Delanda and Decision Making

I'm about 50 pages into Manuel Delanda's A Thousand Years Of Nonlinear History and I'm pretty excited about it.

The thing that I see in it is a way to conceptualize individual decision making within materially and historically complex contexts.

Because with people like Foucault, who I love, we see the downplaying of the subject, the minimization of human decision making. Foucault's reasons for downplaying the role of the individual are understandable, as Johanna Oksala made clear to me in Foucault On Freedom. He was responding to phenomenological philosophy's tendency to ignore historical context in favor of introspection, to treat the subject as ahistorical. Foucault's histories may appear to ignore the subject, thus destroying any chance of conceptualizing freedom. But, on the contrary, his histories are meant to show us the limitations on our freedom so that we can choose with more efficacy. His explication of complex historical networks of languages and institutions is not meant to convince us that human freedom does not exist, but that it can only exist within this historically determined networks, that all of our thoughts and actions can only be historically constituted.

Foucault's choice to reduce the role of the subject in his histories, while understandable, leaves us with a challenge: How to arrive at a clear conception of human freedom while continuing to recognize the constitutive effects of languages and institutions?

I believe Delanda can help me with this. He argues that "to understand the role of decision making in the creation of social order, we need to concentrate not so much on the more or less rational character of individual decisions, but on the dynamics (centralized or decentralized) among many interacting decision makers" (43). He insists that we must take account of larger circumstances, the uncertainty of information, the difficulties that people have in knowing exactly what they are deciding, all of which can be summed up in the term 'friction'. He claims that to remove friction "from our models (by postulating an optimizing rationality, for instance) automatically eliminates the possibility of capturing any real dynamical effect (41). This comes remarkably close to Clausewitz's conception of friction as a force that can never be perfectly defined by theory, but which will always be a factor in decision making, all of those minor mishaps and events that lower the general level of achievement in a military campaign, or in any type of decision making, for that matter. Nonlinearity is also a major factor in Clausewitz, so Alan Beyerchan argues.

What I really need from Delanda, therefore, is a way to create a model of decision making that takes account of both the material and the ideal, of the physical structures of matter-energy around us and the languages, institutions, and ideas that give those material structures their unique cultural coloring.

Interestingly, this is precisely the task I am working on in AZI. I am working on developing a philosophical model of decision making that can then be applied to political, military, and civilian educational systems. The crux of the model, of course, will be the idea of experience, synthetic experience, and different forms of simulation that can provide such a synthetic experience.

Hmmmmm.

How curious.

But this is also where I see my work on Collingwood going. I am still reflecting on The New Leviathan, and the current part of AZI is an examination of political/aesthetic themes in Collingwood's final monographs. I hope to show that Collingwood's work was heading in the same direction, that his work implies the need to come up with a model of decision making and a method of educating that type of decision making.

So, there is something very serious going on in Delanda's work. I can't wait to see where this book leads me. How it leads me closer to Deleuze. How it leads me towards a synthesis of materialism and idealism. How it helps me in this task of properly conceptualized choice and the education of judgement.

Because I see myself pursuing work in the space where Collingwood, Clausewitz, and Foucault collide. Perhaps Delanda will be a crucial part of this attempt to synthesize these authors.

I'm Trying Not To Buy Books But I Failed Tonight!

I just bought a copy of Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought. Should be incredibly relevant to my interests, duh.

Should put me in contact with yet another monster of twentieth-century philosophy, duh.

Not sure when I'll get to it, obvi.

But I imagine that it has a lot to offer me and I'm excited to have the option of looking at it whenever I want.

Not blogging much these days because I'm busy, son.

I have, however, written the first page or two of the final part of AZI.

I will begin by examining Collingwood's final books, trying to see if there is a consistent relationship between politics and aesthetics in his late work.

I will argue that Collingwood's thinking can only lead to an attempt to theorize individual decision making, and inevitably, a theory of the education of the individual capacity for decision making.

In other words, I believe that Collingwood's project must be brought to bear on the Clausewtizian project of revolutionizing the relationship between history and philosophy, history and theory.

Collingwood's work must culminate in a project of figuring out how to properly educate the political elites and the citizenry alike.

This means building a theory of decision making out of the fragments of aesthetic, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural analyses found in Collingwood's late work.

This man died before he was able to articulate such a thing. I want to take it on myself to carry his work to its logical end, to the theory of political education. For, as Collingwood insists, "The life of politics is the life of political education" (The New Leviathan, 260).

How does one carry out the political education of both the ruling elite and the citizenry, therefore, is the question that must be raised in response to Collingwood's final books. And it is the question I intend to answer with a little help from my friends, Clausewitz, Foucault, and Collingwood himself.

