Societies: Lawful and Chaotic; What Are They?

[S'mon]

Rand... OK, you're aware that this implies that she's responsible for the shift in Conservatism from being community-oriented to being self-oriented? I had attributed that to other factors, but I'm happy to heap more blame on Rand.

That sounds about right, yes. I mean, frankly though, I don't worry too much about the effects of Rand within the USA, where freedom as a virtue seems unassailable. Her only effect seems to have been to make the USA's freedom-loving capitalist society a little harsher than it might otherwise have been. It's in Europe that she should really have been more widely read, where she might actually have done some good!

Back on topic slightly, I'd class Randian philosophy as N(CG), I reckon. Hard to say though.

BTW, why haven't the mods shut this down yet?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...
PS - I know its generally dangerous to bring up real world religions, but thought it useful to illustrate the real world traditions that the monk derives from. If this proves to be inflammatory, please mods delete it. I have respect for all faiths - not everyone walks the same path to enlightenment, and this discussion is far too entertaining to be derailed into a flame war.

It's pretty tough to start a flame war about Buddhism.

For one thing, you guys don't shoot back. And the guys flaming at you just look REALLY stupid.

That aside, I always thought Buddhism was Neutral Good, with an emphasis on self-control and moderation, to go along with a well-developed sense of compassion. If I'm off-base on that, please tell me, you'd be the one to know.

 

[S'mon]

The Andromeda series Nietzscheans apply a sort of Nietzsche/Rand philosophy, their society is thus an interesting 'fantasy' example of how this might work. In D&D terms it appears to be CN, maybe CN(E) given that they commonly hold slaves and are pretty brutal. Commonwealth virtues as embodied in Dylan Hunt by contrast seem very LG, perhaps with an emphasis on the L over the G. Great Paladin archetype character, anyway.

 

[maddman75]

I have another example that more clearly falls on the L/C axis. It is the open source versus closed source models for developing software. An excellent piece desribing this analogy is Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/

Essentially, the Cathedral is the lawful way of doing things. There is a clear heirarchy, and the programmers are split into groups that each have a specific task. This is how software is written at proprietary companys, like Microsoft, Apple (until OS X), and Oracle. It was long considered the right way to do things and the only way to effectively write large software projects.

The Bazaar is the chaotic method. This is systems like GNU/Linux and BSD. The programs are written by people all over the world, often working in opposite directions, having different philosophies, repeating each others work, and each developer working on what they personally find interesting. Each project generally has a 'benevelant dictator', but in almost all cases the programmers are volunteers and the dictator has no power to enforce his will on the underlings except personal loyalty.

Amazingly, the bazaar is at least as effective in writing software as the cathedral. By taking pieces put together by independant groups across the world, companies like Red Hat or Mandrake release fully functional, stable, secure, flexible operating systems.

 

[S'mon]

Nazi Germany Lawful? Not so ( although the ideal was held to be the greatest triumph of the party). If anyone would like some good reading on The truth about nazi Germany I suggest Albert Speer's INSIDE THE THIRD RECH or William L. Shirer's THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH.

Nazi Germany makes for a classic example of a Lawful Evil regime, yes. It's in the nature of Evil that there's lots of intrigue and backstabbing, of course. And like the Star Wars Empire, the alignment of the leaders is not necessarily that of the war machine they command - people can argue endlessly over whether Hitler was CE. But the German people have always been Lawful and Orderly by inclination, which made the Allied rebuilding in the aftermath much easier and more successful.

 

[S'mon]

And I still think Law got the shaft. I don't think it's just me who've seen people think of Chaos being cool and rebellious and stuff and so always flock to it.

Funny - I'm on the Chaotic side of Neutral myself, pretty individualistic, atheist in beliefs, but these days I find Lawful Good the 'coolest' alignment to play - Paladins especially. I love getting in touch with that side of myself, and always seeking to act For the Greater Good of All rather than personal benefit or the welfare of the individual. I find Crusaders immensely fun to play in fantasy, although in the real world they can be a major problem.

 

[Chrisling]

Well, obviously you disagree with me. I think you need to see where Rand is coming from, though - an emigre from Stalinist Russia, not a Yankee plutocrat, Texas oilman, or whatever. In Europe (where I live) we are MUCH more collectivist than the USA, and the State has traditionally, particularly in the 20th century, DEMANDED a high degree of altruism from its citizens, up to and including throwing our lives away in the tens of millions. Romantic statist or tribalist and similar philosophies like Fascism, Comminism and Nazism have elevated this idea of self-sacrifice above all others. Even in more moderate countries like Britain, pre-World War One, the expectation that 'dulce et decorum pro patria mori' led to almost a million dead in WW1 for very little achieved. In these circumstances can't you see that unquestioning altruism might not always be an unalloyed good? The USA simply never has had to go through this experience, luckily for you.

