last edited by Meritocrat; 04-23-2021 at 01:56 AM.

  8. #7
    There is no full treatise on organicism that I am aware of. Frank Lloyd Wright spoke about organic principles in architecture, Steve Jobs technology and Stefan Molyneux ethics. You will find the principles at work in the permaculture and nose to tail movements. I have written on literary organicism and organic education.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    I think your writing shows you have some budding understanding of a deep and important set of ideas in economics and libertarian thought. It's radically challenging to the stuff schoolmarms are pumping into kids, so I appreciate you putting your thoughts to text.

    It's nice to work through things and think about abstractions, but when you cast them into words you'll find that if you're sloppy at crafting individual sentences, another person may be reasonably interpret them as nonsense. Does reading this sentence -- slowly, carefully, reflecting on what it means -- parse into any kind of true statement for you?

    " The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful."


    So if i add a non-useful part to a car like a cow-tit-milking-nozzle, this disables the car?

    How about some unneeded extra stitching to a backpack i'm sewing?

    How about a construction site with one worker out of commission with diarrhea?

    How about the average guidance counselor in a high school?

    Do those useless parts make the whole un-useful?
    Do I have just a budding understanding of a deep and important set of ideas in economics and libertarian thought? Do I need merkelstan's advice about crafting sentences? Where did you go? You started something then ran off before I could finish it. Actually I have written for several prominent magazines and newspapers, both mainstream and libertarian. I've written for two libertarian publications that Ron Paul wrote for and got an email from Ron Paul in response to one piece. I have been read by over 10 million people worldwide and have books that have been read around the world, including a novel that anticipated the election of Donald Trump by ten years. I've been developing these ideas about organicism for about ten years.

    It was easy to tell that the concepts were over your head because you made an appeal to ridicule. This is what the late night comedians like to do. It's an obvious tell.
    Last edited by Meritocrat; 04-28-2021 at 03:56 AM.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    The philosophy of organicism grew for me from architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s descriptions of organic architecture...I began extending the concept...I had thought I had in organicism a virtually new philosophy. I soon found that it was anything but. No one, however, had laid it out fully in the way I envisioned. No one had identified organicists, many of whom we know as geniuses, or enumerated the principles that unite them. While many individuals in various pursuits share a basic philosophy, no one to my knowledge, has applied it consistently to all areas of their life.

    Merriam-Webster defines organicism as “1) A complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole and 2) An individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being.”

    Other dictionaries equate organicism with holism, a philosophy holding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If holism were synonymous with organicism it would have been called whole-ism not hole-ism.

    An individual idea or observation is as important as the larger whole it must fit into. But the whole is only tenable if the individual ideas or observations forming it are tenable. The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful. The organicist is one who tests the strengths and worthiness of individual ideas and observations and fits them into larger ideas and observations, by reduction, expansion, and analogy...

    The distinction between the whole being as important as its constituent parts and not more is most vital when considering society. A society can only approach an ideal of peace and prosperity if individuals are respected. A healthy society requires individuals who think independently and deal with others on a voluntary basis. It is wrong for individuals to aggress against others and no concept of the common good makes it acceptable for the whole of society, i.e., the government to aggress against individuals.

    Principles of Harmony
    Here you go, from 2017:

    https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.co...d-warrior.html
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  12. #10
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  13. #11
    Organicism is giving the part equal value to the whole, having the attitude that the whole just won't work or be worth it if some part is not given the proper care or attention. This is consistent with how the word "organic" is used in our culture and in industry. He is an organic chef, he sources meat from local free range producers and uses every part of the animal from head to tail. He is an organic grower, he allows weeds and pests to cancel each other out rather than use harsh chemicals to try to keep them at bay...

    Does greater complexity make a thing less organic? Only if and when the complexities are illogical and superfluous. Greater complexity tends to make a thing less organic, only because there are more chances for illogical and superfluous elements to take hold.
    Last edited by Meritocrat; 04-28-2021 at 03:58 AM.

  14. #12
    HEY BUDDY!
    DID YOU WRITE THIS?

    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    " The whole is only useful if the smallest individual part is useful."
    If that's true, please answer me this question: yes/no

    If I add a non-useful part to a car like a cow-tit-milking-nozzle,
    does this disable the car?


    THANK YOU

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    HEY BUDDY!
    DID YOU WRITE THIS?



    If that's true, please answer me this question: yes/no

    If I add a non-useful part to a car like a cow-tit-milking-nozzle,
    does this disable the car?


    THANK YOU

    Yes, pal! Do you know what an appeal to ridicule fallacy is? Do you know why it doesn't deserve an answer? If you read the complete works of Aristotle do you think you might find an individual sentence that seems ponderous in isolation?

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    Yes, pal! Do you know what an appeal to ridicule fallacy is? Do you know why it doesn't deserve an answer? If you read the complete works of Aristotle do you think you might find an individual sentence that seems ponderous in isolation?
    Well then you are the ridiculous person for answering "yes". In fact the car does still get you from a-to-b with a tit-milking nozzle attached to it.