For I aim to be a Clausewitzian, a Foucaultian, and perhaps above all, a Collingwoodian.

The Science and Art of Minds: Theory and Practice in the Social World

I fell apart at the end of this essay. There is so much to articulate here. But I'm so tired and can't muster my thoughts right now and want to be done with this one. I finished it. But there should be sub sections in each chapter, but I can't do that right now.

Table of Contents:

1.

Military Theory and the Relationship Between Theory and Practice

2.

Life and Decision Making as the Art of Minds

3. Theory of Mind as the Science of Minds

4. The Conflict Between the Art and Science of Minds

5. Uniting the Science and Art of Minds: Zen and the Creative Application of Principles

6. The Content of a Theory of Mind: Science and Genealogical History

7. The Application of a Theory of Mind: Theoretically Supported Study of Our Own and Other People's Experience

This essay has been prompted by my essay of 8/30/10 called 'The Genealogy of the Modern Mind'. In that essay I tried to argue that theory of mind needed to be conceptualized as a fundamentally historical project that should be focused on the study of the humanities. I tried to explain how history was essential to the construction of a theoretical body of knowledge about minds. I then tried to argue that this body of theory should be applied primarily to the study of the humanities with the goal of acquiring synthetic experience that would lead to an increased capacity for empathy and judgment.

I am now realizing that I can perhaps frame these difficulties in terms of science and art. Frankly, I think that these two terms are inadequate and are partially escaping my grasp at this point. But the general idea is that with theory of mind there is a noticeable tension between theory and practice. Theory of mind seems to amount to a body of theoretical knowledge that is constructed primarily out of scientific and philosophical evidence. But the application of that theory is not clear. So when I say the science of minds I am generally referring to the creation of systematic knowledge about minds. But I think that the real application of that theory can only happen through daily life and decision making, through the art of minds. And right here I am exploring the idea that daily life and social decision making can be considered an art of minds. If that phrase is appropriate. At this moment I sort of like it.

I suppose right now I'm not necessarily exploring the historical component of theory of mind. I do believe that I made some alright arguments about why history has to be incorporated into theory of mind. Interestingly, I think it needs to be incorporated at both levels – both in the construction of theoretical knowledge about minds and in the application of that theory to the study of the humanities.

But here I suppose I am more interested in exploring this relationship between technical knowledge (science/theory) and practical and creative living (practice/art). I want to explore this relationship both generally and specifically as it relates to theory of mind. First I am going to explain how military theory initially introduced me to the theory/practice, science/art dichotomy and the solution that I favor. Then I'd like to elaborate on this idea that theory of mind is somehow the science of minds, and that real living and decision making is an art of minds. After that I'll try to use zen to explain how the science of minds can be applied to the art of minds (i.e. how theory of mind can help us make better decisions in the social world). After that I'll attempt to more clearly restate the ideas that I first came upon in my GOMM essay. I'll try to explain succinctly how theoretical knowledge of minds needs to be constructed of both scientific knowledge about brains/minds and from historical knowledge that tells us about the contemporary states of minds. Lastly I'll try to explain more clearly how this theory of mind (which is both scientific and historical) should be applied to the study of the humanities with the goal of improving sensitivity, empathy, and intuitive judgment.

Military Theory and the Relationship Between Theory and Practice

So the conflict between theory and practice, and some solutions to the problem, have been highlighted by my work in military history. Military decision making has two traits that make it valuable in this discussion of theory and practice – it is a field that involves an overwhelming amount of practical decision making, and it has been subjected to a plethora of theorizing. This makes it a very useful field for gauging this relationship between theory and practice. Another important thing to note is that military practice is often about decision making. Because my main concern here is the theory and practice of social decision making, military history offers a nice lens for this focus on decision making.

There are two military theorists that I want to discuss, both of which I learned about from Jon Sumida, Alfred Mahan and Carl von Clausewitz. Both of these authors were concerned primarily with the education of command ability – they wanted to figure out the best way to train people to make difficult military decisions. Both authors were also concerned with how theoretical/technical knowledge could be used to train the decision making ability of commanders. The biggest problem in educating command with theory has to do with the role of language: theory relies entirely on language, while command decision making relies mostly on intuition, which is decision making without the aid of language and rationality. So the problem becomes bridging this gap between the strictly articulable nature of theory with the intuitive nature of command decision making. How to use language to train a form of decision making that doesn't rely on language?

Then the question for military theory becomes that of intuition. How is intuition trained? How do you train this creative and intuitive form of decision making? The short answer is experience. You need experience in order to get better at intuitive decision making. So then the crucial thing becomes the relationship between theory and experience: How does theory help describe experience? How does theory help us learn from experience? How does theory help us replicate/synthesize experience?

