I don't have an issue with that. But there is another point to take into account. Some people talk about "hinge" propositions - ideas around which the debate turns, but which are never the focus of debate. I don't understand the ins and outs of this idea. A related idea is that of conceptual or grammatical propositions. Most people are happy to talk about analytic or a priori propositions. These relate to the language in which debate is carried on or to the ideas that frame the debate.

However that may be, for a debate to occur, there needs to be an agreement about what is at issue and what isn't and what counts as evidence or argument. These things are not dogmas merely because they are not at stake. They can be challenged at any time, but that amounts to changing the subject and that's the difference.

My point is that these are also protected, but legitimately. On the other hand, they can be challenged at any time, and to refuse such a challenge would be dogmatic.

Following this a little further, "dogma" used to mean simply doctrine or principle, but it now has a a value built in to it, so it means something like unreasonable resistance to a reasonable challenge (where what is reasonable can itself be open to challenge). That's my basic point. Unfortunately, one person's dogma is another person's evident accepted truth. So I wouldn't necessarily feel upset if someone called me dogmatic. I might just feel that the discussion was over and about to degenerate into abuse. — Ludwig V

True. And there's a sense in which looking for The Definition of something as vague as dogma, with its evaluative and emotive dimension, is foolish. It's not a precise word. As the various ideas put forward show! :D -- and you're right that dogma isn't necessarily bad, and just because something is unquestioned or in the background that also doesn't make it dogma. Which complicates identifying someone else's dogma even more!

Cool.

But in practice? Not many keep the literal fire alight, and you can see the Christian themes still? (Christians are guilty of being derivative... )

Fair.

But redemption from the darkness?

I have now downloaded a pdf, but I have no plans for it. Just to be honest. Tho I'm interested....

That's super interesting to me that it has resonances across religious experiences, too. Maybe there's a more general pattern which particular social groups could relate to?

I can see The Force being inspired by Taoism in the original film, but even there it feels like a Christian interpretation of Taoism, to me: the visuals make it clear that the empire is evil and the accents make it clear that USians should relate to the good guys. The Good vs. Evil plot, I think, is what makes me think of Christianity in particular, especially with regards to choice. Taoism isn't as much about choosing good things, as I understand it, but about finding your place in the universe. But Christianity is all about choosing the Good Things -- as Luke implores Darth to do, and succeeds. (tho, thinking on that more literally, it *is* a reverse Christianity in that the son redeems the father)

Damnation and hell isn't as emphasized, but neither is that as emphasized in more liberal interpretations of Christianity. (more liberal = you live the creed not because hell will hurt forever)

I think that emphasis upon factual knowledge comes in some portion from the emphasis upon the confession of belief that is expressed through creeds. Contrast the significance of repeating the Nicene creed with providing an offering to Athena at her temple. Athena is not testing if you have a correct set of beliefs. She might help you if you honor her properly. — Paine

I agree. My own departure from The Rod of Truth involved both factual and emotive forces. The factual bits were important because they made me feel like I had a point, and they were also important because people would insist that this or that is true.

I don't think this quite counts as dogma though. This is more emotive narrative and personal. Maybe it's such a common feeling that it's dogma in the sense that we want to protect it, and believe it? Which would surprise me.

One thing I'd change is your opening question. Molecular biology, gene therapy, genetics and such aren't the same as Eugenics. I think this link goes over Eugenics well enough in differentiating between the racist social movement, and questions of bioethics.

For myself, I tend to believe in a non-hierarchical medical model. So a lot of these questions would be answered by informed consent. There wouldn't be a line to draw in the sand as much as everyone would have to draw their own line.

Did you grow up in the U.S. South? Mormons have historically been especially disfavored in that region, although that is changing. — Hanover

I was more midwest, but we spent some time in both Kentucky and Texas too -- it may have been in those states. The memory is too vague to remember exactly where it was at.