    More generally, your sentence is nonsense. It's false. Many things manage to be useful despite having parts that are not useful. You know this. Everyone reading this knows this. Yet you puff up and put on airs when corrected, instead of saying "yeah, you were right" like a man with some honor. It's pathetic. And you've been called out on it.

    That's what happens when you try to double down with laughable, ridiculous flailing in an attempt to defend a stupid thing you wrote.
    Last edited by merkelstan; 04-29-2021 at 02:36 PM.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    Well then you are the ridiculous person for answering "yes". In fact the car does still get you from a-to-b with a tit-milking nozzle attached to it.

    More generally, your sentence is nonsense. It's false. Many things manage to be useful despite having parts that are not useful. You know this. Everyone reading this knows this. Yet you puff up and put on airs when corrected, instead of saying "yeah, you were right" like a man with some honor. It's pathetic. And you've been called out on it.

    That's what happens when you try to double down with laughable, ridiculous flailing in an attempt to defend a stupid thing you wrote.
    You are out of your depth, merelstan. You walked into a pool hall, saw someone doing something unusual with a pool cue and assumed he as amateur like yourself and challenged him to a game, then quietly slipped out the door when you saw he was a pro practicing a new move. You told an accomplished libertarian writer that he has "budding understanding" of libertarianism and needed to take more care in crafting sentences. Why not just admit you made a mistake? You commented too quickly without reading enough. Or, humbly ask for help to understanding better.

    I suggest you stay away from philosophical writings. Not every sentence is straight forward literal. And learn about appeal to ridicule fallacies because its an obvious tell that one does not get something.

  18. #16
    I addressed something like this a few years ago. To wit:

    https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.co...d-warrior.html


    Human societies have existed for a long time, between 100,000 and 200,000 years, if the archaeologists are to be believed. For the vast temporal majority of our tenure, people have lived in simple tribal societies, if the current interpretations of the anthropological record are to be taken as credible and true. Once again, depending on whether the anthropologists have it right, so-called "super-organized societies" did not come into being until comparatively very recent times.

    Even if we assume that the settlement at Çatal Höyök in modern Turkey was a super-organized society, that would place the emergence of such entities at only 9,500 years, a comparatively small chunk of humanity's time on earth, thus far.


    Today I would like to address the concept of the "super-organized society" and discuss the advantages, as well as the drawbacks of such entities.

    First, we must have on hand a definition for "super-organized society"(SOS). This definition is not quite so easily conjured, but let us begin with the notion of a "superorganism" which one dictionary defines as:



    noun
    1.
    a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.

    2.
    a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.

    3.
    any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being:


    As is readily apparent, the definition may include almost any "higher" living creature, including individual human beings. We will have to pin this down with greater specificity. However, definition 3 appears to come very close to that which is pertinent.

    It is of some value, however, to note that such organisms are generally constructed with components that are both specialized in their functional role as part of the greater body and that they are generally not well equipped to survive on their own, having become highly dependent upon the totality. These characteristics are readily identifiable in the super-organized society in that there is a division of labor to such an extent that survivability of any randomly chosen individual is likely to be low in the extended absence of the whole.

    Therefore, we may provisionally define "super-organized society" as one of such an architecture where we see specialization of knowledge and skill taking the place of generalized abilities in the individual pursuant to serving the various roles required toward the achievement of super-human endeavors, which are themselves defined as those not readily accomplished by individuals.

    One might call it a step in the evolution of men. Of course, others might call it something very different.

    If we take this as the absolute minimum sufficient definition, we may then have a bare minimally sufficient, if still somewhat vague, notion of what constitutes a Super-Organized Society.

    For the sake of clarification through comparison, consider the "primitive" society of the tribal anarchy where the populations tend to be small, usually counted in the hundreds or even less, and where the division of labor and the attendant specializations are far less evident. In such societies, while there were certainly the hunters, as well as a small number of other broad specializations, these were very few in number when compared with what we see today. Where, for example, the "medicine man" of ancient times embraced a broad avenue of responsibilities, today's analogs inhabit any one of a fairly large number of specialities such as oncology, podiatry, internal medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, ear nose and throat, nephrology, and so on down a considerable list of divisions.

    When considering these differences, we see that one of the advantages of the SOS is the vastly augmented base of human knowledge. Our technologies, whether medical, engineering, or what have you, could not be maintained in a tribal anarchic society because the body of knowledge is itself far too vast for such small numbers to retain in both memory and the ability to apply. Even with modern cybernetic technologies, a general practitioner of medicine does not break out a how-to video and suddenly find himself capable of performing brain surgery.

    When knowledge crosses some foggily defined threshold in terms of volume, complexity, and subtlety, it becomes necessary for humans to pick and choose relatively small chunks of it as vocation in order to be able to accomplish the goals of practice. A brain surgeon's bailiwick is so complex and subtle, despite being so narrow in the grander scheme of human medical practice, that few if any are able to engage themselves in other specialties precisely because the demands of mastering the needed skills are so very high.

    Super-Organization has lead to super-human capability where SOSs are taken as gestalts.