Mahan and Clausewitz both posed different sorts of answers to this question of how to best use theory to learn from experience. My understanding of Mahan is rough and only second hand from Sumida's book. My understanding of Clausewitz is a bit better because I have read large portions of his writing. That being said, Mahan believed that technical and theoretical knowledge could be used to help us learn more from actual experience. Further, Mahan also believed that history could be a source of experience that theory could help us learn from. Mahan believed that by learning the technical and theoretical aspects of command, and applying them to the study of historical and real experience, one could learn to exercise the art of command. So for Mahan the study of scientific ideas was meant only to improve your ability to exercise the art of decision making. Sumida compares Mahan's views on theory and experience to zen. Sumida says that zen similarly provides rules for conduct, but that they must be applied only loosely and leave room for judgment and creativity. I'll explore this comparison to zen more closely when I talk about theory of mind more closely.

Clausewitz also believed that theoretical and technical knowledge was useful only so long as it facilitated an education that was grounded in experience. Clausewitz, however, believed that history could not only help us learn from experience, but that history could provide an adequate substitute for experience. He believed that historical study combined with intelligent theoretical historical surmise could provide a synthetic experience of sorts. If we were to study history with the intention of reenacting/simulating the thoughts of past commanders we would be gaining access to the difficulties of high command and thus a synthetic experience.

So based on what Mahan and Clausewitz said about military theory I want to make a few things clear. 1. Military decision making is about the social world and therefore cannot be a matter of applying rigid technical or theoretical ideas, but rather intuitive decision making. 2. Because military command requires intuition it has to be trained primarily through experience. 3. Theoretical knowledge thus has to be directed towards either the acquisition of real experience or synthetic experience. 4. Because it is about intuitive decision making it is akin to an art form, the art of command social decision making.

So then, military theory offers me a model of how to conceptualize the relationship between scientific/theoretical knowledge and the art/practice of decision making. I want to import these general conclusions to what I am calling the science and art of minds. I'm trying to explain how there exists a similar gap between theory and practice with theory of mind. I think that decision making in the social world, like in the military world, has to be intuitive and creative. This means that experience is also a valued commodity in the social world just like it is in the military world. I will therefore argue that theory of mind has to be directed at the acquisition of real experience or synthetic experience. And I think that because social decision making is intuitive and creative, and because it revolves mainly around minds, can be considered an art of minds. So then from here, using this model from military theory, I'm going to talk about how to unite the science/theory of minds with the art/practice of minds. How to unite theoretical knowledge about minds with their practical engagement in the social world.

First I'm going to dwell for a bit longer on this notion of social decision making as the art of minds. Then I'm going to spend some time with this idea of theory of mind as a body of scientific knowledge. So I just want to really ground these terms art and science in theory of mind. From there I will explain the connection to zen more clearly. After that I'm going to rehash what this has to do with a genealogical theory of mind that is aimed at acquiring synthetic experience for the purpose of becoming more sensitive.

Life and Decision Making as the Art of Minds

So how is it that life can be considered an art form? Is it possible that all of life and decision making can be an art form? If so, can it be considered an art of minds? My sense for all of this is yes. Life can indeed be an art form, and it can be an art form that is executed as an art of minds.

I think there are probably two different things I want to talk about to make my case for this. I think this is probably weak evidence, but I'm very new to this idea that life is the art of minds. But I will talk about Foucault's notion of the 'aesthetics of existence', and then I'll talk about Collingwood and the few parts of The Principles of Art that I have looked at.

Now in The Use of Pleasure Foucault discusses ancient Greek sexual practices. He talks about how their major concern was not to master their desires, but to use pleasure. They were engaging in self-disciplined use of food, alcohol, and sex. This self-disciplined engagement with pleasure was meant to build a beautiful reputation. Foucault claims that they were engaging in this disciplined lifestyle so that they could have a beautiful reputation in their community that would then allow them to exercise political power with more authority, and it would allow them to leave a beautiful legacy for future generations. Foucault says that this can be called an aesthetics of existence. Why does art need to stop at painting, sculpting, or the other accepted mediums? Why can't life itself become a form of creative expression? Why can't life be an art form? The ancient Greeks provide some strong evidence that life can indeed become an art form, that it is possible to try and beautify your existence for yourself and for those around you.

Now accept for a moment that life can indeed be an art form. Accept that there is such a thing as the aesthetics of existence. Ask the question, How would this aesthetics of existence be actualized? Or how is any aesthetic affect realized? It would be realized in the mental world. How could this aesthetics of existence exist anywhere other than in minds? The art would be taking place in the mind of the individual that is trying to build a beautiful reputation and existence, and it would take place in the minds of the individuals who recognized that someone had achieved a beautiful existence. In short, based on this short line of reasoning I feel comfortable concluding that life can be considered the art of minds. It would be a way to produce a beautiful life both in your own mind and in the minds of others.

