I figure that it's a universal condition of most humans to go along with what other humans in the area are doing. This is why you get widely varying societies that all work, and also why you get angry mobs of otherwise civilized humans. There are individual exceptions, but probably not nearly as many as most people think.
For example, I'd like to think I wouldn't go along with an angry mob if sufficiently provoked, but I have no real way to tell until it happens, and then it might be too late.

--Penn

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The Stanford Prison Experiment would seem to suggest that, given the appropriate pressures, the odds are that you would go along with an angry mob.

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I hadn't specifically thought that experiment when I was commenting, but it does bear out my thesis, I think. :)

--Penn

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If you prefer, you can also see a movie based on the experiment. In German, no less, which adds very interesting undertones. Highly recommended.

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The interesting thing about moving to another country and living there for an extended period of time is that, yes, it gives you a broader perspective on "humanity" (although you really only get the perspective of the country you live in, but it helps open your eyes to what's "American" and what's actually "human"), but more than anything you learn more about America and Americans.

Of course, the only real way to educate yourself to the reality of humanity is to live somewhere that isn't (yet?) a democracy, and most people don't do that. Somewhere where there are random bombings, and people get kidnapped in the night for no good reason.

But while that would improve my understanding of the world, and of humanity, I think I'd rather stay safe in my little corner of the world. And maybe that's part of the problem?

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I'm not sure I have much to add to a conversation- beyond the observation that you can get new observations on humanity by moving from one region of our country to another, it's so big and the people can be so different.

I really wanted to say that posts like these are why I read what you have to say whether I agree or not, or even if I am interested or not, because I never know when you are going to turn a post around and make it relevant to everyone. Thank you.

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Technically, there is at least one successful case of "hey, let's go into Middle East and create a democracy there". Granted, it took half a century, give or take, but it was pretty damn successful in the end.

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you call israel successful? i mean, in terms of a democracy, sure, they're functional. but in terms of the relations with the rest of the middle east, they've done a pretty poor job.

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If you call refusing to fold and get slaughtered a poor job, then yeah, we're complete failures. Note by the way that Israel has excellent relations with Jordan, Turkey, and before revolution, Iran. Relations with Egypt could be better, but they're decent.

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Who's allowed to vote in Israel, out of curiosity?

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Every citizen, same as in most democracies.

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Well, yes, but who counts as a citizen?

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Everyone who either has a citizen for a parent, or immigrates according to Law of Return.

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So no one in the occupied territories, right? I'm not being facetious, just figured that you're actually from there and could clarify some hearsay.

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Gaza Strip and West Bank - no, though they vote for their own government. Golan Heights were formally annexed in 1981 and all residents were granted Israeli citizenship.

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quoting excellent relations with a pre-revolutionary iran is ludicrous, that was 30 years ago. israel lacks formalized relations with almost the entirety of the arab league, including lebanon, syria, saudi arabia, iraq and yemen. three out of 23 are pretty poor odds. israel's treatment of palestine is also less than spectacular, for the understatement of the year.

just because their government functions as a (lately corrupt) democracy doesn't mean they're a successful democracy.

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Ahem. Wasn't us who decided upon "Three Nos" in Khartoum, now was it? Any state that doesn't try to wipe us out suddenly finds us easy to get along with - gee, what a novel concept! By the same yardstick, you can bash FDR for abominable relations with Germany and Japan.

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absolutely, the khartoum resolution was completely obstinate - but, in turn, israel has been fairly hard-headed about budging even an inch when it comes to resolution with palestine, and palestine is truly the crux of the relation issues in the middle east.

sometimes it seems like, from a historical perspective, israel has dug themselves in so deeply as the underdog that they are unable or unwilling to see how their behavior since the end of the mandate would be viewed by the rest of the middle eastern community. and having big brother U.S. backing them just seems to cement the inability to compromise - probably because we're guilty of very similar behavior.

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Hmmm, okay, let's see you do it. Resolve the current crisis and/or its root causes, assuming you're the prime minister of Israel in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, or today.

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israel could start by not building settlements in occupied territory. construction of the separation wall, which annexes another 10% of the mandate into israeli territory, should be stopped. the permit process for palestinian travel and home-building should be less arbitrary, and the demolition of "illegal" homes should be equally as illegal.

i'm not saying israel isn't in a difficult place trying to protect their sovereignty and safety. i am saying that their unnecessarily hardline stance against the majority of peaceful palestinians only serves to breed further violence and discontent within the extremists groups. as the obviously stronger power with the backing of the u.s., israel has got to give somewhere.

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Do you really hate Palestinians that much? In your scenario, after Israel dismantles the border, forcibly evicts tens of thousands of settlers, and ceases restraining Hamas and Islamic Jihad, we go right back to the merry days of 2001, where a rare day passed without a restaurant, a market, or a bus or three exploding with dozens of casualties. After a few months of this, Israeli public, already enraged by the pull-out, votes the most pro-war government possible into office and IDF descends upon West Bank and Gaza with fire and sword, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions. After the dust settles, there is no Palestine left to speak of. Is this what you'd rather have instead of current situation?