    The disadvantages of the SOS are at least as significant as the advantages. Loss of independence is a major problem from several standpoints. Firstly and most likely is the fact that interdependence has been very effectively used as a means of political coercion. Menacing a highly specialized man such as a brain surgeon with removing his ability to purchase food would be a literally life-threatening act. How many brain surgeons do we know who are also capable hunters and gardeners, able to raise their own food? How many such men would be able to manage both the professional demands, as well as those of their continually emptying stomachs? Few, if any.

    Besides the high potential for political chicanery, there is also the threat of natural disaster. When such events occur, the specialized people of the SOS are often helpless in the aftermath, incapable of performing for themselves the most basic life-sustaining tasks such as securing food and shelter. Disasters such as hurricane Katrina bear stark and frightening witness to the dire nature of the straits in which typical men find themselves when all of a sudden the supermarket shelves are empty or no longer accessible.

    Broad but relatively shallow knowledge is more valuable under circumstances where self-sufficiency becomes the primary factor in determining one's survival. Narrow and deep knowledge holds greater value when circumstances are "normal". Men can take greater risks because the means of minimizing the consequences of failure are at hand. By this virtue are men able to accomplish greater things. But when the fundamental infrastructure of the SOS is disrupted sufficiently, the highly specialized knowledge of the average man threatens to become virtually useless to the purposes of one's immediate survival.

    And let us once more reiterate the threat posed by tyrants in pursuit of that which they desire. Such men will use the weaknesses of super-specialization against individuals and even communities in order to have their ways, in the event such people prove resistant to the will of "authority".

    Empire is an example of super-organized society. Empire must perforce be of a super-organized architecture precisely because of the power required to establish and maintain such a society. One cannot engage in the erection of huge edifices and monuments on individual bases, though there appears to be one or two examples extant where single individuals have managed such feats by means that remain unpublished. That being the wild outlier, it is safe to say that temples of stone, huge statues and the sort could not have been erected without not only large numbers of bodies, but also very specialized knowledge of various crafts such as stone quarrying, cutting to dressed size, transport, and so forth. We will, therefore, refer to such activities as being of a "super-human" nature, for the most part. That is, they require capabilities beyond those of individual men.

    Acquisition of all the resources required for the undertaking of super-human endeavors is no mere matter of wishing them into existence. Gathering them takes work that in early times could be done only by other men, as well as draft animals; most often lots of them.

    Human nature being what it is, most people undertake a given activity only if there is some payoff for doing so. Working for a lifetime cutting stone for a temple is not an easy life. Therefore, the payoff for choosing such a path would likely have to be pretty good for the average man. That, or the threat to his life sufficiently grave. Slavery of one form or another has been one of the key and defining characteristics of the SOS since time immemorial, or so it seems. Empires undertook vastly superhuman endeavors, whether building temples and monuments, or conquering other people. Only super-organization can provide the power necessary to the exercise of such volumes of power, and when the average man was predictably reticent to become involved, the strong man became the tyrant and enslaved him by one means or another.

    There appears some question as to whether the earliest walled cities such as Sumer were built with forced labor. It is certainly arguable that it had not been, for in those days it seems that all a man needed do was walk away in the night, for there were perhaps no cages yet into which to place reluctant souls, and by definition there were no walls. But even if the earliest cities were built on a purely voluntary basis, it seems that some men rapidly expanded their wills to include the use of force to build the monuments in honor of themselves, if nothing else.

    The seemingly necessary enslavement of the populations of Super-Organized Societies has, in fact, become its obscured hallmark, which remains to this very day. We have, as yet, failed as a species to contrive a super-organized societal architecture that does not base itself upon a hierarchical master-slave paradigm. To this very day there are those who claim authority over the rest, all disagreement be damned. And where the disagreement crosses a line scribed in the societal sand, most often arbitrarily and with capricious viciousness, "authority" responds with violence in some form and degree. It is a pattern as predictable as the phases of the moon.

    This, then, raises the question of whether there exists the potential for establishing a culture where the freedoms of men are fully respected while delivering all the promise of super-organization. To that, I suspect the answer is "yes". But in order to realize such a social order, one must have in hand the basic knowledge required, as well as the will and integrity not only to make it so, but to maintain it in the face of the unavoidable less-pleasant aspects of freedom, which most people appear overly eager to escape. Few men are even aware of such considerations, much less possess the knowledge, but that is a discussion for another day.

    Another requirement for such societies is abundant energy for all that is so low in cost that it is effectively "free". Coupled with this is the need for sufficient advancement of human technology such that most, if not all, of the various labor-intensive endeavors to which men apply themselves would be carried forth to realization by machinery, rather than flesh and sinew.

    We could, of course, return to a hunter-gatherer paradigm wherein each man did his thing, the division of labor was very broad such that most men were jacks of many trades, and live the simple life of our distant ancestors. The probability of that, barring a Reset Event (meteor strike, Jesus returns, genocidal warfare, aliens landing on the South Lawn, etc,), is vanishingly small such that we can call it impossible for all practical purposes. Therefore, if we are to live as free men without the hobnailed boot of some random tyrant upon our necks, we absolutely must evolve our technologies such that our hunger for "advancement" can be satisfied without trampling upon the lives of men in the process.