I'm sure there are many varieties of dogmatic atheism and one of them may be anti-scientific. But I think science is not exempt from dogmatism quite apart from the atheistic variety. Dogmatism is a tendency (!) in people, including scientific people to protect what they believe in, and there is a temptation to rule difficult questions out of court because they are inconvenient and to confuse that motive with more respectable justification for rejecting a question. I would agree that it's not part of what science should be. But then, one needs agreed starting-points to start any research. Is temporary or provisional dogmatism ok? — Ludwig V

Fair, this makes sense to me. Science ought not be dogmatic, but it's done by people so it, too, can be subject to this human tendency. And many a scientist has gone to their grave defending an abandoned theory -- scientific change happens because new scientists are born, not because people change their minds. So I'm definitely painting an ideal picture rather than a real one in saying dogmatism is anti-scientific.

This is a new feature of dogmatism that hasn't been mentioned yet: dogmatism as a tendency to protect a belief. Maybe to combine two theories put forward, yours and @Wayfarer 's -- dogmatism is a tendency in human beings to protect the regular form of an accepted principle. And dogma is whatever is being protected.

Then the atheist dogma would just be those beliefs which atheists tend to accept and want to protect. Similarly so with any other person.

Here the commonly accepted bit of dogma is literalism of scripture -- interpreting scripture with respect to factual truth. I don't know if this is a principle as much... but there is a tendency among atheists to interpret scripture with an eye towards factual knowledge. Maybe not quite a principle? But close enough to count as dogma, for my purposes at least, which is to avoid becoming dogmatic.

I've often wondered if Mormons are protestants. They were born out of the early 1800's American rise in religion, but they were also ultimately driven out by protestants too. Accepting them back into the fold of Christianity, which does seem to have happened from my vantage now, is a relatively recent phenomena -- I recall Christians handing out anti-Mormon literature growing up.

Dogma is not only religious. 'The central dogma of molecular biology is a theory stating that genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA, to RNA, to protein, or RNA directly to protein.' Political orthodoxies have their dogmas, as do many other disciplines - Soviet Communism was notoriously dogmatic. Dogma is simply the regular form of an accepted principle or axiom. In itself it is not necessarily problematic, but becomes so when it is allied with authoritarianism, which is often is. — Wayfarer

This is probably a better, more neutral way of putting dogma. But I'll protest on the central dogma -- I had the thought and put it down because the central dogma is pedagogic. Everyone knows that it's not strictly true, so it doesn't really fit in the same way. It's almost the opposite of dogma -- called that because it's useful for students who are beginning to learn, but known that it will be disbelieved in the long run if the student keeps studying.

But "Dogma is simply the regular form of an accepted principle or axiom" -- I think I'd switch out "axiom" for "belief", because I don't think dogma is a part of formal systems of inference. Or, at least, that would be very strange if it were (harkening back to the myths of Pythagoras) -- but that works for me too. And it's a more value-neutral way of putting it, which I think is important if there's to be a way of talking about dogmatic tendencies which can be shared by either atheists or theists.

I have mixed feelings about Star Wars. I now have little interest in new Star Wars productions, but growing up it was great.

And I always have that love of historical things, but this one is different because it has nostalgia attached -- so it doesn't have the same feel as other historical things.

I think there's a Christian bent to Star Wars, but that may just be my upbringing -- the thoughts I have on it though: Darth Vader as example of a person who has been corrupted and now comes out on the other side a good person, redeemed. Like a baptism. Without the prequels, there was golden age from which humanity had fallen, at least according to the old religious mythos (itself a Christian belief about being outcast in a world dominated by science). The focus on trusting your feelings, at least in the protestant sense of Christianity, accords with the personal experience theology of some Christians.

Also, the whole farm-boy to savior arc has Jesus all over it.

That's so... epistemic. Gross. :D

Our two theories of dogma could align. Also, I'm open to changing mine. I mostly just wanted to open up a conversation on what we mean by dogma, since it seemed important to understanding one another. What do we mean by dogma?

The way I'd rephrase mine to be as short as yours -- dogma is a primary belief in a web of beliefs that fulfills an important social function that is not truth-functional.

Is it something like "the importance of truth is not at issue" (which I agree with)? — Ludwig V

Yes! Not an abandonment of truth or anything like that, only a difference in emphasis. One can believe, for instance, that Jesus did not rise from the dead, and yet believe that the Christian way of life is a good way of life regardless, and feel a connection to it through the stories and community.

The power of the stories to enhance people's lives and give them meaning -- that's what's important. And upon finding out they are somewhat fantastical stories that doesn't mean one has to put down what is good in them.

