048 - Recognition: E-Tribalism vs. the Nation-state

Hegel foresaw a problem with the advanced liberal democracies of his day.  It is when the self interests of groups within the nation become more important than the principles that uphold the state itself.  He called it a "knot" that will need to worked out in the future.

Well the future has arrived and the problem remains. In fact it is much worse than in Hegel's day.  The Internet has fostered a return to tribalistic identity groups that threaten the very concept of the nation-state.

Media scholar Marshall McLuhan also saw this trend occurring, as the individual of the print age loses out to the group-think of the electronic age.  This episode explores how and why this is occurring, and what we can do about.  

Transcript

Gregory Novak 0:02

Hello, I'm Gregory Novak. And this is the cunning of Geist episode 48. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to promote the notion that as they used to say in the old commercials, that a mind is a terrible thing to waste the cunning of Geist podcast, discusses philosophy, psychology and science, with a special emphasis on the great 19th century philosopher, George Wilhelm, Friedrich Hagle. Please follow the podcast Facebook page at Cunningham Geist as well as me on Twitter also. At Cunningham Geist. In this episode, I will again review the important work of media scholar, Marshall McLuhan, who was absolutely prescient it in his predictions of the world to come in particular, I will discuss how we have moved from the tribal societies of old, through the enlightenment and the nation states to our current electronic age, when it's returned to tribalism in a new form, which I now call E tribal. And I will link this to the regalian concept of the need for recognition that he outlines so succinctly in his Lordship bondage, dialectic in the phenomenology of spirit. And finally, I will discuss what all this means in the world we are living in today. So to begin, let's start with a quote from Hagle, and this is from the end of his philosophy of his. He states a problem with liberal democracies and he, he saw this problem or not as he called it as, as one that develops between group interests and the state. And this is where people put their, their group's interests above the universal principles, which are pulled the state. He states that the end of the philosophy of history, quote, this collision this notice, this problem is that with which history is now occupied and whose solution it has to work out in the future. And quote, now we will be examining this, notice this not in this episode. Now we did a full episode on the work of Marshall McLuhan last year in episode 21. And I encourage our listeners to go back and listen to that episode. If you want more information on McCluen, he was a 20th century media scholar who coined the phrase, the global village as well as the medium is the message or massage. Perhaps his greatest contribution was hardly showed that we are dramatically shaped by the technologies at our disposal. And these technologies often impact us in ways greater than the content. Does it say. Perhaps a better way to put this as the new technologies create new and different ways of perceiving the world around us and these new and different perceptions put different emphasis on people, ideas in relationships. So it's an entirely different ball game. Once the new technology, sinks in to the. Now one way to, to see this at work is to examine the main methods of communication we've seen developed over the last a hundred years or so. And I'll specifically look at radio, which was followed by television, which was followed by the internet. Now radio was just coming up to speed in world war II. It was still very new at the time. It was not used extensively. However, by the time of world war two, it was decisive, uh, and influential, McClune views. Radio is a hot medium, as it relies on hearing, which surrounds a person, it is much more holistic in its manner than say the visual function, which is linear and focuses on this or that one thing at a time. McClune sites, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hitler. as, as defining how the use of radio, was able to allow each of them to be demobilized their countries during world war II, radio has the ability to directly speak to people in a powerful and emotional way. Roosevelt's fireside chats, kept Americans up to date. Uh, on the progress of the war. And before that the depression and made the country feel like one nation and, Hitler also used radio effectively in his rise to power. And Churchill's radio addresses really held his country together during their darkest hour. The next major technological innovation was the television. McCluen called it a cool medium, and that the images are not as sharp and not as intrusive television brings images. Two people ran into the living room and that's opened up many new possibilities for communicating television became popular in the 1950s, and it also launched a different breed of politician. Us president John F. Kennedy had charisma that exuded from the television. as an example in his famous television debate with Nixon in 1960 was the first televised presidential debate. Polling showed that those that watch the debate on TV thought Kennedy had won, but those had listened on radio thought Nixon had won. So this was our first clear proof of the difference between the two mediums, radio, and television for influencing. As an interesting aside, president Harry Truman saw what was happening and he bemoaned the fact that we now had a celebrity president in JFK and he was saying, this is a loyal member of the democratic party, the same party as JF. Perhaps the U S president that benefited most from television was Ronald Reagan who actually had worked in television. He had hosted the general electric theater on T. As well as a series entitled death valley days, and even start in several episodes, Reagan clearly benefited from the television medium and won two terms. As president in the United States, he was followed by his vice president, George HW, Bush, Bush, the Helder who lacked a strong TV image and lost after one