Does Censorship work?

 As mentioned in an earlier post, censorship is not an effective way to prevent the dissemination of information. It can slow such dissemination and make it more inconvenient, but it cannot stop the spread of information. Phenomena such as samizdat, steganography and even double entendre can be used to circumvent censorship efforts. Censorship carries a negative connotation, evoking images of totalitarian repression, Nazi and Soviet excesses, and the misery with which they were associated. Censorship seems to be all downs-side, with little benefit.

Organizations such as social media companies, news outlets and academic institutions resort to censorship not to suppress information, but to delegitimize it. It is little more than a clumsy way to cast aspersions, i.e. engage in name-calling, with respect to competing perspectives. The goal of censorship, or its modern euphemistic incarnations such as “fact-checking” or “countering disinformation” is a primitive form of argument in which one side invalidates the other’s opinions by proclamation. The “fact-checkers” and social media platforms decide that certain ideas are undesirable, so they label them and pretend that those ideas have been objectively discredited when they have not. This tactic likely has some effect in the short term, but it can only be maintained at the cost of the censors credibility. Each instance in which information was suppressed and subsequently found to be legitimate, as happened with much Coronavirus information, detracts from the authority and influence of the platforms and institutions engaging in such suppression. The result will be that social medial companies, colleges and universities and news organizations will have squandered their credibility, and it will be unavailable to them when it might actually be needed.

Myths, Narratives and Make-Believe

 A previous post mentioned the role that make-believe plays in bot day-to-day human interactions as well as larger endeavors such as political movements. The hypothesis presented was that make-believe is an innate and largely useful element of how humans contend with competing socializing instincts and uncertainty associated with contemplation of the future. The post also referred to comments regarding make-believe by Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer, and how make-believe was an essential component in motivating members of mass movements. Similar ideas were noted in the writings and philosophy of the syndicalist Georges Sorel.

Sorel, in his Letter to Daniel Halévy defines "myths" as "expressions of a will to act." The designation of myth makes no implication regarding factual content. The purpose of this post is to consider some current public discourse from this perspective. It is not intended to either affirm or refute current ideas.

Taking Sorel's definition as a starting point, we should immediately make a clarifying distinction: that between myth and narrative. If we limit a myth to Sorel's definition, i.e. an expression of the will to act, narrative consists of those vignettes and stories that support the myth and maintain it as it encounters real-world events and individual experience. From here we may give a few examples of current myths and contrast them with associated narratives:

Myths include: Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, systemic racism, gender as a social construction, "whiteness," climate change, the global community, etc. Again, the characteristic that makes these myths in the Sorelian sense is their capacity to motivate action, regardless of their factual validity. Narratives include those stories; e.g. discrete police shootings; election irregularities regarding late night vote dumps, educational discrepancies, etc. that are used to maintain the myth and sustain its ability to enable " a will to act."

Both Sorel and Hoffer used early Christianity as an example of the effectiveness of motivating beliefs, i.e. myths, in the growth of the religion. Both Hoffer and Sorel note the role that these beliefs had in the resolve and influence of early martyrs. It is interesting to note that Hoffer spoke of make-believe and Sorel of the imperviousness of myth to reasoned opposition. Sorel asserted that myths are used to defend movements against "objections to practical possibility." This particular attribute of myth helps explain why critics denounce particular movements as "religions" or "cults," as in the cult of global warming, or the religion critical race theory, or the cult of Donald Trump. Myths do not need to make sense; their purpose is not to persuade but to motivate.

Sorel claimed that a myth is the opposite of what he called a "utopia," and considered that utopias are intellectual abstractions that in themselves do not lead to action. Sorel noted however that all successful myths have "a utopian element," and this bears some resemblance to Hoffer's claim that all mass movements have a "millenarian" component. Hoffer suggested that the professed goals of a mass movement are always within the scope of imagination, but always just beyond realization. This again resembles Sorel's observation regarding "objections to practical possibilities." This phenomenon addresses one of the most striking paradoxes of modern political discourse: why myths that seem to produce actions that have desirable results generate counter-myths.