    But that is only a necessary condition, being by no means sufficient. Sadly, some people seem to have been born with the gnawing need to run the lives of others, no matter how materially wealthy they might be. Call it a defect of character, genes, or whatever you wish; it matters not. What counts is that such people would continue to work toward the acquisition and cultivation of political power in order to call themselves "boss" such that they bark and the rest jump. That brings us to the notion of the Warrior Culture, which I will be addressing in some detail at a later date.

    Warrior Culture is one based upon the principles of the "true" warrior. Adjectives such as "true" have proven very sticky wickets in the past, but what I have in mind here is very specific and shall be defined and described in full detail elsewhere. Suffice to say that in a Warrior Culture, the very notion of one man attempting to subdue the rightful claims of another, whether by force, fraud, or any other criminal means, would be regarded as utterly intolerable. Any such violations of one man by another would be met with unequivocal resistance, up to and including the taking of life in cases where the perpetrators show continuing determination to commit violations against another despite having been warned away.

    While political chicanery would not likely be eliminated in a Warrior Culture, it would take on a rarity so great and a character so different from that to which we are currently subjected, that the deeper threats posed by today's political machinery would be rendered effectively extinct. This is because the skullduggery so common today would become so immediately and existentially risky for anyone attempting even the most innocuous seeming (by today's standards) usurpation, that they would fear for their lives at the very thought of it. The cost of violating the rights of another would become so high in comparison to the reward, that nobody in their right mind would so much as waste their time thinking about such things. Those who did would be taught rapid, harsh, and potentially fatal lessons in social Darwinism.

    Not every man would have to be a warrior, but the more such men there were, the better. There would, however, have to be a critical mass of such men who would act as the guardians of the rights of all. I speak not of police or anything "governmental", but strictly of those who would make certain that the principles of proper human relations remained sacrosanct and in full, unyielding force. Any man could be a warrior. Any child, as well. The more warriors, the merrier, so long as the understanding of equal authority to act remains clear and unchallenged.

    In such a society, for example, rather than having police who enforce the arbitrary statutes of some equally arbitrarily constituted body claiming authority over the rest, all men would in effect be able to act as police in the defense of the rights of not only themselves, but of all their fellows as well. There would be no special privileges or arbitrarily assigned super-authorities doled out to uniformed and badged men.

    But such a social order would require great dedication to the principles in question, which would in its turn place significant demands upon the individual that the current trend of self-absorption cannot support.

    Super-organized societies enable men to accomplish that which would clearly be impossible through individual effort. Super-organization was necessary to the bootstrapping of human technologies much beyond flint-knapping and stone hammers. However, the paths taken to super-organization by nearly all "leaders" has been rife with force, violence, and the threats thereof. Why this has been the nearly universal historical case remains open to discussion, but is irrelevant to the question of whether force is necessary in order to achieve and maintain super-organization. It is clearly not necessary, which means that given the proper knowledge and political/cultural will, states of super-organization can be achieved and maintained without resorting to coercion in order to marshal the resources needed for achieving super-human objectives.

    The other issue remaining revolves around the question of who should motivate, implement, and manage the establishment of human super-organisms. Assuming such organizations are both desired and justifiable, should the "government" create and manage such social structures, or should their establishment and dissolution be left to individuals who choose to come together and, perhaps, go their own ways? Perhaps there are roles for each in such matters, so long as men are not coerced into action by forces unworthy of a land characterizing itself as "free".

    So long as super-organizations conduct themselves in accord with the principles of proper human relations, there is no need to fear them. The issue of self-regulation has, of course, been problematic, failures having prompted government interference which have proven deleterious to the quality of men's lives, on the average, bringing us right back to the importance of Warrior Culture.

    Without a population properly oriented to freedom and dedicated to living their lives in accord with the principles that best support it, tyranny shall continue as our daily reality, all good intentions to the contrary notwithstanding. That is what is required in order to live in super-organized societies while retaining our freedom.

    Until next time, please accept my best wishes.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    Yes, pal! Do you know what an appeal to ridicule fallacy is?
    My old Appendix disagrees.

    It is totally useless,, and yet I function just fine.

    There are a Lot of Elitists who spew their Philosophies. I would not take Life advice from Frank Lloyd Wright any more than I would from L Ron Hubbard.

    Blind Fools Leading the Blind.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    My old Appendix disagrees.

    It is totally useless,, and yet I function just fine.

    There are a Lot of Elitists who spew their Philosophies. I would not take Life advice from Frank Lloyd Wright any more than I would from L Ron Hubbard.

    Blind Fools Leading the Blind.

    "Your Appendix May Not Be Useless After All" Time January 11, 2017

    I'm interested in both Frank Lloyd Wright, a man who re-invented architecture and helped inspire The Fountainhead, and L Ron Hubbard, an adopted son who built one of the largest tax free organizations in the world. Two very interesting lives to learn from.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    Two very interesting lives to learn from.[/COLOR]
    I am sure you can learn things from any Cult Leader..