With ancient texts I'd say that this is close to a kind of truth. Not the kind of truth we mean when talking about the fact/value distinction, or the kind of truth we mean when talking about propositions -- but this more fuzzy notion of truth that dithers facts with values.

But surely it's obvious that what is true - whether a particular proposition is true or not and even which propositions are capable of truth or falsity - is often at issue?

Well, yes.

And truth is still important.

There's just more to these texts than a literal grouping of facts. They are products of the human imagination and will, and so speak to those parts of us.

It seems to me that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. Religion often includes claims that are supposed to be facts about the world which provides what is most important to it - an account of the world that provides purpose and meaning - I prefer structure - to life. Science includes ideas about what is valuable, primarily truth, of course, but a great deal about how to live life, what is worth pursuing and how it is to be pursued (which, of course, is the stock in trade of religion). Incidentally, how far modern capitalism is an outcome of science is unclear to me, but I would like to think that alternative outcomes of the primacy of science are available. — Ludwig V

I agree that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. There are overlapping concerns of both human practices. As science has become more predominant (I don't know about primacy, but the church certainly doesn't have the primacy it once did either) so religion has changed. The literal truth of the scriptures is often very important to people, and that literal truth cannot be preserved in the face of a scientific worldview.

But for some that literal truth is entirely missing the point.

For that viewpoint I think I can see what @unenlightened is getting at. Atheists have a dogma, and that dogma is that scripture must be interpreted in accord with scientific truth.

But surely that's false.

I'll also note that with the preponderance of biblical literalists who are theists there's something understandable in taking this tactic. There are dogmatists who are theists, too. The version of Un's story which is more sympathetic to the atheist points out that this dogmatism was transferred from the theistic literalists to the atheistic literalists, which is often the case.

But anything that provides a basis for a way of life and justifies certain practices and is available to large numbers of people, is going to find lots of different kinds of people amongst its followers. So whatever was originally proposed or recommended is going to find different tendencies developing. So all religions have fundamentalist tendencies, liberal tendencies, intellectual tendencies, practical tendencies, missionary tendencies, quietist tendencies, and on and on. That includes the way(s) of life that exist around science. So I'm inclined to see dogmatic atheism as a tendency within the practice of science which is bound to develop.

I find grand narratives like the conflict between religion and science very difficult. They tend to evaporate when looked at too closely.

I agree that the grand narratives evaporate upon close inspection. It's too big to make anything but a hasty generalization

I like your notion of tendencies. I'm not sure that I'd put dogmatic atheism with science -- usually my feelings on dogmatic atheism is that it's anti-scientific. But the notion of tendencies is really helpful, I think, in this conversation in particular between all of us. Dogmatism as a tendency that spans the human spectrum means that neither theist nor atheist are somehow exempt from that tendency. Under this rather idealistic model it's the theist that should be most concerned about theistic dogmatism, and the atheist that should be most concerned about atheistic dogmatism.

It X a dogma when X is demonstrably true? I don't think so. — 180 Proof

Isn't this the pattern pointed out in the OP?

I think I'd accept that dogma is truth-apt, and therefore can be true -- at least insofar that it's a declarative belief.

So a piece of Christian Dogma may be "Jesus Christ rose from the dead". What makes this dogma? I think I'd say that its position within the web of beliefs is what makes it dogma -- it's the sentence that, if you flip its truth-value, you also flip the truth value of a large section of beliefs which holds the way of life together.

And then there's a social component to dogma, which I suspect is how we all excuse our own beliefs as not-dogmatic. Insofar that we subject them to questioning, we might say, then our beliefs are not dogmatic. But I'm not sure. Because of the social nature of belief, in terms of enactment, the act of questioning doesn't really change dogmatic activities. There's this other, non-truth value which keeps the dogma attractive: which is a way of life.

So the ancient texts, if we follow Alasdair Macintyre, don't have a strong fact/value distinction -- and for those reasonable theists who do care about such things, they'll integrate the values that are important with the facts as we learn them. That's part of the tradition is to re-interpret the ancient texts with respect to how one lives in an everchanging world.

Does that make it clear nowhow truth, while important, isn't at issue?

