Opinion formation
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Quote:“Lying is a bad thing – this is what mentors, parents and teachers tell us. But there is no society without lies.”
So says theoretical physicist Rafael Barrio, and when he and his colleague Kimmo Kaski from the Aalto University School of Science in Finland thought about this blatant discrepancy, the two computational scientists set out to simulate the effects of lying in a virtual human population. Their results, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that lying is essential for the growth of a cohesive social network.
This intrigues me, partly because it shows why we have such an instinctive revulsion to Kant's morality of truth (especially not lying to the Murderer at the door ) we know that little white lies make life bearable.
What I am interested in, here, is something I've touched on elsewhere. People don't form opinions as atomised abstract subjects: we tend to agree with people we like/admire and may accept statements/propositions from them that we would reject from an enemy or someone we loathe.
It seems to me, this is a related concept, as we would tell little lies, 'I agree with you' to someone in order to not offend and to build the social network.
This also seems to relate, as per Stan Parker' books (and the change management manuals) with the way changes is accepted within a group:
- 1) Blue Sky thinkers.
- 2) Early Adopters
- 3) Early majority
- 4) Late majority
- 5) Obstinate resisters.
As the early majority is attained, the late majority fall into line. So too could we look to the early cluster of socialist networks forming a new majority, and people coming on board to maintain social links, rather than through considered agreement.
Hi YMSThe SPGB insist on turning away those who do not fully understand the case for socialism. We all know how it goes, "We don't want your vote unless you fully understand…" etc etc.Where would that principle fit in?
My above post wasn't a dig at the SPGB or anything like that, just a genuine enquiry about how certain attitudes or approaches would interact with the idea of non socialists "coming on board".I can understand party members reluctance to discuss such delicate issues, fair enough.
Could have sworn I replied to this with two points:1) Party members are the blue sky thinkers, it's imjportant to have clarity and cohesion of message.2) Even if a joiner is broadly in agreement but has some quibbles over some parts of party policy, asking them to indicate agreement is encouraging a "pro-social(ist)" lie, that, again helps the network to grow.
I don't bother with management manuals, but I did figure out what "Blue sky thinkers" referred to.I still think the party line of "don't vote for us if you don't fully understand" clashes with this idea from a management manual of accepting people who are not fully on message. The reason I say this is because this concept of the spread of ideas is essentially a numbers game, the same as people voting for the SPGB at elections. Not everyone voting will be fully on board and telling them not to vote socialist unless they fully know what they are voting for is in direct conflict with the idea being presented here.I essentially go along with this idea, it matters not if the next wave of people are 100% on board, the more they rub shoulders with the ideas the more aware they will become over time and the more the idea is likely to gain acceptance further afield. But the SPGB policy of trying to turn away potential voters sends the wrong message and needs addressing But I think this a good topic to discuss as it moves the discussion of socialist ideas closer to putting some meat on the bones of our theoretical goal.
Young Master Smeet wrote:2) Even if a joiner is broadly in agreement but has some quibbles over some parts of party policy, asking them to indicate agreement is encouraging a "pro-social(ist)" lie, that, again helps the network to grow.Could this relate to socialists with spiritual beliefs?
SocialistPunk wrote:Could this relate to socialists with spiritual beliefs?No, cause we don't want people with spiritual beliefs to have a vote in the party.The interesting question is how an opinion spreads along a population. Stating 'we don't want your vote' foregrounds the issue of ideas, separates us from reformist groups and vote grubbers, and helps us as a tiny minority mark out a clear space: after all, the various pro-capitalist social networks already exist and need dismantling. I'll just add, this isn't a numbers game, we're discussing building links, and powerful links, which is different from mere nose counting.
Well I understand that YMS, but the relationship building will inevitably bring people into a broad socialist fold and some if not many of those people will have a spiritual belief. As socialism is democratic, those people will have a say in the growing movement. I don't want to get into the religious thing on this thread. It's just if this model were to act out we would find people, with what we see as problematic views, becoming part of the democratic movement towards socialism.The not wanting your vote policy, does indeed set us apart from the crowd, as it could possibly alienate us from that which we are seeking to propagate. A growing network of relationships based around socialist aims and principles etc.I think we'll have to disagree about the "numbers game" issue as I see that merely as a tool for encouraging links and support. The more votes socialism gets at elections the more people notice and take seriously. So it is only logical to openly accept those votes, rather than discourage them. So it isn't simply "nose counting" and if you see it that way you have missed the point and potential entirely.The WSM already has a fairly strict membership policy, so if a person who voted for the party sought to join but does not fully understand, then they wouldn't get in. However they could then be kept on a "nearly there" contact list and provided with info' and updated regularly etc. But saying don't vote for us unless you fully understand is negative and not in keeping with the inclusive positive message of socialism.
