So you already dismiss the alternative that the social relations are the source of the personal individuation? The capable individual is what society in fact has in mind?

So you already dismiss the alternative that the social relations are the source of the personal individuation? The capable individual is what society in fact has in mind? — apokrisis

I kept it neutral in the first post, but I will say that you cannot have an individual without society. Individual identity is by-and-large constructed within an already existing social framework. Now, as to your idea of CAPABLE individual- this is where I bring forth a possible begging of the question.

Once you put forth a certain KIND of individual that institutions want to produce and perpetuate, we now have a situation where the individual and his identity is to promote the institutions for the sake of the institution. But you see, besides the fact that the individual FINDS himself procreated within institutions that are a de facto necessity, how is it that the individual must perpetuate the agenda of the institutions by having more people that will perpetuate the institutions? What purpose does it serve? The end goal then seems to be to keep institutions going for the sake of keeping institutions going, however negatively this affects individuals who are procreated to keep the institutions going.

If you say that evolution has created humans that have minds that want to promote survival through a certain cultural means, then this is simply restating the idea that institutions are perpetuated, you are just throwing in the word survival which is essentially the same thing at the species level, but not addressing the fact that it is still begging-the-question as to why keep the institutions going.

Religion/Theology must be the biggest sub-contractor out there. All societies have some form of religious practice and religious norms that have found their way into the all societal institutions and laws, regardless of the country. 'My country', the 'Father/motherland, terms which have a 'god' like quality, infallible in so far as they are virtuous (like reason's infallibility). The Rousseau's 'general will' is god's will (and it's just as likely to be determined :D ).

Society's rules and laws are to a large extent based on religious conventions, what each culture believes is just and fair was prefigured in sacred script. The 'Protestant Ethic' has proved itself valuable to our form of society, it keeps us going, striving and progressing toward, that shining city on the hill.

The 'Protestant Ethic' has proved itself valuable to our form of society, it keeps us going, striving and progressing toward, that shining city on the hill. — Cavacava

Indeed. Is it the Protestant Work Ethic behind why we perpetuate more people, and continued institution? Is work for works sake a reason to continue? Isn't this absurd?

Max Weber traces the source of Protestant Work Ethic back to the Reformation, which dignified the spirit of work....all work regardless of kind was dignified, made in service of salvation, to which one was chosen or not, it was very much in the service of capitalism.

What Weber argued, in simple terms:
According to the new Protestant religions, an individual was religiously compelled to follow a secular vocation (German: Beruf) with as much zeal as possible. A person living according to this world view was more likely to accumulate money.
The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere Protestant sects) effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries as a sin. Donations to an individual's church or congregation were limited due to the rejection by certain Protestant sects of icons. Finally, donation of money to the poor or to charity was generally frowned on as it was seen as furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God.

The role of grace in Catholicism, is associated with Calvin's Chosen. Salvation for Calvinism was not freely given as grace in the Catholic tradition, but which rather had to be firmly and independently believed by Calvinists, it was not guaranteed.

The 'city on the hill' refers to Governor John Winthrope's 1630 sermon to his 700 Puritan fellow colonists:

“We are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ … [We] must love one another with pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens … We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities … We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So we will keep the unity of [God’s] spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people … [And so we] must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”

Wikipedia

Calls to the view this city are common in American politics: JFK, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, all used its metaphor, which leads to the concept of 'American exceptionalism'

Max Weber traces the source of Protestant Work Ethic back to the Reformation, which dignified the spirit of work....all work regardless of kind was dignified, made in service of salvation, to which one was chosen or not, it was very much in the service of capitalism. — Cavacava

Are we the individual, here to carry out some Protestant Work Ethic ethos? In more general terms, are we here to maintain institutions? To consume, to work, to live in a country is to maintain its institutions. Are we the maintenance crew of some sort of institutional perpetuation.

how is it that the individual must perpetuate the agenda of the institutions by having more people that will perpetuate the institutions? — schopenhauer1

But if the institutions do shape the individual, then why wouldn't the individual - in at least a general way - not want that to continue? In wanting that from the institution, the individual is simply saying, if we are to have more, let them be like me. What would or could possess the individual to have a different desire.

