[p2p-research] does this correspond to your experience of contemporary youth?

[Michel Bauwens]

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On 2/28/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A few remarks on my own. While greed is undoubtedly hardwired, along with
>> altruism and many other emotions, it's our social design that directs it to
>> accumulation of material goods, there is nothing hardwired about that, since
>> for most of human history, it was notably absent
>
>
> We've been accumulating for a while.  Pharoahs built empires as did the
> Chinese 4000 years ago.  We've been a species for about 100,000-200,000
> years.  Hard to say if those pre-technology times matter for much.  There is
> an active debate now in so-called "Paleo" diet circles where people
> emphasize meat eating, for instance, because "Grok" did.  I'm personally of
> a mind that technology changes all games and the species is evolving now
> interactively with its own technology--not with other species (the latest
> science) or with environment (Darwinism)...though technology could be viewed
> as a subset of environment--I'd call that a stretch.  Perhaps environment is
> becoming a subset of technology.
>

Fine if you want to dismiss 95% of human history, though I choose to believe
that is says something equally valid about human culture/nature than the
other five percent. Though pharaonic times share the general nature of a
class society, the logic of accumulation was entirely different, and
followed different logics, which is my point. You can't equate the cufrent
consuming animal with 'human nature' as such. In a hybrid animal, you have
to look at which elements of social design leads to nudge behaviours in a
particular direction.



>
> >As for generations, while I'm sure there are people with the
> charactereristics she describes, as there were in the sixties, there are
> many >others that are different.
>
> Of course.
>
> >My feeling is this generation, at least in the West, has a much higher
> propensity for sharing and cooperation that the previous ones, and >that the
> kind of hyper-careerism is, if anything, diminishing in force.
>
> Maybe...perhaps even probably.  But the interesting question then would be
> why?  Capacity to share?  Moral change?  An interaction of th two?
>

I believe that the nature of knowledge work in general, and the features of
the new technology, probably have a role to play, as is the influence of
succeeding generations marked by sufficient means for survival (see paul ray
and ronald inglehart's work, the general field of adult development
vulgarized by spiral dynamics, etc... and how this leads to post-material
value systems) . I must admit I have no true answer, beyond sensing a change
with the succeeding generation of students I have encountered. My feeling is
that what were ideals for the sixties, are norms today, not for everyone,
but for the sizeable minorities that count. I'm still of the opinion that
the sixties achieve subtantial and positive change, though the defeat of the
social and political movement resulted eventually in neoliberalism, and so
similarly, I believe this generation will be instrumental. It seems to me we
have gone full circle and the reactionary elements of previous youth
generations have exhausted themselves. I think self-righteousness is
characteristic of youth in general, not of this generation in particular. Of
course the situation is now different, if they fail, we all go down with
them.
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