All the bad religious shit listed by may or may not be caused by ideas -- but the idea of the OP is a pattern of thought some atheists adopt.

The OP is strictly speaking about atheist dogma, rather than the other dogmas.

I'd say there's a fair pattern of thought in the OP. Not that this is a good way of thinking, but rather it is a dogmatic way of thinking.

No claims on causes -- but atheists create ideas, including ideas about fundamentalism. This is how I read the OP.

1. Make a strong fact/value distinction, as per Hume.
2. Establish the scientific method with truth as the only and unquestionable value. — unenlightened

I might eliminate point one in favor of point two. Point one is where the philosophically interesting action is at, at least as I can tell, but I think point two is a far more common point of atheist dogma, and that it is frequently not even viewed as dogma -- making it behave more like an ideology and a dogma in that it's unquestioned by many. And the philosophy has already been written on the questions of science, at least at this level of comprehension -- 20th century analytic philosophy made some great inroads into understanding the beast that is science. But it doesn't look like the pure method of unquestionable truth and value when it comes out after the process of questioning.

Yet even theists will treat it like that.

Is this a misunderstanding between "common" and "consensus"?

It's been more than a minute since I read Chalmers, but even on the 2nd page:

An intermediate sort of lightweight realism has also developed, holding that while there are
objective answers to ontological questions, these answers are somehow shallow or trivial, perhaps reflecting conceptual truths rather than the furniture of the world. Deflationary views of this sort have been developed by Hirsch (1993; this volume), Thomasson (this volume), Wright and Hale (2001; this volume), and others. These views contrast with what we might call the heavyweight realism of Fine, Sider, van Inwagen, and others, according to which answers to ontological questions are highly nontrivial, and reflect the ultimate furniture of the world

Which would support the notion that there's no consensus.

But "common", as in held by some prominent persons, sure.

Common for whom?

I don't know the domain you mean.

A joke version of the question: how are a priori synthetic judgments of a priori synthetic knowledge possible?

(I'm not being at my most systematic here, I'm afraid, but luckily this *is* the lounge.) — Dawnstorm

:) no worries. I put it here for that reason -- there's something-ish there, but I am also not being systematic. More floating and grasping.

That was wonderful.

I'd say an A does not definitely represent more knowledge than an F -- for instance, if one grades on a standard curve such that there will always be a person who gets an F and always be a person who gets an A the grading system forces people into a grade rather than measures knowledge because the teacher believes it fairest. Grades are awarded on a basis of merit, which in turn requires a standard -- but the standard is never the same between classes, or even between teachers.

What's more, in a comparison between persons I wouldn't ask what someone's grade was or their respective GPA's -- these things are very much a feature of our social world wanting hierarchies associated with merit and less to do with what people know. In a workplace no one cares what grades someone got, they only care that the person is competent.

In a way -- in order for us to posit a grade scale we already have to be able to make this judgment about how knowledgeable someone is.

I come from a sociology background; this sounds rather... mundane? — Dawnstorm

I think that likely. :)

Quantifying innumerable things is what sociologists have always done. But they don't usually do it for the sake of it; there's a research question that drives how to quantify things.

I've once been asked, on the street, to test new recipees for orange juice. They'd ask questions about how much I liked the taste, colour, etc., and they provided me with a ordinal scale from 1 to 10. Oh goody. The ordinal scale made sense. I mean, the minimal ordinal scale would be: (1) don't like, (2) like. It's an ordinal scale, because we value (2) more (I won't buy juice I don't like). What's not there is a stable distance between (1) and (2). It's just an order.

The minimal ordinal scale isn't very thorough, though, and judging can become kind of arbitrary for so-so cases, which might fall in either slot, depending on mood. So maybe something like this (1) yuk, (2) meh, (3) yum.

Or maybe (1) get this away from me, (2) if it's all there is, (3) maybe sometimes, if I'm in the mood, (4) yeah, that's good, (5) MUST HAVE!

Go higher than (5) and the accuracy of the scale falls apart, because it's really hard to even figure out what the bullet points mean. — Dawnstorm

So one of the things that's different here is that with sociology you're interested in the opinions of others, at least in this form of numeration. So with the orange juice research they were probably interested in which orange juice formula would sell more, and hoping that if they test it out in small batches with opinion surveys they can find which formulation might sell better.