Even nihilism and anti natalism are subcontracts or local institutions. They shape mindsets. And those individuals - yourself for instance - certainly seem to want to create more of just the same mind. So why do you perpetuate that agenda? Don't you find it logical as it ensures the longevity of your particular institution and increases thus the likelihood of ever more of you?

(Of course if this subcontract involves a quick suicide or a conscious failure to breed, then it will soon be a forgotten trope - defined by its production of the generically incapable.)

If you say that evolution has created humans that have minds that want to promote survival through a certain cultural means, then this is simply restating the idea that institutions are perpetuated, you are just throwing in the word survival which is essentially the same thing at the species level, but not addressing the fact that it is still begging-the-question as to why keep the institutions going. — schopenhauer1

It's not question begging. It is logical for the individual to want more of much the same. Then evolution makes sure that sameness is tracking whatever actually works.

(Of course if this subcontract involves a quick suicide or a conscious failure to breed, then it will soon be a forgotten trope - defined by its production of the generically incapable.) — apokrisis

There is also the question of the trade-off between biological survival and intellectual survival. The latter has a longer reach. Socrates' suicide for example, certainly led to his immortalization, and of millions of others seeking to become like him. So spiritually - or better said intellectually - he begot more children than he could ever have begotten physically and biologically.

But if the institutions do shape the individual, then why wouldn't the individual - in at least a general way - not want that to continue? In wanting that from the institution, the individual is simply saying, if we are to have more, let them be like me. What would or could possess the individual to have a different desire. — apokrisis

But an individual doesn't agree with many institutions from his society. Take me for example. There's many institutions, cultural trends, etc. which are very dominant, and yet I don't agree with, and I don't want to see perpetuated.

But an individual doesn't agree with many institutions from his society. Take me for example. There's many institutions, cultural trends, etc. which are very dominant, and yet I don't agree with, and I don't want to see perpetuated. — Agustino

And so you demonstrate how entrenched an intolerance for difference can be. You really think yours should be the only institution handing out the subcontracts. You believe deeply in genericity. It just troubles you that your version has so little general hold.

And so you demonstrate how entrenched an intolerance for difference can be. You really think yours should be the only institution handing out the subcontracts. You believe deeply in genericity. It just troubles you that your version has so little general hold. — apokrisis

How does that make me any different from anyone else in the cultural sphere? Everyone else wants to propagate themselves, and obviously not propagate what is opposed to them.

So you agree with me. Cool.

:s

You said:

But if the institutions do shape the individual, then why wouldn't the individual - in at least a general way - not want that to continue? — apokrisis

So this is wrong, and I disagree with it. The individual doesn't want all institutions which shape the individual to continue. Some institutions which shape the individual, he doesn't want to continue. I gave myself as an example for this point.

But you were right when you said:

Don't you find it logical as it ensures the longevity of your particular institution and increases thus the likelihood of ever more of you? — apokrisis

I'm guess that you were baffled by the OP's talk of both a general social contract and a variety of more particular sub-contracts.

Don't bother answering. I've already lost interest in your failed attempt at pedantry.

Are we the individual, here to carry out some Protestant Work Ethic ethos? In more general terms, are we here to maintain institutions? To consume, to work, to live in a country is to maintain its institutions. Are we the maintenance crew of some sort of institutional perpetuation.

It is interesting that you ask "Are we the individual, here to carry out some Protestant Work ethos?" No, that ethos is embedded in our culture, in capitalism itself. The Reformation modernized capitalism, work became dignified, it became our way to salvation, it became part of how we approach and appreciate life. The secularization of salvation means that in order to be saved one must be successful in what one does, in work. This idolization of work led to Marx's complex notion of alienation (translates as 'sin' theologically), as a confusion of life with things, a confusion which I think supports Capitalism's progression. The worker satisfies preexisting values not in self development, but in the accumulation of wealth, which is the commodification of value.