One may conceive that one of the most consequential myths of American history is the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." It is of course facially untrue as a general proposition although defensible against "objections to practical possibilities in more rigorously defined circumstances, for example "equal before the law," or "equal in the eyes of God." Nonetheless, the myth conformed to Sorel's definition, i.e. the expression of a will to act" that motivated the war of American Independence, the Civil War, the Civil Rights amendments, the Civil Rights Act, Brown v. the Board of Education, etc. When this myth seems closer than ever to realization, ideologies arise to replace it with myths that "equality" is an alibi for injustice that prevents "equity." This new myth has the characteristics identified by Sorel: an expression of the will to act, defense against against "objections to practical possibility," and a utopian element. Similar observations can be made regarding myths such as "gender is socially constructed," or that anti-social behavior is a result of poverty. 

That myths, narratives and make-believe have been a part of human history and played prominent roles in how society developed seems to be uncontroversial, even if one considers only the myths that accompanied the spread of the Great Religions. What remains to be determined is the role that modern phenomena such as social media; partisan, non-objective news media; and myths masquerading as scientific "consensus" have on history. There is also a question of whether the actions that myths, narratives and make-believe are presumed to motivate will have predictable outcomes, or simply provoke counter-myths in an unending series of human restlessness.

One thing to note is that, while myths do not have to be credible, narratives do. The more ridiculous narratives become the more they detract from, rather than support underlying myths. Thus, silly notions, such as that the word "picnic" is offensive, are likely to degrade the myths intended to organize collective will and produce collective action.

Censorship and Make-Believe

One of the current social phenomena affecting discourse on matters of public interest is the resistance to dissemination of particular classes of views. This phenomenon includes, but is not limited to classic censorship, e.g. removing books on particular subjects, to social media companies suppressing various ideas under the euphemism "disinformation," discouraging the expression of views through bullying and intimidation under the guise that some thoughts are "harmful." The fact that these phenomena exist is beyond dispute, so the relevant inquiries become will be their likely effects and what are the motivations for such practices?

The first question, related to the effects behind limiting the scope and content of public discourse, is related to the question of whether it is possible to ever suppress compelling ideas. Practical experience is that it is not. Even in the Soviet Union with its surveillance apparatus, the phenomenon of samizdat made possible the circulation of ideas in the setting of difficulties imposed by the state. Parents who initially believe that they can control their children's behavior by restricting what information those children are exposed to soon (for example with respect to vulgar language, drugs, sex, etc.)  find out that the world is far more efficient at disseminating information than is at first assumed. The early Christian Church was able to proselytize and grow despite government efforts to suppress and influence knowledge of it. Often, the attempts at suppressing information in itself conveys information, such as when newspapers omit information from a story to "discourage stereotypes." Humans are adaptable, and they adapt to efforts to control information in ways that frustrate those controls.

It does not take much sophistication to circumvent official or quasi-official efforts to control discourse. Information travelled quite effectively before the advent of information technologies. It does not take technical expertise to convey innuendo through the technique of double entendre, for example. Steganography is the process of concealing a message within another message or image. More commonly, ideas leak out into the wider society simply because humans have social instincts that make them prone to communicate interesting ideas to others, regardless of institutional assessment of those ideas. The institutions referenced here are those such as government, corporations and academic organizations.

Ultimately, it is the content of an idea that determines whether it will spread in a society. Weak ideas may spread with the help of large and powerful organizations, but this does not make the ideas influential. Strong ideas will spread due to the influence they have on the people who hold them, and regardless of efforts to suppress them. 

Suppression of ideas through censorship or other means is destined to fail if the ideas involved have value. Suppression of ideas requires constant energy that drains the organizations and institutions that attempts such suppression. The countless number of ways that ideas may be disseminated requires constant innovation and increasingly complex process to manage information, until the enterprise collapses under its own weight. More significantly, the efforts of a particular institution to manage ideas inevitably changes the institution doing so. Eventually Twitter, for example, becomes an echo chamber and not a valuable means of serious discourse.

Intelligent people know that efforts to suppress ideas are likely to fail over the long term, so one may reasonably ask the second question posed above: what are the motivations for such attempts? The obvious answer, that such efforts are undertaken to advance a political agenda, does not account for the historical futility of such efforts. While political manipulation certainly explains a great deal of information regulation, there are likely other motivations involved.

One of the sub-chapters of Eric Hoffer's book  The True Believer is headed "Make-Believe." Hoffer stated 

In the practice of mass movements, make-believe plays perhaps a more enduring role than any other factor. When faith and the power to persuade or coerce are gone, make-believe lingers on.