I don't think we should tell people not to vote for us. I think we should say "If you are opposed to capitalism then vote for the WSM candidate and if elected we will use the platform to counter the propoganda of the ruling class and publicise world socialism."
Indeed, the movement into the party, I'm sure as we become more hegemonic various Christian, Jewish and Islamic Socialist societies will spring up around us, and fair play to them, but not this party. We do ask people to vote for us, but we jkust want to warn them to be sure they know what they are voting for. Building a few strong links is better at the moment than many weak links.
YMS, I was hoping you could inform us of where people with a socialist political view ,yet with a spiritual belief, fit into the model provided. And once more I am not suggesting the party let those people "in".Also I am not sure the WSM has any strong links "at the moment" that would fit in with the model in question.I had thought this topic could have gone somewhere with respect to the possibilties of who and what and how the strong links fit into the expansion of influence etc, hence my questions were deliberately aimed at provoking discussion.Perhaps like most management jargonit iit sn't meant to be discussed and any questions are met with horror at the idea people are "not on message". Not a dig at you YMS just the management mumbo jumbo like "blue sky thinking", "pre-plan", "touch base" "going forward" etc. It gets us nowhere we didn't already know we weren't .
Well, the point of mentioning the model, was how it shows, in part, how ideas diffuse through a society, and how part of that diffusion isn't always abstract ratiocination, but sometimes pro-social behaviours. the trick is to get the pro-social behaviours to swing in our direction, so that people will begin to caolesce behind socialist ideas.For example, if Noam Chomsky suddenly joined the WSPUS we'd suddenly have a flood of applicants. this would be no bad thing, if we assume Chomsky were an honest applicant. We'd screen further applicants to check that they were honest, and probably exclude a lot, but we'd still grow the mass of our fringe fairly rapidly, especially those who would want to pose as cool and radical. This isn't, though, a model of party growth, but of processing and reacting to news, I just think it helps us think about how our ideas impact on community groups and spread through them.
There is also another point in raising this YMS. To generate discussion about the process and if it can be used to any advantage. Yet there is little interest from members, as I suspect many do not like the direction such a thread is ultimately heading towards. Party introspection.If as you say "the trick is to get the pro-social behaviours to swing in our direction", I think it a little self defeating for the SPGB to put up anti -pro-social messages, almost parading its exclusivity like a badge. I'm not trying to be unduly harsh on the party and have a go for the sake of it, I'm just pointing out the contradiction you are setting up here.I think most of the readers realised it isn't a model for party growth, if it were the party would probably have a lot more members as friends and family members sought to join. For example, just suppose all the existing members did not include couples as I'm sure there are a few, but for this social model we assume otherwise. Then we might expect the membership to be double what it is as each spouse or partner joined. Then if only one friend of each member were to join the membership would increase further and so on. So it is fairly obvious that the SPGB at present is failing to have any noticeable impact on community groups.It then comes back to "the trick" of finding ways to encourage the pro-social behaviours in communities to gravitate towards the SPGB and WSM.
Well, it's a different communications branch, butt here is something called "Costly signalling theory" (it's related to the article I posted at the beginning), which basically says that talk is cheap, so human groups have come up with energy expensive ways of demonstrating loyalty and communicative truthfulness. For example, people who attend church every week: they may be screaming hypocrits deep down, but if after may years of attending, they have invested so much in their church that it would be difficult for them to act in a way that would invalidate what that attendenace signals about them.Thuswise, for party members, we suddenly ask people to actively state, through writing or speech, their agreement with the party case. This is more costly than siomply filling in a membership form and ticking a box. We attach a value to membership (and to being able to at least explain the party case). Many years ago Armando Iannucci on one of his satirical shows managed to get Darth Vader and a Man in HIs Pants to join the Conservative Party: opportunism sets the bar very low.As a party, we forge intensive and strong links btween ourselves, because we're small and likely to be drowned out in the noise of other less rigorous parties.
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