Are we the maintenance crew of some sort of institutional perpetuation.

No, but I think that we continually search for extended family, its safety and security, its laws, rules, and hierarchy. Institutions constitute a 'family' that we may be able to join, assume a role and play a part in something which decides how and what we do with a much of lives. As Mitt Romney said, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

What would or could possess the individual to have a different desire. — apokrisis

You are assuming that the individual cannot self-reflect on their circumstances and be critical of it. Survival is the original reason for the institution's existence, while entertainment/pleasure is the leftover that our complex minds crave (and also sustained by the existence of these institutions). - this I get. However, in the West at least, we have the notion of individualism and being our own person. But if we think of our job here as merely instruments of the institutions- maintenance, upkeep, and toilers for its continuance, really our mission becomes rather bleak, as it becomes a nihilistic circular argument whereby humans are keeping institutions going for the sake of institutions. This circular argument leads to many problems, but two are:

1) The absurdity of humans being toilers for institutions.. Our mission is not OURS, but some OTHER which has no justification in and of itself. Survival at the species level itself is not a justification either, as this is its own circular argument. Why keep the species going in order to just keep it going?

2) The harm that it causes to be the maintenance keepers.. the harm of dealing with the other maintenance crew, the harm we cause ourselves, the harm that existence itself causes on the maintenance crew.

However, in the West at least, we have the notion of individualism and being our own person. — schopenhauer1

Yes. So this subcontracted notion has evolved because it works and we naturally seek to perpetuate it - even if it doesn't always make us happy.

But evolving to challenge elements of the subcontract - a conscious creation of variety that drives human cultural complexification - is not the same as challenging the contract at the general level. That would be unnatural and maladaptive.

Yes. So this subcontracted notion has evolved because it works and we naturally seek to perpetuate it - even if it doesn't always make us happy. — apokrisis

This is more than a bit vague.

But evolving to challenge elements of the subcontract - a conscious creation of variety that drives human cultural complexification - is not the same as challenging the contract at the general level. That would be unnatural and maladaptive. — apokrisis

Again, this is vague.. with undefined concepts of "unnatural" and "maladaptive". Even if I was to take this at face value, why do individual humans care about the species' survival- especially for a human lifespan of about 80-100 years.

Why should the human not care that the institution perpetuates individual suffering any more than they should ignore their own harm to keep the institutions going? You do not seem to have a justification.

It is forced not directly, but indirectly in that not participating in these institutions is a non-starter. — schopenhauer1

er, one can argue that institutions are actually self-perpetuating and may not have the individual in mind so much as perpetuating the social contract. — schopenhauer1

One can also go the path of questioning whether institutions, hierarchies, governments, etc are justified to begin with. Is any harm or manipulation or coercion of the Other ever truly, infinitely justified (here we see the hypocritical and aggressive nature of affirmative normative ethics)? Such a negative perspective on political theory and life in general is almost always tossed out immediately as a "non-starter", as you said, because "life" is considered "immutable", "self-evidently valuable", "obviously worth continuing", etc. You can't exactly have a political theory of life if you reject the innocuous ethical view of life, or so it is assumed.

Affirmative societies take Being to be intrinsically valuable (despite it being simply a hiccup in between non-Being), and yet simultaneously obscure it; in other words, to affirm Being requires the concealment of Being by these same institutions you are referring to. But life, Being, is indefensible. One must point to beings within life to justify life, or take the Nietzschean route and point out the contradiction inherent in rejecting the vital essence by use of the vital essence, "life's vengeance" so to speak, the way life affirms itself by denying the validity of the opposition.