But I will corroborate this slightly with what I have read in Collingwood's The Principles of Art. Collingwood basically says that art has to meet two criteria: it has to be expressive and imaginative. I think that Collingwood also says that art has to be 'language' of some sort, which does not mean just words. Anything can be language. Now what is to prevent me from thinking that life and the decisions that are made in life cannot be both expressive, imaginative, and linguistic? Well, my essay On Creativity was a lot of fun to write and I really feel like I made a good case that all of life, language, and decision making could be creative. I also feel that life and decision making can be expressive, imaginative, and creative. I plan on reading The Principles of Art once I finish what I'm reading right now. But even my skimming seems to suggest that life itself can be an art in Collingwood's eyes. Furthermore, with Collingwood's emphasis on minds, I have no problem concluding that living and making decisions in the social world should be considered the art of minds.

I also want to point out real quickly that I have already said in numerous places that minds function intuitively. That the art of minds is not something that could happen deliberately or rationally. We have to learn to do this sort of expressive and creative social interaction on an intuitive level.

Now let me talk about how theory of mind is more so the science of minds.

Theory of Mind as the Science of Minds

Now here when I am talking about science I mean it in in its most general form. Even with that being said, I fear that the term doesn't quite apply to what I'm talking about here. But I'm talking about science as the production of a systematized body of knowledge that is supposed to achieve the full explanation of a phenomena, and often the prediction of that phenomena, and even prescription for action within that phenomena.

So is theory of mind really a science of mind? For one thing I can say that theory of mind draws primarily on scientific and technical information. Theory of mind typically uses the results of neuroscience or psychology, and also utilizes armchair thought experiments. But in any case, theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge. Alvin Goldman does say explicitly that he is trying to create a comprehensive theory of mind. What that means, I'm not sure.

In this section I'm going to make a quick concession: I think this term is 1. eluding my grasp for the most part, and 2. probably inadequate for what I'm trying to talk about.

Basically I'm just saying here that theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge that relies primarily on scientific evidence. And it is therefore in contrast to the actual practice of minds.

I think that calling theory of mind a science of mind will make more sense if I explain the conflict between the science and art of minds.

The Conflict Between the Art and Science of Minds

What I'm trying to talk about is how theory of mind is a clearly articulated body of knowledge about minds. It is always rooted in language, in articulation. And seeing that real interaction of minds functions primarily on an intuitive level (i.e. it functions without language), there is conflict between the theory and practice of minds. I am using the terms science and art to highlight the conflict between the theory and practice of minds.

Having established that engaging with minds can be an art, I want to figure out how to contrast that well. Mahan talked about the art and science of command. So I am talking about the art and science of minds. But I don't know if that makes sense.

But again, the point is this: theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge that does not translate into real action in any clear way. Theory of mind is incapable of providing any kind of prescriptive action for the real world of minds. So there is a clear conflict between the theory of minds and the practice of minds. I want to specify the pragmatics of theory of mind more clearly. That is why these terms science and art are useful right now. Because I'm trying to explain how social decision making is an intuitive, creative, and expressive process that is akin to an art form, but that theory of mind is a systematized and articulated body of knowledge that has no direct connection to actual practice of minds, which is something like a science. So I'm using this dichotomy of science/art to explain how I want to turn theory of mind into a practical guide to daily living. I'm trying to unite the science and the art of minds. I'm trying to make it so that theory of mind can help us exercise the art of minds. I think this can be done. But it is tricky. I'm struggling with it, obviously. As I should be, right?

So generally the conflict is between theory of mind and the practice of minds: theory of mind is a clearly articulated and scientific body of knowledge, but the practice of minds is an intuitive process of social interaction that does not rely on language or reason. Theory of mind is like a science, while living in the world of minds is something like an art. Theory of mind does not lead to any obvious form of action. So I want to find a way to make this science of minds helpful in the art of minds.

I'm going to move on and try to clarify how I want to do this. I'm going to explain this unification of the science and art of minds in three sections. First, I'm going to scrape the surface a little bit with a reference to zen. Then I'm going to talk about how I want to reconfigure the body of theory that a theory of mind would use. Then I'll talk exactly about how I think it should be applied.

Uniting the Science and Art of Minds: Zen and the Creative Application of Principles

I only want to briefly compare this whole thing to zen. I haven't read nearly enough on zen, so I won't even try to make this clear or long. But I will say that when I read Jon Sumida's book on Alfred Mahan, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command, I was struck by the way that zen can be applied to this issue of the 'science' and 'art' of something. Sumida describes how Mahan's views on naval command were similar to the way that zen approaches formal propositions. Mahan believed that formal rules could not be rigidly applied to command decision making. They rather had to be used as a set of principles that allowed room for flexibility and creative judgment. Zen regards moral principles in the same way. Zen has a certain number of things that it holds to be true about good or proper living. But these rules are never to be rigidly applied to life. They are to be applied loosely, flexibly, and creatively. Judgment is supreme, and rules are only useful so long as they aid in the process of judgment.