There's no such question with respect to numerating knowledge. At least, if I were to come up with a scale for knowledge then I wouldn't ask people's opinions about it. Knowledge isn't opinion-relative, unlike the example of using numbers to give an order to how much someone likes something or doesn't like something.

At least with the orange juice example you can say what 1 and 2 and 3 mean -- Good, meh, and bad. In a way it's more of a counting exercise where there are three sets of persons and you're asking people to classify themselves into one of the sets as the operation of counting.

But what possible operation of counting would there be for quantifying knowledge that actually somewhat tracks with what we intend when we make a judgment that a person has more or less knowledge than something else?

(also, is knowledge the sort of thing that can only be judged by comparison? I.e., it is more or less, but not numerated, even in an ordered sense)

So, yeah, knowledge is probably best described as an ordinal scale. It doesn't meet the requirements for an interval scale. And how you quantify it depends on what you want to know, and how you can fruitfully measure it. — Dawnstorm

So let's just take the example problem of comparison, since we're on the same page there -- we agree that we can make a comparison between persons and have a vague but still true idea that someone is more or less knowledgeable within a particular discipline in comparison to another person within that same discipline.

So would the operation of counting be relative to some kind of expert who knows more? Such that the comparative judgment is also relative to a third person, a judge or expert?

Interesting: could you elaborate more an this distinction between a proposition being "objectively true" vs. "objectively good"? I do not fully understand what that entails. — Bob Ross

This is where I lose the plot, and hence why I favor moral anti-realism out of laziness. I could make something out of this distinction, but I can't tell if it's better or worse or what... but it's the sort of thing that I think would be interesting at least because the division between truth/good at least sets it aside as a moral realism that doesn't just reduce to a form of Platonism.

Very interesting: so, to you, a moral judgment can exist without being true or false and whether it is true or false can be later provided by a will? Is that the idea? — Bob Ross

Yup.

No comment on anything else, but I wanted to say you got it.

What a talent. Amazing to hear all that from one guitar

I am a naturalist in the sense that I do think we are all a part of one, natural reality though; I just don't think that that justifies claiming that the propositions who's truthity is relative to (a) will(s) is somehow objective in virtue of our will's being a part of nature. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that a fixated upon virtue is something I'd say relies upon a will. Making the virtue true -- that part takes a will. But if goodness is somehow a natural pattern, in a similar way to procreation being a natural pattern (the desire to procreate isn't exactly something one wills) -- then the objectivity comes from it being apart from our will.

Such and such a moral proposition -- whatever form we decide is best(virtues, rules, or consequences) -- could be objectively good, if not objectively true. (Or we could also drop objective/subjective as a distinction and instead focus on the belief that there are real morals, as opposed to objective morals)

Do you see how this is different from the usual notion of will, which generally revolves around making choices?

I want to clarify that my commitment to fixating upon what is of my nature is not itself an objective moral judgment. I don’t think that a metaethical theory that simply contains the obligation to what is one’s nature is thereby a form of moral realism. — Bob Ross

I'd counter here and say that a metaethical theory in conjunction with a metaphysical theory of naturalism is what makes that fixation a form of moral realism.

The metaphysical claim of naturalism is what girds it. If you're a naturalist, what could be more objective than your nature?

I am not sure if I entirely understood your second post, but let me try to adequately respond. If someone acts as though “P is good”, that does not thereby make P objectively good (although, arguably, it may be subjectively good). A normative judgment is objective iff the proposition (that expresses it) has a truthity that is will-independent. If the truthity, on the other hand, is indexical, then it is subjective. — Bob Ross

Right! So the truthity of a fixation is your nature, and since nature is all that is real, it's a form of moral realism. It's not like you got to will your nature -- you were born human.

I think it’s a superstition that only man in the form of a state employee can enforce contracts and tender and pave roads. — NOS4A2

I can go halfsies here. I agree, in a universal sense. There have been many social organizations that are not in the form of the state. I wouldn't flirt with anarchy if I didn't see that. I don't think the state is a final form.