...it is at the microlevel of the sub-contract that we usually live our daily lives. We give up the right to have our ideal society in the light of the fact that, institutions cannot be created from scratch at the whim of any individual who wants to set up the relations differently to suit their ideal living experience. We must deal with the culture, institutions, relations, and society already in place and work within it. — schopenhauer1

We are thrown into living or Dasein; there is nothing we can do about our individual history; and because we take so long to develop as independent creatures, we are stuck with parental and other social arrangements for many childhood years.

We do however co-make culture, institutions, relations and society. They don't make themselves, and many idealists or pragmatists make new arrangements for themselves. I've made lots of art, engaged in many relationships, co-founded more than my share of mutual and cooperative groups; others more daring than me have created different forms of family so that their intimate lives have different forms. During my lifetime many aspects of the world around me have transformed, including the acceptance of homosexuality, for instance, and the gaining of women's equality.

If you give up the right to enter into transformative social relations, you are volunteering to do that, no-one is forcing you. Indeed, on the Sartreian model that an old git like me trapped himself in by enjoying existentialism as a young man, if one recognises the oppressive rationale for predominant social relations and doesn't act on that recognition, one is exhibiting bad faith.

One must point to beings within life to justify life, or take the Nietzschean route and point out the contradiction inherent in rejecting the vital essence by use of the vital essence, "life's vengeance" so to speak, the way life affirms itself by denying the validity of the opposition. — darthbarracuda

I am trying to interpret this correctly. Do you mean to say Nietzsche believed that life-denying beliefs affirm life, because you have to live to deny life, and this is indirectly affirming it?

We are thrown into living or Dasein — mcdoodle

That's all you had to say. We are "thrown" into it. So, how is that good? Or rather, why is this good "for" somebody in the FIRST PLACE? Does this thrown need to take place? Why is this necessary? To continue what?

We do however co-make culture, institutions, relations and society. They don't make themselves, and many idealists or pragmatists make new arrangements for themselves. — mcdoodle

Perhaps you are going too mico in your examples- the business structures, dwelling situations, consumption/production, government and organizational relationships are already baked in. Yes, over time this changes due to micro changes that add up, and yes, as you describe we have relative freedom "within" the civil society's already set framework, but by and large we are forced into certain relations with few exceptions, and even the exceptions are exceptions because the majority has to live a certain already-set way.

Even the "micro" examples you provide are not that independently chosen. Friendships, neighbors, coworkers, projects, social groups, are all phenomena created from the existing framework of civil society. These relations are really not of your choosing, but rather present themselves to you as if they are. What you think of as free, is really just a limited constraint that is very much what your society allows. Even the things that you think are opposite of your current society are opposite precisely because the society that is there is a certain way. This opposition will simply manifest as a tentacle of the current situation anyways. It won't even get subsumed, as it never was anything different than the current situation.

To sum it up with an analogy- you are the maintenance crew, but you can have some variety on your lunch break.. think of it like that. Anyways, why we have to maintain the social institutions simply to perpetuate them, is the question at hand, and it is a vicious circle. If you change the goal post to survival of the species (which along with entertainment are why institutions are there in the first place), the question remains.

I am trying to interpret this correctly. Do you mean to say Nietzsche believed that life-denying beliefs affirm life, because you have to live to deny life, and this is indirectly affirming it? — schopenhauer1

Essentially, yes. Nietzsche's Will-to-Power, a supposed-denial of the Will is nevertheless a form of willing (even Schopenhauer recognized this when he argued that aesthetic sublimation submerges one in the wider will of the world in general). In order to argue against arguments, you have to use an argument. In order to argue against the vital impulse of life, you have to use a vital impulse of life.

why do individual humans care about the species' survival — schopenhauer1

They might say that they do, but the majority certainly don't act as they do.

Why should the human not care that the institution perpetuates individual suffering any more than they should ignore their own harm to keep the institutions going? You do not seem to have a justification. — schopenhauer1

Given you are arguing that there is a general contract as well as these subcontracts, there is no reason individuals couldn't find society generally ok but problematic in certain regards.

Of course if you now deny your own thesis...

