Oct 15, 2019, 2:22 PM

Jonathan Haidt on his book The Coddling of the American Mind

standard.co.uk

https://standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/jonathan-haidt-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind-a4261081.html?

SCALE AND THE STORE OF TRUST

by Luke Weinhagen

( CD: I’m Sharing because of this bit of genius:

—“The system can not scale beyond its ability to generate and store trust and begins to fail immediately when the extraction of stored trust exceeds the production of trust. That store can act as a buffer during a period of backsliding (and can enable a lot of really destructive behavior in the guise of “tolerance”), but it will not save us.”— Luke Weinhagen

)

=== COMPLETE POST ===

—-“We came out of a century that had some of the worst horrors in history but which made extraordinary progress on almost every conceivable front in the decades afterwards, and now we’re backsliding.” — Jon Haidt

Putting this in the context I’ve been building over the last couple weeks, the “progress” Haidt is describing (from my perspective) are the mechanisms we developed to foster the development of trust that became possible through the shared exposure to those horrors.

I agree with both Haidt and Doolittle in that the outcome of this backsliding in inevitable should it continue. The lesson will impose itself. Whether we learn from it, kindly or not, is another matter.

Looking at Curt’s response in the same context I’ve been using –

“…conspicuous consumption of compromises between genes, gender, class, and interests” = extraction of trust.

“…cooperative necessity in social orders…” = mechanisms for the production of trust

The system can not scale beyond its ability to generate and store trust and begins to fail immediately when the extraction of stored trust exceeds the production of trust. That store can act as a buffer during a period of backsliding (and can enable a lot of really destructive behavior in the guise of “tolerance”), but it will not save us.

“Domestication” is the process of transcendence from each of the lower foundational rules of human interaction to the next higher form of interaction/expansion of the capacity to store trust.

THE FOUNDATIONS

  1. Via Positiva: ……. The Golden Rule.

  2. Via Negativa: ….. The Silver Rule.

  3. Via Logica: ……….The Natural Law of Reciprocity.

  4. Via Existentia: …. Rule of Law,

………………………….. … The Jury, and

………………………….. … Markets in everything.

  1. Via Violentia: …. The Iron Rule. Might Makes Right.

Both of these texts are worth a read when you get a chance. – Luke Weinhagen