But to call a sole proprietor a counter-example is a bit of an idealization, is all I mean. The tender, the law, the courts, the education system -- it's all there to make people behave in a certain way. Of course people behave when they have learned the rules. But what taught them the rules? And isn't the sole proprietorship designation a rule specifically designed for people who just like being on their own? Isn't it a rule to accommodate the desire to be an individual?

School, work, the state, the people around them -- it all forms a system of rewards and punishments which influence how people behave. Because there are claims on property through the state, and everything is basically owned, we need each other not just in the gregarious sense but in an industrial sense too. That's the economy which allows us to continue on right now, and has even shaped us such that we can't really live outside of an industrial economy. A sole proprietor needs the farmers to keep growing things after all. They aren't self-sufficient in that sense, though they are self-sufficient in the social rules sense, the simulation of individuality that is individual rights and property.

As for your state, I would not say it is somehow oligarchy free. People love oligarchy, apparently. — NOS4A2

Maybe.

I think people like hierarchy more than they ought.

But it's not inevitable.

Not if you’re a sole-proprietor and self-employed. — NOS4A2

Even the rare self-employed sole-proprietor requires a state to enforce contracts and tender.

Would you say that such a state, where everyone is a sole-proprietor and self-employed but there is a state, is somehow oligarchy free?

It didn’t last long. The Gov burned down their makeshift homes and sent them packing. I wouldn’t even say they were anarchists, to be honest, though a few were. — NOS4A2

It's the way of things.

Now, if they were organized and communicating they might have been able to push back. :D

I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to someone in authority or any leaders but I interact with people every day for work and pleasure. Imagine that: people just getting along with some pushy organization telling them what to do. If I was in an organization, though, that would be quite different in virtue of its structure. — NOS4A2

The way I look at organization -- work is already an organization, even of the more traditional sort. It's a legal entity with property claims and contracts. It requires a state to function. It's a space which is already organized with its own hierarchies and rules around property and propriety. People obey the rules, and are subject to discipline for disobeying the rules, and there are people who aren't even allowed in.

I’ve actually spent a few months in a supposed anarchist community, believe it or not. No leaders, elders, or anything of the sort. The only meetings we had were surfing and fishing and the odd celebration.

I believe you. Heh, no point in disputing what real anarchy is.

Not all of them work like that, as you might imagine.

Not that a reformer couldn't do something, but that wouldn't be radical politics -- but the first one that popped to my mind was the AFL-CIO.

In general it's when it's time for an organization to die because it no longer fulfills its function.

:D Yup.

Oligarchy is the rule of the few. So I see a few people holding positions of power over the vast majority of human beings. I would argue that very little in everyday social life is oligarchic in character, that neither rule nor coercive power need apply to any of it, really. In most instances and in most interactions throughout history, self-rule is the norm. — NOS4A2

Care to spell out the argument more? I don't see how you reconcile your notion of everyday social life with seeing oligarchy everywhere, unless for some reason political organizations are outside of everyday social life -- which is just not true. People often prefer not to think of the political organizations which constitute their lives, but that environment is still there influencing the everyday lives of people.

Oh yeah.

How else would you organize if you didn't communicate?

The general anarchist thrust is that it is a radical politics, in the sense that there is thought to be a root cause of problems, and the root cause of problems for anarchists is hierarchy. So anarchist practice is all about how to organize without hierarchy or to minimize hierarchy -- which usually ends up meaning lots of communication and intentionally implementing practices which spread power, be it over a household or workplace or whatever bit of property or decision is under discussion.

The cartoon picture is more or less the opposite of the reality. One of the advantages to anarchic organizing, like the conversational model I proposed, is that organizations don't outlive their use.

But that advantage is also it's downside: organizations with staying power will outlast them. Organizations like warlords and gangsters, for instance, who don't tend to care too much about how they treat other people to get their way (unlike anarchists).

If need be. Or there's the bad kind of anarchy -- but usually that's just warlords and gangsters rather than anarchists. (Not to say it's not a threat as well)

It's just funny to me comparing the reality of anarchy with anarchists (endless communication and meetings and collective decision making) to the picture (propaganda of the deed, revolution, CHAOS).

still serves NOS's purposes, which is to promote anarchy. — frank

Maybe in the abstract.

