Friday, October 02, 2009

Information, Judgment and G-20

De Waal, in his recent book, The Age of Empathy: Nature's lessons for a kinder society, where his argument and in early works, good nature, makes the argument,sapient evolved in a small group up to 200 individuals. Information as the collection of topics, most the topics and the historical memory of these topics were a collection of these small groups. A physical factor of time and space limited the topics and amount of knowledge of the information.
For a period of 5,000 years the dominated social structure has been built on hierarchy. Western civilization ideal manifested in Socrates, Republic, the ideal of Philosopher king who make judgment, by judgment is not just evaluated the information by given an value. The control of an value has been conflict of social, and power. These ideal has been segmented from China, Japan and in the end of Rome, Constantine revived the Empire power by rationalize the value of the information, by using God is only judgment. This property was not unique to Christianity, but Islam has used the same argument God, do defined the value of the topics and creating, defined the body of knowledge.
Because Christianity and Islam being universalized, demanded a God to be universal to the individual believe, but not universal outside of the individual group. They found conflict with the previous owners of the absolute God, the Jews. Christianity for 2,000 Year created Anti-Antisemitism which culminated in the Holocaust in the 20 Century. Islam in the 7 century to separated themselves force Christians to identify themselves is not part of the group, but the blue color and the Jews by yellow color. Te competition between the groups of God ownership, in case of Islam the first expulsion of Jews from Iberia peninsula was done by fundamental Islam in the 12 century, and in the 10 century Islam introduced a strict dogma, where rationalist and mystics being excluded.
In the western world the Roman Catholic Church control the body knowledge and information, first by never translated the bible and using Latin the Languages of information, creating a strict grammar, so limited access knowledge, because they through a system of education can control who has access to that knowledge.
Many attends to translated the Bible was rebuke by heresy and burn on the stake. Finally Luther, translated the Bible to German broke the power of Judgment. When Galileo challenge the church, by using the telescope to move to a Copernicus model, moving the Roman Catholic Church as the center of the value the information.
With the creation of mas production or industrial, information was valued, but judgment was limited to a few. In the industrial educational system of USA, the Ivy Universities, by sending the PhD specialist managers of information to the less well know Universities and Public Universities. After the the great depression of the 20 Centuries, the Free Marketers, who following the 19 Century Robert Barons, which idea of wealth and greed, with the power given by God. Carnegie, Industrialist magnet, Author the Gospel of Money, who prefer to accumulated the wealth and he decided through his Philanthropy, who will have access,Carnegie took pride. Carnegie will not rise workers wedges, but created the public library.
Many of the free Marketers seeing FDR and Keynesian economics not just interfering, but redistribution of the wealth. A reaction, against manifested in many ways, one was the economic school of Chicago, specially, their experiments in Chile and influenced in Nixon administration and the Monetary policy of Ronald Regan, were introduction of economics of credit.
From a policy prospected, Strauss who was in Chicago, he reacted being German to Nazi Germany was the idea, not just knowledge, but judgment, should be limited to few. Strauss was famous for monographs limited to few, as comment Hannah Arendt took the opposite view she was Universality's. Both were influence by Martin Heidegger, who in one point teach both, and the case of Hannah was his lover, Heidegger become the Rector in Freiburg Germany, had the ambition to become the ideologue for the Nazi Party, but Rosenberg did not give the position, since the base for the Nazi ideology was not about justification of a elite for sake of elite, but race and Anti-Semitic. Cassirer was Strauss major teachers besides Heidegger. Cassirer was elites, but pragmatic. The influence of Strauss began to influence US foreign Policy, in the 1950ś in Iran after the Prime Minister nationalize the oil, US and British impose the Shah, consequence was a dogmatic Islam in the the 1980. In Central America in the 1950ś was Honduras, then many lefties Governments of the 2000ś: In the the 1960 from Cuba to Vietnam. The combination of the elites and Exceptionalism foreign policy with a free market.
The G-20 where the elites of 20 Nations trying to hold to some Free Market and Capital oriented, where greed can still be legalize and control, but under the 5,000 of historical memory show, the small bands which humanity had evolved, in our human instinct has not change, and world of 9 Billion of us on the brink, legalize greed had come to his limit.
Judgment need to free, by individuals, as the bible was liberated by translated to German, information across time and space most flow free. so we as individual can value the information away from the elites, we need open education, open management of information, by open universities and popular universities, medical cooperatives, we need to liberated the body of knowledge. When elites condescend for the love the knowledge, mean their knowledge their value of information, not the individual make the value.