Hoffer's concept of make-believe is nearly identical to Georges Sorel's idea of Myth, and the more contemporary journalistic malady of "narrative." Make-believe, or play-acting or pretense is an innate human trait. It is the basis of much of the play that children engage in as they are exposed to and adapt to the world. It is how they practice growing up. Hoffer argued that make-believe was an important factor in preparing soldiers for the killing and dying associated with warfare, whatever its cause. Alfred Rosenberg's Nazi polemic The Myth of the Twentieth Century indicates the motivating power of make-believe right in the title.

The purpose of much modern censorship and information suppression is not really to eradicate ideas, or even keep them from spreading. It is to stigmatize them so that they do not interfere with the illusions that underlie the make-believe, the myths and narratives that give people the desired image of themselves. They are intended as much to maintain the illusion that the world is a morality play in which only certain people can be the hero as they are to change the world outside of that imagined world of myth and narrative. One reason information is suppressed, or discouraged is not because that information is bad for the world, or detrimental to abstractions such as equality or justice, but rather because it is inconvenient to the fanciful narratives that people create to flatter themselves. Hoffer noted that "Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience..." It is this striving for glory or public approval or even self-image that motivates much of our modern narratives, and is the reason why Facebook and Twitter and the news media and academic institutions are so eager to suppress information. Modern censorship is not so much an attempt to control the political opinions of people as much as it is to control people's moral impressions of other people. This is why affluent, educated, comfortable people approve of it. Censorship and suppression of ideas are more commonly used to maintain a narrative than they are to keep people from becoming aware of certain ideas, which is an almost impossible undertaking.

One should also note Hoffer's observation cited above: Make-believe lingers on when faith and the power to persuade or coerce are gone. Censorship and information suppression are not means to an end. Their relative prevalence among corporations and Universities may simply reflect the waning ability to persuade or coerce.

Will There Be Inflation?

 A very common economic concern at the moment is whether there will be significant inflation as the result of large federal spending programs as well as the injection into the economy of vast sums of money as the result of the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply by buying government bonds. There are even concerns that the United States might experience hyperinflation. Opinions on this subject vary widely with experts of differing backgrounds providing contradictory predictions and analyses. In order to sort through these and try to establish a foundation so that reasonably intelligent people with common sense can make their own educated guesses, it might help to begin with some non-controversial observations.

I. The value of anything is ultimately a matter of opinion

The first is that inflation is a phenomenon that reflects the value of money in relation to the value of other things. When money is considered less valuable, for example with respect to a list of consumer items, it takes more money to exchange for those items and inflation results. This observation is a specific example of the more general observation that the value of anything is a matter of opinion. IT may consensus opinion, or expert opinion or popular opinion, but anything is only worth what someone thinks it is worth. This was demonstrated quite dramatically when the value of Bitcoin dropped when Elon Musk expressed opinions about it. His opinions affected the opinions of others, with the result that Bitcoin lost about 40% of its value over a period of a few days. 

When pondering inflation, it is not only the opinion regarding the value of money with respect to something or class of things, but the anticipated future value of money with respect to those things. This point  is a source of much of the disagreement and difference of opinion regarding inflation. To male this point more concise, inflation is affected by the opinion of what the value of money with respect to some reference will be in the near future. It should be noted that another source of disagreement is what that reference is: it is quite possible for example that there will be inflation in price of some things and deflation in the price of others. The value of anything is ultimately a matter or opinion. When sufficient popular opinion, or authoritative opinion regarding something (such as Bitcoin or Blackberry devices) changes, the value of those things change. 

II. The supply of money interacts with other factors to produce inflation or deflation

The second point arises from limitations of the notion that increasing the money supply leads to inflation. This principle was not borne out by the experience of Japan in the 1990s, nor in the United States following quantitative easing associated with the 2008 financial crisis. Whether it will be true of recent injections of money into economy is the key inquiry at the base of contemporary inflation concerns. The explanation for the failure of quantitative easing to generate significant inflation is that the money that was being created was being injected into a liquidity trap. The money was not circulating in the economy because because people were hoarding it; that is inflation depends not only on the quantity of money, but also on people's willingness to spend it, i.e. liquidity. Liquidity, like value is as much a result of psychological factors as it is economic ones. This leads to the concern that "pent-up demand" will lead to a surge in liquidity and provide an inflationary stimulus that was lacking in 1990s Japan or subsequent to the 2008 financial crisis. 