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Speaking only as an outside observer with little knowledge of the current political climate: Wow, that sounds pretty bloodthirsty - is that common sentiment?

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Currently - of course not. However, tens and hundreds of murders every day, on the basis of crime of being Jewish do strange things to one's perspective, and if Hamas & Co are allowed to run unchecked, that's exactly what will happen.

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I think that bombing Lebanon and specifically targeting infrastructure counts as a "formalized relation," actually. Just not the kind a country ought to boast.

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Humans have the powerful ability to learn from other people's experiences. You can study through reading about explorations, through the writings of people who experienced more than one culture. Rudyard Kipling, Richard Burton...I'm sure you know how to make a list.

It's an easy but influential mistake to think that if someone shares a particular experience they will also share the perceptions and conclusions we have drawn from it. People react differently to the same stimuli.

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There's an interesting article called Why do people vote Republican? that brings up a similar situation on its way to making its point. The author went to live in a small town in India for a few months, and came to realize that their civilization was based around the family as the core unit, not the individual, and was thus optimized for protecting and safeguarding families at the expense of what we would consider to be individual rights. Pretty interesting stuff.

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The best example is, of course, the Middle East. We were so steeped in a civilization based on democracy that we thought that hey, democracy works for us - so all we have to do is invade somewhere else, drop a little democracy on 'em, and WHAM! Peace and prosperity in our time. Large swathes of our culture actually believed that left to their own devices, people would naturally vote in an orderly, respectful manner and patiently wait for their next turn at the ballot box when they lost.

This has decidedly rubbed me the wrong way. The implication of this, as I read it, is that a generic American "you" couldn't fathom that another culture wouldn't be as shiny and good as your democratic selves, and that "dropping a little democracy" on Iraq didn't work because the Iraqis are somehow deficient in not having developed it themselves. It couldn't instead be that, perhaps, the US supported a dictator there for almost 20 years, then set up blistering sanctions against the country for 10 years, then demolished the country's infrastructure and orchestrated the dictator's deposition, and have been maintaining a military presence there as an occupying force ever since. If that's the shape of democracy America exports, I hardly think it's a wonder to do with human nature that Iraqis aren't buying it.

Iraq -- and the rest of the Middle-East -- hasn't been "left to its own devices" anytime this century.

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The implication of this, as I read it, is that a generic American "you" couldn't fathom that another culture wouldn't be as shiny and good as your democratic selves, and that "dropping a little democracy" on Iraq didn't work because the Iraqis are somehow deficient in not having developed it themselves.

No implication at all. The only lesson is that democracy can't be forced upon people, it must be chosen by all the people themselves. And it's not like I'm unaware of our history of meddling.

Note that at no point did I claim democracy was so inherently superior that everyone should have it. I merely claimed that culturally, you have to work to create it - just as you do every other facet of every other civilization.

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people are greedy, evil, and the single source of their kindness comes from them being tribal.

Americans have defined our tribe to be every citizen.

Your friends in connecticut defined the tribe to be every person the world.

Most people define their tribe to be their actual tribe, those bound together with religion and blood. In Iraq there are three basic tribes, as we well know.

The trick for promoting democracy in Iraq is to convince them all those three different tribes are instead just one tribe. Then they will be kind to each other.

It's really hard. Narrow tribalism, where you are kind only to those who believe in your god, speak your language and share your genetic code, that is the natural state of mankind.

You can see this all the time in america, where gangs spontaneous are created, why? We are programmed to form these tribes.

Tribalism. That is humanity's natural state.

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I think if we knew more about the history of other countries, we would understand them better. It makes me angry when "world history" is something that briefly mentions some countries and leaves others out entirely. I understand that there's a set limit to how much you can learn in one day, but we could do a better job of learning things that are important (and don't get me started on geography).

I do think that the reasoning behind the "let's give Iraq democracy" argument is based on the fact that we've never really known them to be at peace. I mean, obviously we haven't seen it in the past fifty years because of the meddling we've been doing, but if there was a time in Iraq's history where the country was at peace for a century or two (I honestly don't know if there was), we obviously have no idea what was going on then. I think that if they had had peace that we understood (real peace, not forced dictatorship peace) then we would be more willing to let them go and do it their way.

I am in no way supporting that viewpoint, I'm just stating what I believe to be the idea behind it.

As far as "understanding humanity" goes, I think traveling to other countries helps that more, ideally countries as different from ours as possible. I know my brother Dylan had a lot to say about how America worked after he came back from living in China for six months. I think if he had stayed there longer (and he does want to go back at some point), he would have made more significant changes in his life, but six months isn't really enough time to truly change your way of life, IME.

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what did your brother have to say?

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That's the state of a human isolated from all humanity - including their own parents. How is that natural?

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Well, it's humanity sans culture, and culture is usually given as the antithesis of nature.

Fair play, in my opinion.

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ferrett, on an unrelated note, the extra "h" in "whoa" is driving me insane.

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I've frequently heard that lots of Americans thought that handing Iraq democracy/freedom was a good idea. I've never actually met one of these people, though, so I wonder if they are as common as all that.