I think that theory of mind should have a similar goal in mind. I think that theory of mind should come up with a series of propositions about the ways that minds work. It should explain as best we can how they work, and how we can interact with them. But theory of mind can never be prescriptive, so it needs to be an aid to judgment. The social world is about exercising judgment in relations of minds. But I bet theory of mind could be an aid to judgment in the social world, the world of minds.

But what principles should theory of mind use? Let me explore.

The Content of a Theory of Mind: Science and Genealogical History

I think that a theory of mind should consist of at least two elements that are somewhat distinct. The first is what theory of mind typically revolves around: scientific and philosophical evidence. Theory of mind typically draws on evidence from psychology, neuroscience, and general philosophical arguments. These traditional elements are crucial to theory of mind, obviously. The discovery of mirror neurons, neuroplasticity, all kinds of psychological experiments–all of this offers a lot to a theory of mind.

But I believe that a theory of mind also has to contain historical information. It needs to use genealogical historical methods to try and figure out what exactly is going on with minds in the present. It needs to figure out what minds in the past were like, and use that information to determine how minds have developed historically, and exactly how they are functioning in this historical moment. Culture has so much to do with minds, I don't see any way that a theory of mind could really function without historical study.

So I'm proposing that the content of theory of mind needs to be expanded to include historical information. I argued all of this in my essay 'The Genealogy of the Modern Mind'.

The Application of a Theory of Mind: Theoretically Supported Study of Our Own and Other People's Experience

So, I've told you in these last two sections that theory of mind needs to be regarded as a loose set of rules and principles that are to be intuitively and creatively applied in the social world as aids to judgment, and that a theory of mind can't possibly be adequate unless it uses historical evidence in conjunction with scientific evidence and philosophical argument. Now I just want to explain briefly how I think this theory of mind should be used as an aid to the study of our own and other people's experience. I think that the study of our own experience can be accomplished through mindfulness and reflection, while the study of other people's experience is to be found in the humanities and in social interaction. The goal with all of this talk of theory of mind is to make it so that theory of mind becomes part of our unconscious decision making apparatus. We need to make it so that theoretical lessons are absorbed into the mind at an unconscious level so that we can simply act those ways intuitively.

I think that the best way to absorb theory into the unconscious is by engaging in deliberate reflection on our own thought and deliberate simulation on other people's thoughts. In other words, we can't make our actions reflect our theoretical values unless we are willing to engage in mindfulness and empathy. Unless we take the time to really think about our own minds and think about other people's minds we won't be able to intuitively enact our moral values.

So we can use theory of mind to equip our minds with a conceptual tool kit that is both scientific and historical. We would learn about simulation theory, about mirror neurons and empathy, about social classifications, about the history of our thought. But that theoretical knowledge about minds isn't any good unless we can somehow transform it into the art of minds. It isn't any help unless it helps us live differently in the social world. We act intuitively in the social world, so we need to use it to transform our intuitive behavior. I think that is best done through reflection on our own experience and through the acquisition of synthetic experience from the humanities.

I'm so tired from starting my new job and from being stressed out and confused. I can't think clearly and want to publish this essay. I'm exploring fruitful things here. I'm articulating good stuff about how theory of mind needs to be reconceptualized both in terms of content and pragmatics. But I don't care to chase this post anymore. I want it to be done. I'll leave my original notes below. I'll stop here.

Original Notes of 9/1/10

- Theoretical ideas and being primed to learn from our own experience

- Mahan and learning from our own experience

- The humanities and synthetic experience

- Sensitivity

- Judgement

Zen and principles as guides to learning from experience. Principles as a means of creativity. These are some questions prompted by GOMM

This is really about the theory of mind. What are the propositions that theory of mind elaborates? And what are there use? What is the body of theory like? What is the use of that body of theory? Theory of mind has to be a zen like project.

Life is an art. Theory of mind is a science. But. Just like Mahan and Clausewitz, you can't have this type of theory for minds. You need a theory of mind that 1. helps you learn from real experience better and 2. helps you gain synthetic experience

The Macro and the Micro Perpsectives of Military History: The Social System and the Individual Under Stress

This doesn't necessarily even need to be a long or elaborate post. The bottom line is that I am rediscovering military history as a major interest of mine. I majored in military history as an undergraduate. I encountered a great professor who equipped me with a brand new set of skills to help me read non-fiction. So when I finished up undergrad I went wild and started reading a ton of non-fiction.