Liquidity depends on willingness of people to spend money and this willingness is very sensitive to their opinions about future economic conditions. As with the idea of the value of money, differences in inflation estimates that consider liquidity rely on accurate predictions of people's opinions, and there is no way to reliably do this; hence we have widely divergent predictions for inflation from "low" to "manageable" to "significant but transient" to "high and persistent" to "runaway hyperinflation." The key concept is that inflation is highly sensitive to people's opinions and perceptions about the future and this is very difficult to accurately model.

III. The key psychological determinant of inflation is confidence, and this has provides conflicting inflationary pressures.

Confidence is really just a particular type of opinion, but it is actually the type that will determine whether there is significant inflation, and what type it will be. Confidence applies to different things and what those things are determine if confidence produces or inhibits inflation.

One can look at the experience of Bitcoin and consider that its price in U.S. dollars reflects confidence that 1.) it will hold its value, 2.) that it will remain liquid, i.e. that it will be easily convertible into other things of value, 3.) that it will be a secure and largely anonymous medium of exchange. Loss of confidence in any of these things will affect its price, as happened when Elon Musk implied that environmental concerns might influence it acceptability as currency. The disturbance of confidence affected the opinion of what the future value of Bitcoin would be; no one wants to hold an asset that is likely to plummet in value (which is highly sensitive to opinion) and be worth much less in the near future. The day-to-day value of Bitcoin as reflected in its market price is largely a measure of confidence.

The same principle applies to the U.S. dollar. Its present value is affected by opinions of its future value in terms of liquidity, stability, etc. and these in turn depend on confidence in government policies. Loss of confidence in government, particularly perceptions that governments are corrupt or ineffective is a common feature of countries afflicted with hyperinflation, such as Weimar Germany, and more recently Argentina, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. As with Bitcoin, the value of the dollar is a reflection of the confidence that people have that it will hold its value particularly against other currencies. One may note that the United States has a bit of a buffer in this regard given the dollar's status as the recognized reserve currency. 

All money is essentially backed by the value of something, and in the case of fiat money, that something is confidence. Money backed by confidence is worth more as confidence increases; i.e. the value of money with respect to other goods and services goes up as confidence increases and this is a deflationary effect. When confidence goes down, the value of money goes down and this is an inflationary effect. Economists can measure confidence at a point in time, but not in the future, even the near future. Even such metrics as bond prices and associated interest rates can give no more than an estimate of current opinion rather than future opinion. This results in a significant limitation on their ability to model inflation and explains the lack of consensus regarding what will happen in the setting of huge injections of cash into the U.S. economy.

Confidence in the government and its policies increases the value of money and is a deflationary influence, but lack of confidence in individual economic circumstances leads to hoarding money, lack of liquidity and is also a deflationary influence. Confidence is both deflationary, when applied to future government credibility, and inflationary when applied to an individual concerns regarding his own economic prospects. This is a complex interaction that cannot be easily modeled. 

Technological innovation tends to increase efficiency and therefore increases the supply of goods and services, resulting in a deflationary variable. It may also make a worker more anxious for the future of his job and also produce a deflationary effect. However technological innovation may create a sense of reassurance that considerations of scarcity are not thought of as existential threats, to the point that politicians might talk openly of universal basic income based on adding no value to the economy whatsoever. This encourages spending and would be expected to have inflationary tendencies. The amount of money per unit of work is conceivably infinite, which is definitely an inflationary state. 

IV. Other factors that influence inflation are ultimately dependent on opinions regarding value.

The remainder if this post is published on the LibertyZ.substack.com site.

Hypothesis

The most enduring changes are in response to excess. This is because the response to excess cannot afford to be capricious. Excesses tend to highlight those things that should endure and not be sacrificed in the interest of novelty.

Modern Trends

 There are several trends in modern life that might be expected to have significant economic and political effects. Three of the most prominent are:

1. The trend toward experiencing things and away from accomplishing things. Another way to state this is that there is a trend toward entertainment and way from production. This trend is facilitated by several factors: the prominence of mass media available on mobile devices, the progress of computer technology in creating virtual experiences, and affluence which makes the luxury of entertainment ore readily accessible. The distinction is illustrated by video games. When on plays a video game he is experiencing something; same as when he watches a movie; but it is a stretch to say that he accomplishes anything. Outside of his own personal experiences in the video game environment the world is little changed by his exploits. 