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Democracy is not something that can be imposed on a society from outside. That is completely contradictory to the concept of democracy.

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Democracy has, as has been pointed out numerous times over the course of history, a major problem. (variously couched, but generally about the ignorance/incapacity of the "common man").

There's nothing to stop a majority deciding that a minority should be wiped out/chucked out/whatever. All fair and democratic, all voted for. Ditto invading other countries, wiping out natural resources and polluting the environment.

I'm for benign dictatorship as the most humane/effective form of government.

There's the oft-proven truism that you can't run a ship (which has to largely be a self-sufficient little world) as a democracy...

Of course, there the issue is the "benign" part.

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Heh heh - where's a good philosopher-king when you need one? ;)

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs fills the 'natural state of humanity' definition pretty well, I'd say. Because it focuses on the individual and what they'll need.

There's no "natural" state of groups, and there's no gene for altruism. There are behaviors that LOOK like altruism, that draw individuals together because that increases each one's chances of reproducing successfully. But beyond those individually-oriented behaviors which emergently drive us to greater and greater grouphood, there's no 'natural' group behavior. There's just 'the group behavior that's going on now'.

Everything past that is a result of local external pressure: environment and cultural history.

(You can move from this very centered-in-the-biological state of "individual behavior becomes group existence" into Durkheim's mechanical and organic solidarity. Which works for both this 'sociobiological' approach to everything from cells to groups of people, on up to society.)

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As someone who's not an American, we generally see Americans as incredibly tribal to borrow the term from another poster here, so much so they ram the concept of tribal down other peoples' throats without thinking about the consequences. We see a massive patriotic machine attempting to maintain the country's superpower status and honestly shake our heads in dismay at what some of the beliefs arising from capitalist, "social darwinist" (note Darwin himself has absolutely nothing to do with social darwinism, it's a concept invented by a capitalist, A.J. Spencer to justify an economic-based model of social progress) patriarchal imperialism breeds.

That said, it doesn't make Americans individually bad people, it simply means the status quo any government has to use to keep itself in power is mandated by the idea of America as a superior place to be. By extension, any social construct obviously playing a role in assisting that superiority is a defining social technology and must be shared with people who would clearly benefit from it since they seem to be having trouble. Thus, America is justified by spreading democracy as the power of the masses to places they would like a controlling interest in. I would laud American foreign policy more if it was not quite so capitalistically motivated.

I've enjoyed the majority of my trips to America, but that's been mostly due to meeting people who are real people and get past the superior attitude many people associate with Americans and unfortunately far too many Americans perpetuate when they're abroad. Americans at home seem happy things are the way they should be and are often shocked when the insulation bubble is burst by travelling overseas at how differently the rest of the world has developed. American foreign policy often suffers from this insulationist atmosphere because America fundamentally believes it doesn't need to be a part of any other country. Coming from Australia as I currently do and the even smaller country of New Zealand originally, I realise that to live in a community where I can enjoy all the things I want, I am going to have to learn about other countries, cultures and how to deal appropriately with things happening in other countries that will affect my life. Americans, particularly while in the education system don't have a need to know about this and aren't taught there is even a reason they should understand it, other than as a side interest. It's not that anyone is incapable of understanding, it's more that having been raised in a culture not requiring any form of understanding it is more difficult to create that.

I know there's probably going to be replies implying I hate America or Americans, honestly, I don't, but if you want to think that, it's your choice. There's plenty of seemingly reasonable people out there just as willing to hate back for being told their country has its faults. I'd be more than happy to list those of Australia or New Zealand to balance it out, but it's not that relevant to the discussion. It's easy to hate people you don't know and as your concept of the world broadens, it becomes harder to dislike people on principle and to justify disliking people according to a particular thing you've been told. I've been told Americans are a bunch of arrogant, money loving wankers and I'm glad to say I don't believe it to be true of all Americans.

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To the point of civilisation, the idea of the perfect civilisation has yet to be invented, but most cultures think they have it any point in time, or they can create it by simply putting together certain reforms. The measure of conflict is often how much each side has in the way of resources. Sadly, there is no perfect social system, because people are simply too disparate and people with many opposing viewpoints must make compromises. Many viewpoints is important though, because the media often shapes things as though we can't ever have more than two and the right/wrong, us/them political divides are the essence of this conflict. we make our tribes from our judgements of these dichotomies and we will never be able to escape them because they make the vast network of social forces intosomething we feel we can understand and even in some measure control. The odd thing is, to a point it works where everyone has enough of what they want or has been convinced of that and it doesn't in conditions where there is obviously a great gap between power and equality. The idea of a philosopher-king is a great one, but sadly someone with the wisdom to allocate resources in such a way most people are more content to get on with life and the pursuit of their interests is pretty rare.

People do all sorts of things, it's whether or not you can understand how and why well enough to understand their justifications that makes the biggest difference. Willingness to understand difference goes a long way and it's something the rest of the world hasn't seen much from the US, particularly since its development of superpower status. Countries as entities aren't people though and things do change, I'm hoping they change for the better because America won't be the dominant power forever.

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