Chapter VIII. The arms race: determinism or free will?
1.Five social determinisms.
- long-term integration
- short-term disintegration
- growing gaps
- gaps in intelligence
- distribution of power vs IQ
2. The distribution of wealth and power or
the determinism of injustice.
3. The relatively equal distribution of IQ
4. The trouble of EM vs IQ or of B1+2 vs B3.
Libraries have been written on this subject. Not to drown in it, I will simply concentrate on what I consider to be the most important elements in the present world, long-term integration, short-term disintegration, relative inequality in power and wealth, relative equality in intelligence, and the resulting conflicts.
1. Five social determinisms.
Below I want to present four phenomena that I think can be seen as highly deterministic from this biological point of view.
The first is a deterministic social tendency to integration in the long run. That is what in the present debate is called globalization. You will, for the time being, find that in appendix 8:1 below, under the title "10,000 years of globalization". Anybody who believes integration a new phenomenon is only illustrating the short perspective of modern thinking.
My second element is a deterministic but in the long run vain social tendency to disintegration in the short run. The leaders of that movement go today under the name of anti-globalists. You will, for the time being, find that in appendix 8:2 below.
My third determinism is a social tendency to increase the gaps in power and wealth between the top and the bottom of the integrating societies. This is shown in the next section of this chapter.
The fourth one is a biologically fixed and determined distribution of intelligence in any given society, partly influencing the distribution of wealth and power. Which here is section ####.
The fifth is a contradiction between the structure of power and wealth in any given society, especially the emerging global one, and the fixed distribution of intelligence, making a very big share of the population equally or more intelligent than the essentially adrenalinomaniac top people, ruling the growing social pyramids. Which you will find as the #### and last section of this chapter.
2. The distribution of wealth and power or The determinism of injustice.
Before we knew the Mendelian in-equality rules, we could rationally strive for a society with equal distribution of wealth and power. Even if already Xenofon doubted its practical possibility. (Kyrou paideia, Book II, ch III.) #### Capri
With the Mendelian knowledge we are now forced to realize that that is a vain attempt.
On the contrary, we now have good reasons to expect that the eternal Darwinian selection struggles will result in three highly likely and almost deterministic outcome.
The first is the distribution of power in an integrating society. That is bound to result in a pyramid with as an average one boss having power over five subordinates. With some daring imagination, the world today can be seen as a triangle with fifteen steps:
How you, as the alfa-animal, can keep power over a herd that is thousands or even a few million times greater then that of the six million year old kinship herd, which still is our biologically given mental reality, is the power problem in an integrating world.
This is a contradiction that may well explain the contradiction between the long-term tendency to integration and the short-term disturbances of dis-integration.
3. The relatively equal distribution of intelligence.
This problem is yet more complicated by the distribution of the human intelligence which is, and always will remain, different from that of power.
The distribution of IQ in a given society can be seen as two combined triangles. An upper one with half of the population that tests above 100 and a lower one with the other half that tests below 100.
If you put that IQ-distribution on top of the distribution of power, you get a picture that looks somewhat like the one below.
This is, if you so wish, a "pedagogical" picture. In reality the intelligence at the top may go up to around 200, and at the bottom it may disappear almost completely in children born as "anencepahlic", without almost any brain whatsoever.
There is a small but rather stable co-variation between IQ and income leading to wealth. Thus the distribution of economic power will tend to follow that of political power.
In spite of this, however, inside any given society the distribution of power and wealth is bound to be infinitely more unequal than the distribution of man's master tool. This difficulty can be seen when the two figures are united:
8. The trouble of emotions versus intelligence or of B1+2 versus B3.
As a little contemplation makes quite clear, there is a very great number of individuals who in the power pyramid are pressed down far below their intelligence level. Which is bound to make some of the question their place in society and also the "justice" of its distribution.
Would we draw the power pyramid in a more realistic manner, with a very thin top and an even broader base, then the difference in the distribution of power and wealth on the one hand and intelligence on the other would be even more visible.
From this follows that even a majority of population may well have more intelligence than they have influence in society.
The more unequal the distribution of wealth and power becomes, the stronger will be the tendencies of the intelligent to dream of equality and to question the wisdom of the few rulers and their gangs of opportunistic career slaves.
For two reasons, this is a sinister problem for the present world.
First because integration towards globalization by necessity leads to bigger absolute gaps in both wealth and power; and
second, because the greed in our present Western society - as well as in those like Russia and China who copy our capitalist "free" market system - is such that it tends to change our democracies into plutocracies.
These, I will maintain, are the deterministic tendencies that may lead us in the direction of annihilation, unless we finally use our intelligence to master our behaviour.