In general people tend to pay for experiences and get paid for accomplishments. Furthermore, the trend in favor of experiences, particularly virtual ones, distorts the perception of risk, in that most experiences are designed as to minimize obvious physical perils. There are also psychological consequences of this trend, as the effects on such things as self-esteem, goal-setting, satisfaction and even happiness are different for real-world accomplishments and manufactured experiences.

2. The trend toward substituting the subjective for the objective. This is seen quite prominently in conflicts that arise from how the speech or opinions of one person make another feel, and the notion that those feelings should create what are effectively legal obligations on the parts of others. The rise of this trend is simply the extension of childhood expectations about the world into adulthood, and accommodation of this extension that is enabled by affluence and security. It is, like entertainment, a luxury commodity that is unlikely to persist when the real-world consequences of this trend begin producing tangible harms. Subjective feelings cannot be squared with objective facts, for the simple reason that these feelings will vary from person to person and inevitably create conflicts that cannot be resolved. The short-term artifice of prioritizing feelings is doomed to failure over the long term, because the act of prioritizing will simply provoke other conflicting, subjective feelings. The prioritization is itself subjective and will invite resistance from those whose feelings are slighted by not being given higher priority.

This trend is the effluent of the fashionable politics of grievance and complaint. It is a trend that seeks validation of emotional wants and psychological needs in defiance of the natural consequences that the resulting indulgence provokes. 

3. The trend away from the scarcity of necessities. This trend, largely the result of technological innovation and economic progress challenges some of the presumptions inherent in long-established economic theories. No one in advanced societies die of famine anymore, and homelessness is not a matter of the inability to provide sufficient shelters. The economic theories that permitted practical modeling based on trade-offs in economic decision-making, and permitted at least first-order approximations between money and commodities are challenges by the decreasing fact of scarcity in bare essentials. A job market that would create employment in agriculture as a necessary effect of staving off food-shortages is no longer a given. One consequence of this, whether the jobs in question are in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, medicine, etc. is that employment and labor have a more tenuous relationship to scarcity, and a job is no longer essential to deal with the effects of scarcity. In some places, jobs become optional, inviting social and psychological consequences that are largely unknown. 

Biases and Education

 Seemingly lost among controversies regarding academic and corporate “equity” training programs is 1.) whether such training is the best way to accomplish its stated goal, and 2.) whether it works at all. In examining the first question, we may assume that “education” has some sort of universal application; that it possible for example to “teach” empathy, or any other emotion for that matter. It also assumes that education can over-ride or suppress inherent cognitive processes that appear biased but are in fact quite useful and potent in dealing with novelty and uncertainty.

Assuming for the sake of argument that educational and training programs can achieve such goals, one may reasonably ask if a particular doctrine or curriculum is an effective approach, whether it is the only such approach, and whether it is the best approach. Even if it is accepted that such training accomplishes something, there remains the issue of whether a particular curriculum or doctrine can be critiqued. An odd characteristic of anti-racism, for example, is that critiquing anti-racism doctrine is proof of racism. Obviously, the assertion is fallacious, as it would lead to the absurd conclusion that the inquiry as to whether there are better ways to achieve anti-racist outcomes is itself racist.

The larger issue is whether certain aspects of cognitive functioning, such as using analogies to fill in missing information, and recognizing patterns in data to draw inferences can either be taught, or more relevantly, can be unlearned.

A seminal question is whether a person can “learn” emotions that he otherwise would not experience, or not experience with significant intensity. It is reasonable to ask if a person can “learn” empathy, or merely learn to behave as though he had empathy. The same question applies to other emotions. Would we think of teaching someone to feel grief, or joy, or remorse? One obvious point that may be raised is whether people can be made to hate. The question is not, however whether a person who is incapable of hating can be taught to do so, but whether a person who is otherwise capable of hating can be made to direct that hatred to a particular object. The issue is not one of education, but one of manipulation and conditioning.

Emotions have purposes and likely also have sound evolutionary and social rationales. They exist for a reason, and that reason may be wholly unrelated to a particular social doctrine or ideology. In all likelihood, teaching someone, or simply conditioning someone to behave as though they have empathy or grief, or whatever, does not achieve the evolutionary purposes that the desired emotion has. It likely is not possible to teach empathy, only an ersatz, play-acting imitation of it.