In order to argue against the vital impulse of life, you have to use a vital impulse of life. — darthbarracuda

This is also Schopenhauer's view of suicide. In order to commit suicide, you must use the Will against itself, which would still be using Will.

Anyways, I think you are getting at the point when you indicate that life qua life really has no justification in and of itself. We know there is non-life from the view of already-living true, but this does not negate the fact that the continuance of life itself does not simply justify itself because we already exist. It still begs the question of why. Why keep the institutions going in the first place? If it is because we survive to survive, this only makes sense as an inidividual human. As for a species, it becomes an ideology- but an odd one, because when pressed, those who claim to throw away grandiose purpose (i.e. religion), have no real answer other than the circular argument to survive to survive. Or, they may run into the naturalistic fallacy or poor analogies to other animals.. other animals survive for no reason, so therefore we do the same. This would be a false analogy being that we self-reflect, make deliberate actions, and try to find reasons and justifications.

They might say that they do, but the majority certainly don't act as they do. — apokrisis

Yes, I am aware of your interest in how we are going to consume the planet, especially through use of fossil fuels.

Given you are arguing that there is a general contract as well as these subcontracts, there is no reason individuals couldn't find society generally ok but problematic in certain regards.

Of course if you now deny your own thesis... — apokrisis

The argument is not that people don't currently find the contracts ok. Obviously they do, and indeed perpetuate it FOR others. However, I am providing a sort of change of perspective on our situation. In the OP, I suggest that institutions may be self-perpetuating and the individuals are simply instruments for the perpetuation of the institutions. They become a maintenance crew, but why the maintenance crew has to keep maintaining in the first place, is never really answered, especially in light of the possible harms on the maintenance crew. Thus, I provided two problems that arise from this perspective:

1) The absurdity of humans being toilers for institutions.. Our mission is not OURS, but some OTHER which has no justification in and of itself. Survival at the species level itself is not a justification either, as this is its own circular argument. Why keep the species going in order to just keep it going?

2) The harm that it causes to be the maintenance keepers.. the harm of dealing with the other maintenance crew, the harm we cause ourselves, the harm that existence itself causes on the maintenance crew.

If the religious folks are right, then the continuation of the species might have a reason going for it. But religious ethics is nevertheless almost unanimously affirmative despite having general negative approaches towards life and existence - for the Christian as much as the Utilitarian, the world is not good-enough (negative), but it can be redeemed (affirmative). The "candle in the dark". The paradoxical aspect of Christian ethics seems to be that problems have to be inserted in order for moral saints to "fix" them. Something-something problems are necessary for a good relationship with God or something esoteric like that. The idea that the candle shines brighter when there's more darkness or something.

But with the death of God, the only positive transcendent value a secular man has (to paraphrase Nietzsche) is the future. It's why "secular theodicies" inherently depend on positive predictions, even if these predictions are outlandish and far-in-the-future. So much of our value is dependent upon the future. Think of the children! Think of the possible accomplishments that we'll never actually get to enjoy! The deceptive nature of meaning seems to rest at least partly in the imaginative fulfillment of possible projects that never actually actualize. For the individual, this keeps them sane even though it is technically self-deception. For the society, though, this manifests as oppression and manipulation, as people are thrown away as expendable even if they agree to being thrown away.

But anyway, if you reject suicide in the way Schopenhauer rejects it as a manifestation of the Will, then you probably also should reject human or sentient extinction for the same reason. Things happen and persist for no reason and if we're going to change anything, it's going to have to be for more intra-worldly reasons than anything metaphysical.

In the OP, I suggest that institutions may be self-perpetuating and the individuals are simply instruments for the perpetuation of the institutions. They become a maintenance crew, but why the maintenance crew has to keep maintaining in the first place, is never really answered, especially in light of the possible harms on the maintenance crew. — schopenhauer1

Well I've already explained the reason why this is naturally logical. The whole arises from the parts it shapes. So of course the parts would have to feel aligned with the purpose of that which is their global cause. Yet constraints are about the limitation of the accidental. So the parts can only be approximately aligned. Some degree of variety or non-alignment is to be expected. A system could break down if its parts are too roughly formed and they begin to fail to reconstruct the context of constraints that are meant to be forming them correctly.