I've been reading lots of philosophy of mind, lots of neuroscience related stuff, a bit of stuff about physics, a bit of stuff about Buddhist mindfulness, a bit of this and that. I have been reading a wide variety of different things since I graduated. Most of them not pertaining to military history.

Then when I read Foucault's Discipline & Punish I was compelled to return to it. Foucault's interest in war and militaries during that period of his work was new to me. I wasn't aware that he was writing so explicitly about war. So when I read D&P I was really surprised to see all these references to war and militaries. I now feel that it is something I may need to pursue more seriously.

I find it interesting to think about how most people think of military history. Many people have told me that they assume I would 1. love to watch the history channel, 2. hold conservative political views, 3. generally be a meathead or a war lover.

But military history is such a dynamic field and has the potential to illuminate so many different aspects of the world. War is so central to everything that has happened in history. What is this bad rap that military history has? Why is it a marginalized field? Well, since the military is an exclusive institution, it seems that the study of war and military institutions also became an exclusive field. It was something that was written by military men for military men.

But in this writing I'm going to explore something different. I'm going to explore two different ways that military history can provide a more general perspective on social life. First I'm going to talk about the macro perspective that military history can provide, the way that it can give us greater insight into society at large. Then I'm going to talk about the micro perspective it can give us on individual lives, how it can help us understand the nature of life and decision making on the individual level. The macro and the micro perspectives of military history. In both instances military history allows us to see how both society and individuals respond to stress.

Often I read things about how extreme cases can provide insight into normal cases. How damaged brains provide us clues about normal brains. And in this case I want to talk about how the extremes of war and military institutions can provide us with insight into normal social life. Looking at war to understand peace. Looking at battle to understand normal decision making.

The Macro Perspective of Military History: War and Society Under Stress

So the basic idea in this section is that by studying war we can gain insight into how society functions in general. War is often followed by great periods of social change. When war breaks out commonly accepted social categories are shaken up, and in the aftermath people may have a greater perspective on their place within the nation. I am going to explore this in two parts. These two parts actually correspond to some of the experiences I had with the relationship between war and social change. First, I'm going to talk about my senior thesis project which was on this issue of the relationship between war and social change. Second, I'm going to talk about a sociology of war class I took that clarified this relationship between war and social change. The first part, my senior project was more about the how of war and social change, while this course made me understand the why of war and social change. In other words, my project looked at a historical example and the particular changes that resulted, while this course looked at the overarching causality of war and social change.

So, my senior thesis project was the first time that I pushed myself to think about the relationship between war and social change. My paper was called "Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the American Occupation of Germany After World War II." The general premise was that WWII and the occupation caused a great upheaval in these categories of race, gender, and sexuality. The war and the occupation caused these categories to transform and I was examining how individuals expressed this reconfiguration of these categories. I focused closely on the way that race served as a focal point for the categories of gender and sexuality. My thinking got a bit clumsy because I was treating German and Jewish identity as if it were a race. But I believe this is somewhat appropriate because in the wake of WWII the German people were used to thinking of themselves as a race of sorts. So, the notions of race and nationalism became a little bit tangled in my analysis.

But in any case, I handled the whole thing by looking at three different racial/national groups, and then two subsets within each group. I looked primarily at American soldiers, German civilians, and Jewish displaced person. In this categories I looked at black and white American soldiers, German men and women, and Jewish men and women. In each case I found that race/national identity almost always served as a focal point for conceptions of gender and sexuality. So that for American soldiers gender roles and sexual standards were different for black and white soldiers. For German civilians both men and women established their sense of gender and sexuality in relation to their German identity. And for Jewish displaced persons both men and women thought of their gender and sexuality in relation to their sense of Jewishness. I'm going to post this paper on this blog soon. But this is a very cursory summary of what I did.

The point of it all was to examine the way that war and trauma forced people to reconceptualize social classifications. This was something that I ended up doing on my own with very little real direction. My research was all over the place, totally scattered. All I knew was that I was doing a project on the occupation. But then I also happened to be taking sociology of sexuality at the same time. So, I ended up doing this project and managed to combine my interests in military history and social classifications.

I ended up stumbling on this idea that war is a major catalyst for social transformation. That by studying war we can gain certain insights into peacetime relations. If peace is relatively stable, and classifications change gradually, then how are we to understand that stability? Well, I'm proposing that war shows us ways that things have changed, ways that things have been violently changed and transformed. These violent transformations caused by war then gel in peacetime. So, this project led me to suspect that if we study war we can gain insight into the nature of peace. As my professor said, military history shows the system under stress. It shows how classifications and individual change when put to the test of war. It shows how peacetime conceptions were forged in war.