Actually, my problems with her are entirely philosophical.

I understand the critique of Hegelian organic entities. I agree with the critique. But at the same time she was condemning the Soviet Union and national socialism with it's leftist organic entites of control and destruction she was praising rightist organic entites of control and destruction -- unbridled capitalism, which was so nightmarish that it generated the impetus behind Stalinism and Nazism. While condemning one sort of model of monolithic control, she was promoting another -- and another model that had already <I>failed</i> and failed so dramatically that Russian communism and Nazism seemed <i>reasonably responses</i>.

This does not bode well for her as a philosopher or historian.

PLUS, I never said that "unquestioned altruism" is "unalloyed good." Personally, well, my favorite writer is Nietzsche and what I learned from him, and what I've kept, is "question everything, then question why you questioned." I don't think that unquestioned <i>anything</i> is good, at all, much less unalloyed good.

 

[maddman75]

It's pretty tough to start a flame war about Buddhism.

For one thing, you guys don't shoot back. And the guys flaming at you just look REALLY stupid.

That aside, I always thought Buddhism was Neutral Good, with an emphasis on self-control and moderation, to go along with a well-developed sense of compassion. If I'm off-base on that, please tell me, you'd be the one to know.

LOL - that's true, and why I thought I could get away with it.

Definatley neutral with respect to law/chaos. I'm urged to go with good as defined by D&D because not only of the compassion but because evil is often (in realtion to D&D) defined as selfishness and good as selflessness. Buddhists believe in selflessness to the point of believing that self is an illusion.

However, there not a belief in good and evil. Here's one of the Buddha's parables that explains the point.

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A wise farmer was relaxing on his porch when his only horse jumped out of the corral and ran away. He now had no way to plow his fields. His neighbor came over to comfort him for his bad luck.

The wise farmer said 'Who can say what is good or bad?"

The next morning, the farmer's horse returned, with a dozen wild horsed behind him. The farmer was now the richest man in the village. His neighbor came over to congratulate him on his good fortune.

Again, the wise farmer said "Who can say what is good or bad?"

Later that day, the farmer's son was trying to break one of the wild horses to the saddle. It threw him to the ground and broke his leg. Again his concerned neighbor came over to express his sorrow at the farmer's misfortune.

Again, the farmers said "Who can say what is good or bad?"

A couple days later the King's men came through town. They were going to war and the soldiers were conscripting all the young men in the village. The farmer's son didn't have to go, since he was laid up with a broken leg. The farmer's neighbor came over to celebrate the good fortune.

Can you guess what the farmer said?

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[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

---Neat Buddha parable---

I don't know. To me, it comes across as being less about morality than about acceptance and moderation. But that may be skewed by my admittedly warped viewpoint.

 

[S'mon]

Actually, my problems with her are entirely philosophical.

I understand the critique of Hegelian organic entities. I agree with the critique. But at the same time she was condemning the Soviet Union and national socialism with it's leftist organic entites of control and destruction she was praising rightist organic entites of control and destruction -- unbridled capitalism, which was so nightmarish that it generated the impetus behind Stalinism and Nazism. While condemning one sort of model of monolithic control, she was promoting another -- and another model that had already <I>failed<i> and failed so dramatically that Russian communism and Nazism seemed <i>reasonably responses.

This does not bode well for her as a philosopher or historian.
[/i]

Um, I'm thinking I should maybe take this off-list. Anyway: there was never unbridled free-market Capitalism in Germany or Russia, quite the reverse. The more free market a country was, the LESS it was troubled by Totalitarian philosphies in the mid-20th century: the UK much less than Continental Europe, the USA least of all. The states were totalitarianism took root were corporatist (state & big business in partnership, entrepreneurialsm repressed) like Germany or barely post-feudal (Russia).

Rand never praised "rightist organic entites of control and destruction" - in fact she frequently attacks 'big business' and its unhealthy (and inefficient) influence on government. What she advocates is free competition between competing small-to-medium businesses, she hated monopoly capitalism and the state/industrial complex. I'd say her big failing was failure to recognise that the selfish drive of successful companies _impels_ them , when they get big and powerful enough, to seek increased wealth through market domination, _not_ any more through producing the best products but through control of government through lobby groups etc, ie free market capitalism tends naturally towards monopoly capitalism, and if you have a government at all, it will require legislation & supervision (through ant-trust laws, anti-monopolies boards, etc) to hinder this.