term to the more telegenic and handsome. Who won two terms, despite scandal, the media landscape. However, it was shifting when Clinton was president and the internet was beginning its rise in popularity during his term. And with it came an increased tribalism and conflict between political parties. There was no division in America, which is growing more divisive. The first few us president to effectively use the internet was Donald Trump. He was able to bypass the legacy TV, medium and speak directly to his followers through social media. Trump lost in his reelection bid, but the country, remained more divided than ever. So. What is the internet brought us? Well, it is brought us a return to tribalism. This is what McCluen forecasted, but it's in a new form. It's an electronic tribalism. IE tribalism is I call it for short. Now let's step back and look at this from a broader perspective, the greatest media invention before the radio was the printing press. McCluen talks a lot about this, and he even wrote a book about it, called the Gutenberg gala. The world changed with the invention of the printing press in a big way. And one of the biggest changes that brought about was the creation of the nation state is examples of this. Some point to the 1649 European peace of Westphalia, which recognized the sovereign nature of certain entities in Europe, as well as the, um, they point to the formation of the United States in 1776. As well as, to France in 1799, following the French revolution, the printing press enabled this to occur before books were around the world's population was ruled by tribes, basically collective groups of people with a common heritage, language, customs, and religion, even when they were empire, such as Rome or the Roman Catholic church, the local tribes remained. And yes, these tribes fought each other all the time. What the printing press a lot have happened though, is it allowed books to become part of the culture and, and it'll, and these books would be written in the language of the culture. The Bible could be translated into a territory's language. Laws could be written down and distributed for the common good in the nation's language treaties between nations could be enacted. So the nation state was born and this obviously coincided with the, enlightenment period as well, which impacted science and, philosophy and thinking. And there was also another important effect. Reading and writing emphasized the linear logical flow of linear logical way of thinking. And this promoted individualism reading is a solitary activity and tribes are more relying on the group, what the group thinks w which we now call a group think. The enlightenment brought a focus on the individual and individual rights for the first time, individual rights became paramount, and this is something that was missing in the tribe in a nation state. A person could pursue their own thoughts and ideas while living in the security of the nation. Tribal identity was less important than individual freedom. There's no better example of this and the American experiment with its emphasis on rugged individualism and its acceptance of different nationalities. And outside of the terrible history of slavery, of course, which we dealt with in episode 32. So as a result of the printing press, a Western enlightenment mentality arose throughout Europe and the Americas. And it is interesting to see that the West's concept of nationhood had disastrous effects when it was tried to be applied in the middle east. Um, following the world war one, At the end of world war II, England and France. And to some extent, Russia carved up the middle east into various nations with little regard to the native tribes that existed there. This was known as the Sykes Pico agreement of 1916 and conflict in the middle east remains to this day as a result. And it it's important to realize that. As a result of the internet, we are moving into a post nationhood world, a world of interconnectivity, a world where we lose our Western style, individuality, the electronic world of the internet. Once again, places us in a holistic environment. We are at once one with the world. And where do we find our recognition in such a world? How, how, how, how do we find our identity? Well, we do it by our groups or associations, our hashtag. On the internet, we've become part of the groups we identify with, and this is done primarily online and unfortunately we tend to dive into a silo and we only hear from like-minded people in the same silo. Now in a very high Galean sense. We not only identify as to what we stand for, but what groups we are opposing. In fact, our opposition to the other is often more important than what our own group stands for. This becomes part of the group's identity. Now in a similar way, this reflects issues that Haleigh brought out in his Lordship bondage. Dialectic. If you have two groups confronting each other, The other group must be inferior to your group. If your group has to be seen as special or in fact maybe even superior. So that's how it works. And if you want more information on haggles Lordship bond is dialectic also known as the master slave dialectic. We did a full episode on this episode 13, so please check it out for more info. So this new tribalism has given birth to what's called today identity politics and the new identity politics has the potential to wreck from the inside the traditional nation state. And we may be seeing this happening today in America, as well as in other countries. Just what the nation state is going to do about it is, is, is, is up for grabs. this is the Hagle knot that we referred to earlier. It's certainly going to need to rethink itself and just what it means to be a nation in this day and age in the old days, countries used to be all about land, but today's world is so different. The people listening to this very podcast are from all over. The Hagle study group on Facebook is global in its reach. And it's not just on the internet. It's things you buy if you purchase it automobile today that the parts that go into that car come from many different countries and it's all put in one car and. Th the financial system is truly