While I had these more general ideas about war and social change, I was only grounded in a particular instance. I was looking at how it happened in post-war Germany. I didn't have much of a sense of causation, I had very little sense of why war was doing this to social classifications.

Then I took a class called sociology of war and I met an interesting professor who gave me some insights into why war would cause such great social upheaval. His work was centered around the relationship between war, citizenship, and social inequality. He was trying answer questions like, Why does war cause individuals to fight for more equality? Why does war often serve as a catalyst for greater awareness of social inequality?

The answer revolves around the relationship between national equality and forms of inequality that are lesser than the nation. When war breaks out almost every member of society is told that they must make the ultimate sacrifice for the nation. Men must fight, women must contribute, so on. Individuals, however, are still segregated by classifications that are secondary to nationhood. Black soldiers in WWII, for example, were told they had to fight for freedom and democracy, but were still placed in segregated units and given unequal pay. The same can be said for women, they were told to sacrifice for the nation, but still received worse treatment than men.

So when you call people to war on the basis of nationhood and then treat people unequally based on other classifications (such as race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) you make these other forms of inequality pretty apparent. When you tell people that they are nationally equal they are going to notice inequality in these other areas. Fascinating stuff. Makes me think state service might be a good thing because it would give people more knowledge of inequality and thus might lead to greater equality.

In any case, my senior project and this course convinced me of at least one thing: If you want to figure out why the current social order exists in the current way that it does, take a look at the last major war and see how it upset and reconfigured the social order. If we look at war we can a very meaningful macro perspective on social process, and why they are the way they are.

I've also had this stuff confirmed by Foucault's work on military history that I have been reading. He talks about 'politics as the continuation of war by other means'. The basic idea being that politics, peacetime politics, is nothing more than a way of maintaining the social order that was established by the last major war. Same conclusion: if you want to understand the current social order check out the last major war and see what it established, and if that is indeed why things are in their current state. A friend pointed out that Germany and Japan are not on the UN security council due to WWII. So much of what is happening now is because of the fall out of WWII. Our political climate is perhaps just the continuation of what was established by WWII. But I shouldn't be too careless making big statements like that.

So much for the macro perspective of military history. The point is that by looking at the history of war we see society under stress and we can gain some insight into why it is the way it is.

Let me now turn to the micro perspective.

The Micro Perspective of Military History: War and the Individual Under Stress

In this section I'm exploring the same basic idea: That studying the history of war and military institutions can provide insights into normal life. By observing society and the individual under the stress of war we can learn some things about how life works in general. In particular, I am curious about how studying the process of decision making in war can prompt insights about decision making in daily life. This is something that my favorite professor turned me onto with his work on philosophy of war.

My professor was doing work on a very well known book by Carl von Clausewitz called On War. The book is essentially an attempt to teach individuals how to use history to teach themselves how to exercise better judgment during wartime. Clausewitz is someone I have written and thought quite a lot about. But I'll briefly rehash some major points.

Clausewitz wanted to find a way to make a general theory of war that would be pedagogically useful for officers and high-commanders. Clausewitz also believed, however, that war was too complex of a process for theory to function in the positivist sense of prescription and prediction. That is to say that war is far too complex for theory to fulfill the role that it typically has in the natural sciences. It must, rather, service as an aid to judgment and creative problem solving.

And this is where we can gain some insight into individual decision making by looking at decision making in war. Clausewitz believed that the complex nature of war meant that rationality and language could not be the primary means of reaching a decision in war. War was just far too large, too complex, too full of incomplete information and contingencies to be handled by logical thought. Clausewitz agreed with Napoleon when he said that Newton himself would cower in front of the equations that military decision making would demand. Moreover, it has been argued that Clausewitz actually predicted non-linearity, and believed that war could simply not be broken down into straight forward mathematical or logical propositions. I wonder if that has anything to do with quantum physics.

Anyways, because war cannot be handled by language and reason, the question becomes: How do these great commanders do it, then? Clearly military geniuses are capable of arriving at brilliant and decisive decisions about these complex situations, so how is it done?

The short answer is intuition. Clausewitz called it 'genius' and described it with a french phrase Coup d'oeil which means 'stroke of the eye' In any case, the bottom line is that complex decisions have to be made by a sort of unconscious decision making process. Clausewitz believed you had to rely on the deeper parts of the mind that were capable of making sense of these enormously complex situations. Most importantly, a commander has to be able to make a clear articulable decision, and to be able to maintain his faith in himself. He cannot falter in his decision. He just has to give the order and trust himself.

Once we identify intuition as the central method of decision making in war, the question becomes: How do we train intuition? The short answer is experience. Experience can give you the comfort that you need to be able to act intuitively and creatively in spite of danger and uncertainty.