    From "Jim Jones" you can learn to not drink the Kool aid.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  23. #20
    It seems whenever I find someone who stands out in a certain discipline, I listen to them talk and find they are following organic principles. The latest example is self defense trainer, Tony Blauer.
    Last edited by Meritocrat; 06-29-2021 at 09:37 AM.

  24. #21
    ...
    Last edited by Meritocrat; 06-28-2021 at 04:55 AM.

  25. #22
    Does greater complexity make a thing less organic? Only if and when the complexities are illogical and superfluous. Greater complexity tends to make a thing less organic, only because there are more chances for illogical and superfluous elements to take hold.


    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    I addressed something like this a few years ago. To wit:

    https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.co...d-warrior.html


    Human societies have existed for a long time, between 100,000 and 200,000 years, if the archaeologists are to be believed. For the vast temporal majority of our tenure, people have lived in simple tribal societies, if the current interpretations of the anthropological record are to be taken as credible and true. Once again, depending on whether the anthropologists have it right, so-called "super-organized societies" did not come into being until comparatively very recent times.

    Even if we assume that the settlement at Çatal Höyök in modern Turkey was a super-organized society, that would place the emergence of such entities at only 9,500 years, a comparatively small chunk of humanity's time on earth, thus far.


    Today I would like to address the concept of the "super-organized society" and discuss the advantages, as well as the drawbacks of such entities.

    First, we must have on hand a definition for "super-organized society"(SOS). This definition is not quite so easily conjured, but let us begin with the notion of a "superorganism" which one dictionary defines as:



    noun
    1.
    a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.

    2.
    a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.

    3.
    any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being:


    As is readily apparent, the definition may include almost any "higher" living creature, including individual human beings. We will have to pin this down with greater specificity. However, definition 3 appears to come very close to that which is pertinent.

    It is of some value, however, to note that such organisms are generally constructed with components that are both specialized in their functional role as part of the greater body and that they are generally not well equipped to survive on their own, having become highly dependent upon the totality. These characteristics are readily identifiable in the super-organized society in that there is a division of labor to such an extent that survivability of any randomly chosen individual is likely to be low in the extended absence of the whole.

    Therefore, we may provisionally define "super-organized society" as one of such an architecture where we see specialization of knowledge and skill taking the place of generalized abilities in the individual pursuant to serving the various roles required toward the achievement of super-human endeavors, which are themselves defined as those not readily accomplished by individuals.

    One might call it a step in the evolution of men. Of course, others might call it something very different.

    If we take this as the absolute minimum sufficient definition, we may then have a bare minimally sufficient, if still somewhat vague, notion of what constitutes a Super-Organized Society.

    For the sake of clarification through comparison, consider the "primitive" society of the tribal anarchy where the populations tend to be small, usually counted in the hundreds or even less, and where the division of labor and the attendant specializations are far less evident. In such societies, while there were certainly the hunters, as well as a small number of other broad specializations, these were very few in number when compared with what we see today. Where, for example, the "medicine man" of ancient times embraced a broad avenue of responsibilities, today's analogs inhabit any one of a fairly large number of specialities such as oncology, podiatry, internal medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, ear nose and throat, nephrology, and so on down a considerable list of divisions.

    When considering these differences, we see that one of the advantages of the SOS is the vastly augmented base of human knowledge. Our technologies, whether medical, engineering, or what have you, could not be maintained in a tribal anarchic society because the body of knowledge is itself far too vast for such small numbers to retain in both memory and the ability to apply. Even with modern cybernetic technologies, a general practitioner of medicine does not break out a how-to video and suddenly find himself capable of performing brain surgery.

    When knowledge crosses some foggily defined threshold in terms of volume, complexity, and subtlety, it becomes necessary for humans to pick and choose relatively small chunks of it as vocation in order to be able to accomplish the goals of practice. A brain surgeon's bailiwick is so complex and subtle, despite being so narrow in the grander scheme of human medical practice, that few if any are able to engage themselves in other specialties precisely because the demands of mastering the needed skills are so very high.

    Super-Organization has lead to super-human capability where SOSs are taken as gestalts.

    The disadvantages of the SOS are at least as significant as the advantages. Loss of independence is a major problem from several standpoints. Firstly and most likely is the fact that interdependence has been very effectively used as a means of political coercion. Menacing a highly specialized man such as a brain surgeon with removing his ability to purchase food would be a literally life-threatening act. How many brain surgeons do we know who are also capable hunters and gardeners, able to raise their own food? How many such men would be able to manage both the professional demands, as well as those of their continually emptying stomachs? Few, if any.

    Besides the high potential for political chicanery, there is also the threat of natural disaster. When such events occur, the specialized people of the SOS are often helpless in the aftermath, incapable of performing for themselves the most basic life-sustaining tasks such as securing food and shelter. Disasters such as hurricane Katrina bear stark and frightening witness to the dire nature of the straits in which typical men find themselves when all of a sudden the supermarket shelves are empty or no longer accessible.