So to use your jargon, as long as overall the maintenance crew is happy in the world they are constructing, the system will self-perpetuate. And also harms are always possible as the accidental or the various can only be limited, not eliminated.

Another systems point is that parts are meant to have critical instabilty. The best parts are those that are the most perfectly poised in a conflicted manner - balanced at the point of going in completely opposite directions. This is what allows it to be the case that top down constraints can make the parts easily switchable - turned on or off in various directions.

So the usual presumption is that parts must have stability for the whole to function. But this is not natural at all. It is mechanical and not organic.

Check out humans, and you can see this is the case. Biologicallly we are evolved to be poised between dramatically different states of mind. Fight or flight. Anxious or calm. Active or passive. Dominant or submissive. Empathetic or cold. A lot of what you call harms is simply a requirement for this kind of quick switching between sharply different responses to circumstances. We are made to be unstable because that is the source of a system's power. A slight touch on the controls is all it takes to turn on a dime.

So yes, if you think about this philosophically, it may seem weird. But only because you are framing the situation mechanically and not organically. You are treating humanity like a mindless maintenance crew perpetuating some giant machine that exists for no apparent purpose.

But nature is organic, not mechanical. You are applying a model of things that has the fundamental flaws I've outlined often enough.

Well-stated. The idea of the individual deceiving themselves, being manipulated by the institutions to keep it going through hope and progress and similar ideals of future betterment seems to be a part of the unstated or unconscious factors for keeping institutions going despite the harm it does to individuals.

I've said it before: civilization may thrive but only at the expense of its constituents.

So yes, if you think about this philosophically, it may seem weird. But only because you are framing the situation mechanically and not organically. You are treating humanity like a mindless maintenance crew perpetuating some giant machine that exists for no apparent purpose.

But nature is organic, not mechanical. You are applying a model of things that has the fundamental flaws I've outlined often enough. — apokrisis

I don't think you really stated a solution to the circular argument here. To rephrase harm as "a requirement for this kind of quick switching between sharply different responses to circumstances. We are made to be unstable because that is the source of a system's power" does not make harm any less harmful to the individual. Just because humans respond to a system in dynamic ways, does not mean that this dynamism is not painful/harmful/negative for the individual involved in this negative dynamic reaction. In other words, you cannot "jargon" your way out of people experiencing negative experiences by simply switching the language to one of systems theory.

Here is an analogy. You can simply talk about a disease in terms of all the chemistry and mechanics involved (dynamic or mechanical or other), and you can talk about disease in terms of the individual experience of the disease. You keep changing the from the patient's experience of the disease to the chemistry involved. Another analogy would be the Pangloss "Best of all Possible Worlds" fallacy that was lampooned in Voltaire's Candide. If 30,000 people die in an earthquake and you start going on about how this is just what you expect from being a part of an organic, dynamic, natural system, there is something off about this. If you do not see how this is the case, and simply deny that there is personal experience, or individual perspective, again, there is something off about this. You are denying the very experience you are using to postulate systems theory. You are not simply this mind on the internet pontificating on systems theory- you are an organic individual human that interacts with the world, has emotions, experiences a range of things and not just a cog (organic or otherwise) in some natural system. It is again, getting caught up in the map and never recognizing the humanness of being human.

Anyways, to go back to your systems approach to the circular logic, you seem to agree in a weird way, that the system is here despite the individual and not necessarily for the individual. Rather the individual can benefit from being a part of it, but any one particular individual is not necessary to keep the whole system going. Why should the human not be more than a bit suspect of keeping a system going that has no reason for it to keep going in and of itself (no self-justification, if there is such a thing), and that does harm to the individuals that are keeping it going?