Group items tagged

" According to the parable of the tribes, civilized peoples have been compelled to live in societies organized for the maximization of competitive power. People become the servants of their evolving systems, rather than civilized society being the instrument of its members."

Bloom's theory of why "evil" will always be with us due it's evolving as an intrinsic part of our nature.  (Maybe a corollary to the Parable of the Tribes).

Also recommended by David Watkins re the Parable of the Tribes.  David says: In 1954 Sorokin's The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation was published. The common assumption is that love is weak in the face of power. Sorokin and his staff researched the history of war and peace. What they found was that coercion and force were given far too much credit in the headlines of our histories and the power of love not nearly what it deserved. He devotes an entire chapter to examples of how love prevailed against far superior forces. He said that he could have filled several books with the examples that they found. He covers much of the same ground as Tolstoy, Gandhi and King.

Recommended by David Watkins re the Parable of the Tribes.  Dave says: Pitirim Sorokin was no stranger to the abuses of power. He was imprisoned in his native Russia by the Czarists. Later he was sentenced to death by the Communists. Unlike many of his colleagues he survived his death sentence and in exile came to the U.S. He founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard and became President of the American Sociological Association. He directed the Harvard Research Centre in Creative Altruism. In 1937, in conflict with the then current view, he predicted WW2. In 1941 Sorokin wrote The Crisis of Our Age. In 1945 the book went to the best seller list. A sociology book on the best seller lists suggests that his ideas must have resonated with the time.

Again, from David Watkins, in rebuttal to the Parable of the Tribes

Another recommendation from David Watkins re the Parable of the Tribes.  He says: Gene Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institute. His book From Dictatorship to Democracy has been used as a field manual in numerous liberation movements in Eastern Europe, in the Arab Spring and elsewhere. In his three volume The Politics of Nonviolent Action he examines the nature and control of political power and the methods and dynamics of nonviolent action. He identifies and document 198 specific methods of nonviolent action. Over half of these methods come under one or another heading of noncooperation. In this NewStatesman article Sharp is described as the Machiavelli of non-violence.