    Broad but relatively shallow knowledge is more valuable under circumstances where self-sufficiency becomes the primary factor in determining one's survival. Narrow and deep knowledge holds greater value when circumstances are "normal". Men can take greater risks because the means of minimizing the consequences of failure are at hand. By this virtue are men able to accomplish greater things. But when the fundamental infrastructure of the SOS is disrupted sufficiently, the highly specialized knowledge of the average man threatens to become virtually useless to the purposes of one's immediate survival.

    And let us once more reiterate the threat posed by tyrants in pursuit of that which they desire. Such men will use the weaknesses of super-specialization against individuals and even communities in order to have their ways, in the event such people prove resistant to the will of "authority".

    Empire is an example of super-organized society. Empire must perforce be of a super-organized architecture precisely because of the power required to establish and maintain such a society. One cannot engage in the erection of huge edifices and monuments on individual bases, though there appears to be one or two examples extant where single individuals have managed such feats by means that remain unpublished. That being the wild outlier, it is safe to say that temples of stone, huge statues and the sort could not have been erected without not only large numbers of bodies, but also very specialized knowledge of various crafts such as stone quarrying, cutting to dressed size, transport, and so forth. We will, therefore, refer to such activities as being of a "super-human" nature, for the most part. That is, they require capabilities beyond those of individual men.

    Acquisition of all the resources required for the undertaking of super-human endeavors is no mere matter of wishing them into existence. Gathering them takes work that in early times could be done only by other men, as well as draft animals; most often lots of them.

    Human nature being what it is, most people undertake a given activity only if there is some payoff for doing so. Working for a lifetime cutting stone for a temple is not an easy life. Therefore, the payoff for choosing such a path would likely have to be pretty good for the average man. That, or the threat to his life sufficiently grave. Slavery of one form or another has been one of the key and defining characteristics of the SOS since time immemorial, or so it seems. Empires undertook vastly superhuman endeavors, whether building temples and monuments, or conquering other people. Only super-organization can provide the power necessary to the exercise of such volumes of power, and when the average man was predictably reticent to become involved, the strong man became the tyrant and enslaved him by one means or another.

    There appears some question as to whether the earliest walled cities such as Sumer were built with forced labor. It is certainly arguable that it had not been, for in those days it seems that all a man needed do was walk away in the night, for there were perhaps no cages yet into which to place reluctant souls, and by definition there were no walls. But even if the earliest cities were built on a purely voluntary basis, it seems that some men rapidly expanded their wills to include the use of force to build the monuments in honor of themselves, if nothing else.

    The seemingly necessary enslavement of the populations of Super-Organized Societies has, in fact, become its obscured hallmark, which remains to this very day. We have, as yet, failed as a species to contrive a super-organized societal architecture that does not base itself upon a hierarchical master-slave paradigm. To this very day there are those who claim authority over the rest, all disagreement be damned. And where the disagreement crosses a line scribed in the societal sand, most often arbitrarily and with capricious viciousness, "authority" responds with violence in some form and degree. It is a pattern as predictable as the phases of the moon.

    This, then, raises the question of whether there exists the potential for establishing a culture where the freedoms of men are fully respected while delivering all the promise of super-organization. To that, I suspect the answer is "yes". But in order to realize such a social order, one must have in hand the basic knowledge required, as well as the will and integrity not only to make it so, but to maintain it in the face of the unavoidable less-pleasant aspects of freedom, which most people appear overly eager to escape. Few men are even aware of such considerations, much less possess the knowledge, but that is a discussion for another day.

    Another requirement for such societies is abundant energy for all that is so low in cost that it is effectively "free". Coupled with this is the need for sufficient advancement of human technology such that most, if not all, of the various labor-intensive endeavors to which men apply themselves would be carried forth to realization by machinery, rather than flesh and sinew.

    We could, of course, return to a hunter-gatherer paradigm wherein each man did his thing, the division of labor was very broad such that most men were jacks of many trades, and live the simple life of our distant ancestors. The probability of that, barring a Reset Event (meteor strike, Jesus returns, genocidal warfare, aliens landing on the South Lawn, etc,), is vanishingly small such that we can call it impossible for all practical purposes. Therefore, if we are to live as free men without the hobnailed boot of some random tyrant upon our necks, we absolutely must evolve our technologies such that our hunger for "advancement" can be satisfied without trampling upon the lives of men in the process.

    But that is only a necessary condition, being by no means sufficient. Sadly, some people seem to have been born with the gnawing need to run the lives of others, no matter how materially wealthy they might be. Call it a defect of character, genes, or whatever you wish; it matters not. What counts is that such people would continue to work toward the acquisition and cultivation of political power in order to call themselves "boss" such that they bark and the rest jump. That brings us to the notion of the Warrior Culture, which I will be addressing in some detail at a later date.

    Warrior Culture is one based upon the principles of the "true" warrior. Adjectives such as "true" have proven very sticky wickets in the past, but what I have in mind here is very specific and shall be defined and described in full detail elsewhere. Suffice to say that in a Warrior Culture, the very notion of one man attempting to subdue the rightful claims of another, whether by force, fraud, or any other criminal means, would be regarded as utterly intolerable. Any such violations of one man by another would be met with unequivocal resistance, up to and including the taking of life in cases where the perpetrators show continuing determination to commit violations against another despite having been warned away.