In practice, though -- most people hate anarchy not because it is exciting, but because actual democratic practices take work. Living anarchically is a form of organization unto itself, and is usually more about who is going to wash the toilets and take care of the chickens and buy the groceries and distributing out the tasks in a collective manner.

Basically it's more collective than what I gather @NOS4A2's preferences to be.

I'm not sure oligarchy fails because I see it everywhere, I'm afraid. People keep instituting it, justifying it, and seeking to benefit from its fruits. Given the very structure of their organizations, it appears to me that everyone concerned with building democracy are really concerned with building a better oligarchy, especially one amenable to their tastes.

Better to remove the organization from power and politics. Organize for other reasons like cleaning up the neighborhood or helping a community member get on his feet. — NOS4A2

If the Quakers even count as an oligarchy then I'm not surprised you see it everywhere :D.

I'd draw a distinction, of course. But I think it would be better for you to say a bit more on oligarchy at this point. When you say you see oligarchy, what is it you see? And, what isn't oligarchic that is also social, if there be any such entity in the set?

he started out a socialist and when he wrote about the Iron law of of oligarchy he apparently was some kind of syndicalist revolutionary. He was not that extreme yet when he wrote that book. But yeah I do get your point, there's a lot not to like about the guy for sure.

The interesting thing to me is that he did come out of socialist milieus and the unions, people who are supposedly aware of and actively fighting against oligarchies, and yet turned oligarchy themselves. That is where he got the experiences that influenced his ideas about oligarchy. — ChatteringMonkey

Right. And I'm not unaware of these things, either.

There's a truth in there -- it's the generalization that's being questioned, as well as the formulation. There's certainly the ideological differences that are being questioned, too.

"Ossification" is the word I like to use in thinking about organizations which form a core -- they function more like a bone structure does in a body. To keep things neutral I'd just say look at a workplace that's familiar to people, such as a kitchen. There's usually a core of people within a kitchen who function like the bones do -- they hold the structure together.

And you might gather that someone who plays the roles of the bone structure within an organization might have more influence than someone who plays the role of some other specialized function that's not holding the structure together.

I think that's undeniable.

But then what is oligarchy, in the thesis? @Banno already addressed this, and I've mostly been utilizing this ambiguity in attempting to come up with counter-examples: Not only is oligarchy fairly mushy, so is "organization" -- such that conversations might count (though they were unpersuasive here), but then even if we mean more traditional forms of organization then there are many which are not oligarchic right now, such as the political parties that aren't presently in charge. But the law is formulated in a way that we have to see these non-oligarchies as potential oligarchies, so it strikes me at least -- it really isn't a falsifiable idea.

But I haven't been pushing that as much because I don't pick up the falsifiability criterion for social theories, but I agree It's worth noting that the theory is not falsifiable, or is at least written in a manner that makes it easy to formulate a falsification as well as a verification, as the desire may be.

I'm not all that familiar with Aristotle... but even though he was in many ways more empirically minded, he was still a student of Plato and his academia. Isn't aristocracy akin to the Ideal form, how it is ideally conceived and intended originally, and oligarchy how it eventually ends up after special interests corrupt it over time. If that is the case, then this wouldn't exactly be a counterexample to the iron law, but rather a more general and broader theory about the eventual corruption of political organisations. — ChatteringMonkey

Yeah, you're right that this isn't exactly a counter-example. And we could certainly do more justice to the Politics than using his distinctions -- but that's enough for me, and can be found at the SEP. Scroll down a little from there to see the table of correct and deviant constitutions.

It's definitely a different theory! And it's richer. With respect to social theories that's often a good reason to adopt something.

But really I think it's important to look at questions from multiple perspectives, especially when it comes to social theories. You gave me just enough of an opportunity to lay out an alternative theory of oligarchy that recognizes these tendencies but explains them differently, and in a manner which is not some foregone conclusion. The theory acknowledges the things which the iron law does, while pointing out that these tendencies are not necessary -- it's not inevitable that an organization becomes an oligarchy. (and, interestingly and somewhat along the lines of what the iron law is getting at, it even terms democracy as a degenerate form)

With Aristotle's theory what you have is the beginnings of a solution, though -- you have to look at the constitutions which city-states are organized around. Some constitutions are better than others on the basis of whether they are in the correct or deviant form.