global today. And we've, we've certainly seen this very recently, just in the past week with the financial sanctions that have been put in place on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Francis Fukiyama wrote a book called the end of history and the last man, which was published in 1992 and he saved it. He got a line in that book. And in it, he claimed that liberal democracy is well now represent the last stage of history and it's sort of a crowning point of history. where we can all get along within the liberal democracy. And interestingly though, Alexander Koji has also picked up on this notion prior to the Fukiyama in his book, an introduction to the reading of Hagle, which was published in 1952. And this is a topic we have discussed much in the halo study group. We explored it here in the podcast as well. And, but since that original book Fukiyama has changed his mind and he now believes that identity politics pose a real threat to these liberal democracy. And that belonging to an identity group today is more important than the country. One is a citizen of, and he wrote about this in a book called identity, the demand for dignity and the politics of resentment published in 2018. And this is exactly the future McCluen foresaw. This is exactly the problem that Hagle foresaw. So to sum this up, I read to you a quote from former United States labor secretary under bill Clinton, Robert Reisch. This is a quote from 2014 quote. We are witnessing a reversion to tribalism around the world, away from nation states. The same pattern can be seen even in America, especially in American politics. Before the rise of the nation state between the 18th and 20th centuries, the world was mostly tribal tribes were United by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and awful and warred against them, Kings and emperors and post temporary. Truces. But in the past 300 years, the idea of nationhood took root in most of the world, members of tribes started to become citizens, viewing themselves as a single people with patriotic, sentiments and duties toward their Homeland. Although nationalism never fully supplanted tribalism in some former colonial territories that transitioned from tribe to nation was mostly completed by the mid 20th century, over the last several decades. Technology has whittled away. The underpinnings of the nation state nationally economies have become so intertwined that economic security depends less on national armies than on financial transactions around the world. Global corporations play nations off against each other to get the best deals on taxes and regulations. News and images move so easily across borders. That attitudes and aspirations are no longer especially national cyber weapons, no longer the exclusive province of national governments can originate in a hacker's garage. Nations are becoming less relevant in a world where everyone and everything is interconnected and quote. So that's, that's a very good summary. From Robert Reisch of what we've been talking about in this episode. So what's the answer? Well, the first step always is to recognize the things that change governments and communication companies must stop looking in the rear view mirror. And I believe in general, the solution is along the lines of how hago resolve the Lordship bondage, dialectic that is with mutual respect, seeing identity indifference, and recognizing the common heritage of all or respecting group differences to summarize media are extensions of ourselves. They're extensions of our senses. When the media changes, we change. Our conceptions of who we are, who identify with, who leads us also changes the printing press brought about the enlightenment and the liberal democracies of the nation state and the pre-existing tribes in the world mostly gave way radio brought an increased tension to these nation states in world war, television, cooled things down for a period of time, but brought about the cold war. But something happened as well. We became image conscious. We value form over content as a result, but the internet has brought a return to tribalism in new clothes and the lack of individual identity in the past, before the internet, I was not judged by what I thought, but by my deeds alone, my thoughts are private. This is no longer the case in our tribalism world. I can assume what you think by what group you belong to and hate you for it, or like you. You can be judged for what you think by being part of some identity group, whether you like it. every time there's election, uh, people say, who did you vote for? And I'm always reluctant to say who I voted for, because I don't want to be judged in my entirety by just that one act in today's world often. Oh, if I just know who you voted for, that's all I need to know that puts you in a, in an identity group. And I know all I need to know about you I'll either like you and accept you or get out of my face. An excellent example of this is when us president Joe Biden during his campaign for president said a person ain't black, if he's considering not voting for the democratic candidate and he later apologized for this statement, but, you can see my point again, a sublimation must occur here to bring things in balance in terms of mutual respect between groups and to have some degree of commitment to the country at large, as well as to one's own needs. That my friends is a wrap for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. Please like rate and review the cunning of Geist, wherever you get your podcasts and feel free to share this episode link to your like-minded friends on social media. As always all references cited in this episode will be provided at the podcast Facebook page at cutting of Geist. And please like, and follow that podcast, Facebook page. I welcome your comments there and also enables you to keep up to date in terms of what I'm thinking about, what I'm planning for the next episode. I communicate there. And if you're not already a member of the Hagle study group on Facebook, please consider joining is a great group with some outstanding contributors. Thanks again. This is Gregory Noveck. This is the cunning of Geist. See you next time.