But what if there is no experience to be had? What if there is a long peace? Well Clausewitz believed that historical study could provide an adequate substitute for experience if need be. He believed that if theory were used to expand conventional historical narratives that individuals could engage in a critical study of past command decision making experiences. By critically exploring and expanding historical narratives with the aid of theory, individuals could expose their mind to many of the intellectual and emotional difficulties that high command would offer.

I won't go much further into Clausewitz. My post of 4/30/10 offers a similar and more detailed treatment of Clausewitz, and all of this is essentially summarized from Jon Sumida's Decoding Clausewitz and my own experience with reading On War.

I more so want to reflect on the general lessons that this has to offer for us. How does this help us think about decision making in life in general? Four points. First, decision making is more often a function of intuition than anything else. Second, experience is the number one way that intuition can be improved. Third, history (and other humanities/social sciences) can provide something like a synthetic experience that can aid in the education of intuitive judgment. Fourth, the theoretical/experiential lessons gained from historical study (or from any social study) are not to be applied rigidly, but are to be used as an aid to creative judgment.

First point, intuition is the best way to make decisions both in war and daily life. In my daily life I really believe that I operate on the intuitive level. I think that I often am acting unreflectively and am going with my gut. There typically just isn't enough time to think about these things. You just have to react in most social situations. Whether it is conversation, customer service, or whatever, intuition has to be the driving force. In my recent essay called On Creativity I touched on some of this stuff, and only now am I seeing the clear connection to intuition and Clausewitz's discussion of it. To think that we are rational beings is a mistake, I think. I feel more intuitive, I feel less reflective, I feel less robotic than that makes it seems like we should be.

Second point, just like war, experience with life improves intuition. It doesn't seem like intuition gets improved in other ways except through experience. I became more creative at conversation and customer service once I got more experience with it. I didn't become more comfortable with a lot of things, and doing them intuitively, until I had experience with them. Experience is such a great teacher, and also such a treat to engage in. Experience is so much fun, and we learn so much from it. We can only become more intuitive if we gain lots of experience. We need to be intuitive, so we need to get lots of experiences.

Third point, just like with war, history and the humanities can provide synthetic experience. I really believe that fiction and the humanities can make people very good intuitive decision makers and generally very sensitive people. I think that this is because history, fiction, philosophy, etc., can all provide a taste of other people's experiences. I think we can gain a synthetic experience that can help us improve our intuition from these disciplines. We can read novels and feel all kinds of weird emotions and experiences, I think we can read history and feel for other people's troubles. And I think all of that is useful because it can improve our intuitive judgment in daily life. If you doubt the imagination's ability to provide something like experience then look into what Alvin Goldman calls the 'Enactment-imagination'. Or check out my essay of 4/30/10. It seems well documented that the imagination can have a substantial effect on the brain that would improve intuitive judgment by providing us with a synthetic experience.

Last point, that the insight of the application of theory to war is applicable to the rest of social life; we can't rigidly apply theoretical ideas to social life, we have to use them as aids to creative judgment. The social sciences, the humanities, it all is saturated with theory of sorts. But a loose theory. The best way to use this theory would be to use it 1. to help us study the humanities with greater efficacy, and 2. to instill it in our minds as a sort of unconscious tool kit that would aid in intuitive judgment. Theory becomes a guide to our education and also a guide to our decision making. Theory cannot be rigidly applied to any aspect of the social world, it can only help us be more creative, it can only help us exercise our intuitive judgment in new ways.

Conclusion

I like the way this essay turned out. I think I gave an interesting account of how military history offers general insights into the social world at large, both in war and peace. On the macro level we can use war to understand why the social order exists the way it does, why war changes things, and how politics works to keep those changes implemented. On the micro level we can use military history to understand that decision must be intuitive, that it must be improved by experience, that the humanities can improve judgment through synthetic experience, and that theory must be a loose set of principles that aid in creative judgment. I think that all of these insights are really helpful, and it shocks me how fruitful of a field military history seems to be. I believe that this micro perspective, these insights into the nature of decision making and education, are extremely important. I think we need to start integrating these kinds of insights into our daily thinking. We need to recognize that military history can teach us a lot about how social decisions are made and how we can learn to make more creative social decisions. I think that by checking out society and the individual under stress we can learn a lot about how the social world functions. Cause really, is war not human beings in their most intense social environment? Does military history not provide a perspective on society and individuals who have been pushed to the maximum degree? Can you imagine a more extreme social environment that offers insights into the general social environment? To me this seems like the best use of military history. To offer insights into the world at large. But I am an amateur and don't mean to make such bold statements. But I'm just so curious about this field these days. I'm really reconnecting with it intellectually.