    While political chicanery would not likely be eliminated in a Warrior Culture, it would take on a rarity so great and a character so different from that to which we are currently subjected, that the deeper threats posed by today's political machinery would be rendered effectively extinct. This is because the skullduggery so common today would become so immediately and existentially risky for anyone attempting even the most innocuous seeming (by today's standards) usurpation, that they would fear for their lives at the very thought of it. The cost of violating the rights of another would become so high in comparison to the reward, that nobody in their right mind would so much as waste their time thinking about such things. Those who did would be taught rapid, harsh, and potentially fatal lessons in social Darwinism.

    Not every man would have to be a warrior, but the more such men there were, the better. There would, however, have to be a critical mass of such men who would act as the guardians of the rights of all. I speak not of police or anything "governmental", but strictly of those who would make certain that the principles of proper human relations remained sacrosanct and in full, unyielding force. Any man could be a warrior. Any child, as well. The more warriors, the merrier, so long as the understanding of equal authority to act remains clear and unchallenged.

    In such a society, for example, rather than having police who enforce the arbitrary statutes of some equally arbitrarily constituted body claiming authority over the rest, all men would in effect be able to act as police in the defense of the rights of not only themselves, but of all their fellows as well. There would be no special privileges or arbitrarily assigned super-authorities doled out to uniformed and badged men.

    But such a social order would require great dedication to the principles in question, which would in its turn place significant demands upon the individual that the current trend of self-absorption cannot support.

    Super-organized societies enable men to accomplish that which would clearly be impossible through individual effort. Super-organization was necessary to the bootstrapping of human technologies much beyond flint-knapping and stone hammers. However, the paths taken to super-organization by nearly all "leaders" has been rife with force, violence, and the threats thereof. Why this has been the nearly universal historical case remains open to discussion, but is irrelevant to the question of whether force is necessary in order to achieve and maintain super-organization. It is clearly not necessary, which means that given the proper knowledge and political/cultural will, states of super-organization can be achieved and maintained without resorting to coercion in order to marshal the resources needed for achieving super-human objectives.

    The other issue remaining revolves around the question of who should motivate, implement, and manage the establishment of human super-organisms. Assuming such organizations are both desired and justifiable, should the "government" create and manage such social structures, or should their establishment and dissolution be left to individuals who choose to come together and, perhaps, go their own ways? Perhaps there are roles for each in such matters, so long as men are not coerced into action by forces unworthy of a land characterizing itself as "free".

    So long as super-organizations conduct themselves in accord with the principles of proper human relations, there is no need to fear them. The issue of self-regulation has, of course, been problematic, failures having prompted government interference which have proven deleterious to the quality of men's lives, on the average, bringing us right back to the importance of Warrior Culture.

    Without a population properly oriented to freedom and dedicated to living their lives in accord with the principles that best support it, tyranny shall continue as our daily reality, all good intentions to the contrary notwithstanding. That is what is required in order to live in super-organized societies while retaining our freedom.

    Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    I would not take Life advice from Frank Lloyd Wright any more than I would from L Ron Hubbard.
    Was Wright a lefty? Given his apparent Bauhaus lean in terms of architecture, I cannot say I would be particularly surprised.

    I find no virtue in expressionless architecture. I find every virtue in that which conveys art of some form, even if simple. But sterility in architecture leaves me cold. The Bauhaus boxes of the Gropius ilk, though utilitarian, reflect what I might call "over-economy". "Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free" has its place, but so do expressions of joy and optimism, especially in architecture. The drab and depressing uniformity of Bauhaus, with its message of dull compliance and the worship of a certain brand of universal poverty, seem to me revolting in the extreme. A plain glass box here and there may be refreshing, but when the entire island of Manhattan was infected with them like giant viruses on the landscape... meh. Dull. Boring. Too reminiscent of communist filth. I find the irony of universal uniformity amusing in the face of the left's endless whinging and mooing about "diversity". Those people are willful idiots.

    I found it interesting when in the 80s a few architects began daring to take tentative steps away from the dreary boxes of suicidal depression. One of the early examples was the AT&T building, a box graced with a Chippendale accent atop it. Pretty timid stuff, but at least someone was trying to break away from the mind$#@! that is communist architecture, which is the world's worst... perhaps even the galaxy's.

    Once in the late 1980s I was driving through northeastern Hungary with some cousins and we drove by "Stalin City" (now renamed). The simple act of witnessing that soviet-style mass of concrete depression was enough to make one start casting about for a pistol to place in his own mouth.

    I find architecture to be a reliable indicator of where a culture's head is living. Clearly, America was in a far better space during the Art Deco era, than it has been ever since.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    Does greater complexity make a thing less organic?


    Define "organic"? I'm not grokking the point of the question, given the context. Color me dull.

    Only if and when the complexities are illogical and superfluous.
    I'm not seeing the connection here. Color me even duller.