Similarly, it is probably not possible to educate someone out of “biases” or other useful cognitive devices that are essential for dealing with novelty and uncertainty in the world. A quick thought experiment might be to imagine walking in a forest and encountering a large animal that you have never seen before standing in the path. Would you pet it? Regardless of how you respond, the answer will betray a bias. There is likely no way for this bias to be eradicated by self-reflection, confession, or role-playing. The issue is not one of good biases and bad biases, it is rather of biases and no biases, and no biases is incompatible with normal experience.

This situation is exacerbated by an ambiguity. In fact some biases can be learned, but again this is a matter of how the capacity for using biases as a means for dealing with a complex world can be manipulated for insular purposes. It is certainly the case that children can be taught things that are not true, and this applies when the subject of such teaching is other people or groups of people. Children can be taught that members of another race or religion are somehow bad, but this simply affects a given state of knowledge and can be changed. Beliefs about a subject which are instilled by education or indoctrination can be unlearned, without affecting the underlying ability to learn, believe or discern. There are functionally at least two distinct types of biases: those that are inherent and essential to cognitive functioning and decision-making in circumstances of novelty and uncertainty, and which cannot be changed by “training,” and those that are taught, in which case they are simply one item in the class of things that can be taught, and which includes their negation.

So anti-bias or anti-racism training is of limited use. It may be beneficial in highlighting issues, but cannot change anything more substantive than volatile beliefs, which are likely to be changed by the next social fad. 

Constraints on Liberty

 There is a new post on the LibertyZ.substack.com site regarding constraints on liberty. The purpose of the posts on that site are to present foundational arguments regarding the role of liberty in human flourishing, and why, for example, libertarianism does not require an individual right to own artillery pieces.

Coronavirus: Coda

 Now that the number of coronavirus cases worldwide seems to be in sustained decline, one may make some final observations:

1. Lockdowns did little to affect the spread of the virus or the final numbers of those infected. If one looked at the profiles of the number of daily new cases from various jurisdictions, it is impossible to tell which resorted to strict social-control policies such as business closings, mask requirements, school closings, etc. The biology of the virus, and its interaction with local environments had much more effect on the spread of the virus than did "public health measures."

2. The virus most likely was the result of a laboratory accident.

3. The scientific community and "experts" were practically useless. The early politicization of the corona virus response meant that a prime, and rare opportunity to understand the nature of viral pandemics, but the expert class was too self-interested, venal and short-sighted to take advantage of it. History will not be kind to them.

4. We don't know nearly what we pretend to about herd immunity, infection vectors, environmental factors or disease modeling. 

5. Much of the angst and panic regarding the pandemic response was the result of reactions to a news report describing how Italian physicians had to triage patients and decide which patients who needed ventilatory support would not get it. 

6. The China and Russia vaccines are not very effective, but probably better than nothing. The mRNA vaccines are generally safe, with somewhat less than advertised efficacy, but have the real but rare side effects of myocarditis and inner ear inflammation leading to tinnitus and occasionally deafness.

Liberty

 Here is the opening of a new post on liberty. The remainder of the post is on the LibertyZ.substack.com site. The next post will be on equality.

In the purest sense liberty is the capacity to behave as one would wish in the complete absence of interactions with other people. This idea of liberty is not particularly useful however, lacking a real-world relevance to those situations in which liberty is a practical concern. As with other concepts, such as privacy and empathy, liberty has no practical meaning outside the context of interactions with others. 

Foundation of civil society.

 There are many factors that contribute to the success of human societies. Some of these are manifestations of socializing instincts, others are institutions that have been found useful through experience, and tested by adversity. The essential basis of civil society is not empathy or tolerance or education or rule of law or civility, as useful as these may be. The foundation upon all functioning societies rest is the keeping of one’s word; of doing what a person says he will do. This is the essential condition that allows humans to form complex organizations that transcend the insularity of the tribe or clan.

The keeping of one’s word, the observance of vows is inherent in concepts such as social contracts, and other forms of government that rely on the assent of the governed. It is essential to the concept of trust and allows humans to use to use the remarkable capacity of cognition, planning, and creativity to produce human societies that progress and improve the lives of their members. The simple concept of doing what a person says he will do forms the rationale for considering as virtues such concepts as honor, duty and integrity. It also functions to strengthen psychological bonds that hold people and groups of people together. Keeping one’s word is an essential requirement of civil society for much the same reason that it is an essential element of friendship.

This was cross-posted at LibertyZ.substack.com