That's the sort of thing I think a good social theory does -- it doesn't just tell you "Don't bother", it attempts to get at what can be done about the problems.

I'm not sure how to address this because I don't think the CI works in practice. I don't mean this in a base or mean spirited way, but we do sometimes use people as a means, out of practical and psychological necessity... I would be hard if not impossible to live in total accordance with the CI. — ChatteringMonkey

There's a bit of a difference here worth noting, I think -- it's not that we cannot use others as means to an end. We're human, we have to! We are very much dependent upon one another. It's that the CI prohibits using others merely as a means to an end.

Also I want to say -- if democracy were an easy goal to achieve, given its popularity, it'd have been done by now. But we're still figuring it out. It's a project that takes participants rather than an ideal in the sky.

The second formulation points out how even an individualist can organize collectively without it being coercive. That's mostly what I think I'm trying to get at -- even if we be perfectly willing subjects there's a way in which we can build our social environment.

I think I do agree that collective organisation around values is where it is at, I'm just not sure how we can do it in practice while at the same time avoiding all the known pitfalls. What you describe for instance functionally looks a lot like how religions or myths would organize communities around shared value systems, but then a lot can and historically has gone wrong with that. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes. And a lot can and has gone well with it too. The future being open means we can also fuck it up, and there's no guarantee. Even if we do all the things right -- it's not a controlled experiment. And we're still pretty ignorant of how social forms "work" (if there be any way that they work at all), so even with the best of intentions we can mess things up along the way.

It's for these reasons I tend to favor democratic practices. I don't believe I have the answer, but I think we can probably come up with a better one together than we have so far.

There are two thoughts I've yet to express that I'm uncertain even how to --

But I keep coming back to Aristotle's Politics, and the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative.

(1) In the Politics even Aristotle* makes a distinction between Oligarchy and Aristocracy -- and he happens to like Aristocracy over Oligarchy. Naturalized politics is kind of his whole thing and gets along with the idea that we can falsify such stuff, I think.

(2) The second formulation of the CI pretty explicitly points out how one would organize with someone: by treating them as not merely a means, but as an end unto themselves.

1: Given that we're looking at all societies due to the law-formluation, I'd take Aristotle's Politics as evidence that many constitutions exist, and someone smart back then knew about these tendencies but didn't generalize oligarchy to all organizations. If we're looking for textual counter-examples then he counts.

2: This points to how we can collectively organize on ethical grounds even from a libertarian individualist stance. It's not inevitable, from that perspective, because we all make choices based upon some commitment, and here is a commitment which harmonizes collective action rather than pits all individuals against one another. Even on rational grounds.

the point, I think, is rather that we never arrive at some perfect static system, at some utopia, but that these things are in perpetual motion. — ChatteringMonkey

I'm gathering that there are more points people pick up than this from Michel :D -- yes?

I agree that there's no static system or utopia, and that social lives are in perpetual motion. That's not the point I saw in Michel, but hey, we agree there.

*That is, the guy who, in writing, wrote about how slavery is good. That guy. Slaves? OK. Oligarchy? Fuck that shit. That guy.

If Michels’ ideas are wrong there should be cases where he is. — NOS4A2

How about the Quakers? They run their organization on the basis of consensus. Not just consensus building, but 100% consensus.

There's a lot of groups out there which don't follow this purported law.

But so far it’s nothing, at least as far as organizations are concerned. So why should someone like me or anyone else sit around and wait for political parties and organizers to bring us democracy, when it is more than likely they’ll bring us oligarchy? — NOS4A2

This is confusing to me.

If you're organized you aren't sitting around waiting for some group to do something for you. You're actively participating in the process of politics, regardless of the form of government. And if you want a democratic group then you form the group around democratic practices.

And there's where you'll find, outside of the books and ideas, your counter-examples -- democracy doesn't just happen, it's built, and many groups utilize democratic practices.

If, indeed, democracy is worth building. If the Iron Law holds, then it wouldn't be possible to build, so why not let the oligarchs run the show?

The only thing is -- tomorrow isn't like yesterday, when you keep looking back. And the part you've yet to address is that oligarchs fall. So what's so iron about the law if the form continues to fail due to a lack of trust that such a social form tends to breed?