    Greater complexity tends to make a thing less organic, only because there are more chances for illogical and superfluous elements to take hold.
    Color me dullest, for I see not the connections here, but do see self-contradiction. Help me out here.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



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  29. #25
    Organicism is giving the part equal value to the whole, having the attitude that the whole just won't work or be worth it if some part is not given the proper care or attention. This is consistent with how the word "organic" is used in our culture and in industry. He is an organic chef, he sources meat from local free range producers and uses every part of the animal from head to tail. He is an organic grower, he allows weeds and pests to cancel each other out rather than use harsh chemicals to try to keep them at bay...

    I'm sorry but there is not contradiction. Following a principle of keeping things as simple as possible would not preclude complexity in all cases. It just would ideally lead to unnecessary complexity.

    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    Define "organic"? I'm not grokking the point of the question, given the context. Color me dull.



    I'm not seeing the connection here. Color me even duller.



    Color me dullest, for I see not the connections here, but do see self-contradiction. Help me out here.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    Organicism is giving the part equal value to the whole, having the attitude that the whole just won't work or be worth it if some part is not given the proper care or attention. This is consistent with how the word "organic" is used in our culture and in industry. He is an organic chef, he sources meat from local free range producers and uses every part of the animal from head to tail. He is an organic grower, he allows weeds and pests to cancel each other out rather than use harsh chemicals to try to keep them at bay...

    I'm sorry but there is not contradiction. Following a principle of keeping things as simple as possible would not preclude complexity in all cases. It just would ideally lead to unnecessary complexity.
    So far as I can see, you're not understanding what I am writing in the least.

    Firstly, I didn't ask for a definition of "organicism", but "organic" because that was the word you used.

    Secondly, your use of "organic" is all over the place and making little sense. I suspect you need to slow down and collect your thoughts.

    Thirdly, complexity has nothing to do with the degree of organicity in a system, unless of course you are using some definition of "organic" that is alien to me. For the record, to be "organic" is to be "instrumental". An organ is literally an instrument - a means. That is the original and proper meaning of the word. All other uses are dangerous and ill-advised as such use adds to the already mountainous heaps of bull$#@! and ignorance that already pollutes our lives. It's very bad juju.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  31. #27
    One of us is a professional writer and professional writing teacher and the other is not. I am all over the place to help people like you get it because I know you would benefit from it. I answered your essay on complex human societies as it pertains to organicism [Does greater complexity make a thing less organic? Only if and when the complexities are illogical and superfluous. Greater complexity tends to make a thing less organic, only because there are more chances for illogical and superfluous elements to take hold.] If you can't get it, you cant get it. There is no need or benefit to debating a self evident term like organic.




    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    So far as I can see, you're not understanding what I am writing in the least.

    Firstly, I didn't ask for a definition of "organicism", but "organic" because that was the word you used.

    Secondly, your use of "organic" is all over the place and making little sense. I suspect you need to slow down and collect your thoughts.

    Thirdly, complexity has nothing to do with the degree of organicity in a system, unless of course you are using some definition of "organic" that is alien to me. For the record, to be "organic" is to be "instrumental". An organ is literally an instrument - a means. That is the original and proper meaning of the word. All other uses are dangerous and ill-advised as such use adds to the already mountainous heaps of bull$#@! and ignorance that already pollutes our lives. It's very bad juju.
    Last edited by Meritocrat; 06-29-2021 at 02:41 PM.

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    There is no need or benefit to debating a self evident term like organic.
    of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides

    relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds

    : of, relating to, or arising in a bodily organ

    Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Meritocrat View Post
    One of us is a professional writer.
    Oh dear... where to begin.

    Let is ignore your appeal to authority fallacy. I, too, am a professional writer. I have written patents, design documents, architecture documents, project plans, contracts, test plans, executive summarys, screenplays, books, and so on down a fair list. What in hell does any of that have to do with the fact that you are not at all clear in your written style?

    and professional writing teacher and the other is not.
    OK, so you're saying you're not? Finally, I understand you.

    I am all over the place to help people like you get it because I know you would benefit from it.
    Good grief. You need to come back to this when you grow up. But be warned, you will have much over which to cringe.

    I answered your essay on complex human societies as it pertains to organicism [Does greater complexity make a thing less organic? Only if and when the complexities are illogical and superfluous. Greater complexity tends to make a thing less organic, only because there are more chances for illogical and superfluous elements to take hold.]
    You answered with nonsense self-contradiction and am now attempting to convince the world that your senseless ramblings represent some sort of esoteric wisdom.

    Whatever floats your boat.



    If you can't get it, you cant get it
    And yet another logical fallacy floated in the hand-waving attempt to obfuscate the fact that you make no good sense.

    There is no need or benefit to debating a self evident term like organic.
    There's your problem - believing that your unspecified use of "organic" is semantically self-evident. You've got a lot to learn.

    I also see no reason to take a tone. I asked a forthright question and your answers were not sensible. Seems your undies got in a knot for reasons I can only guess.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  34. #30
    So you think that every time someone uses the word organic they are either using this definition or getting it wrong? You don't know that most words have more than one meaning? Please. Is this how you racked up 52 thousand posts since 2007.




    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides

    relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds

    : of, relating to, or arising in a bodily organ

    Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods.

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