[PEN-L:33512] Re: extra terrestrial interventions.

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Chris Burford writes,
And materialism needs dialectics. We do not need visitors from outer space
to explain human history. We should look to its evolving internal
contradictions.

Doyle
What is odd about such groups is that they can form in these times and
sustain themselves in an on-going way for decades and grow.  It is a very
good example of how many people aren't drawn by scientific realism to a
group.  They are drawn by an ecology of emotional connection that was
organized by some core group and maintained as a means of keeping the group
functioning.

The point being that truth or more clearly word production and emotion
production systems are not closely bound in cognition systems.  With
Marxists, the dialectic is one way that left groups have tried to find
material reality.  Recognizing that no one has an absolute monopoly on the
truth, communist organizations find themselves watching groups form, in
which variations on word production and meaning appear.  Finding a way out
of the conflicts between groups has been typically difficult.  And
internally to communist the conflict between groups in the organization can
bloody.

I think we can look at emotion structure as a form of information
production.  It is difficult to understand emotion structure in the sense we
understand word structure.  We can readily write words.  We can't so easily
think of representing emotions in a viable way.  Emotion structure is what
small religious cults engage in building.  This binds their groups together
irrespective of what the left engages in as a dialectic around finding word
meaning realism.  They have no means to engage in finding a truth structure
in words as groups form.  Groups form around how membership feels.

A religious group forms around some stories about the meaning of things, but
has no means to make that understanding 'fit' material reality.   That is
one example of dogma.  Finding a means to make the material reality
reflected in what word production is being done in a group is one reason
left groups have been successful.  Being realistic has some powerful
elements to sustain a political movement.  That is the weakness of religious
cults.  But what is the emotion structure that left groups are making?

Emotion structure is the primary force that binds groups.  It is not an
immaterial process of subjectivity.  There is a definite system of laws to
emotions.  Time and space specificity.  Identity of who you are dealing
with.  If you know someone you trust that someone.  We all sort of know
those 'values'.  But production of those elements?  In what sense do the
media produce emotion structure?  What compares newspapers with movies, tv,
radio, electronic media?

Binding groups via how people feel in the group is a relative unknown in
Marxism.  We have theories about a dialectic which are 'word' realism
theories about how to find word meaning in group processes, but we don't
have theories of emotion structure to explain what is happening with group
emotion formation.  I say that because we constantly run into 'cults'
'sects', etc. which function in competition with each other and a larger
amorphous left public.  An economic analysis of group emotion structure
would be able to tell us a number of elements of emotion structure in groups
that would aid us in forming great national movements.  I have suggested one
factor in economic analysis.  Groups that form by breaking the ties
individuals have with their historical emotion structure networks, have a
great deal of trouble growing fast compared to groups that are semi-open to
growing by absorbing networks of people.  In other words if you join a group
and cut your ties with your family, you must rebuild emotion structure
supports to compare with what you had.  Whereas groups that can pull in the
networks of families can grow by absorbing groups not individuals.
Therefore those groups have to have an emotion structure system that deals
not with individuals but networks.  They are theorizing emotion structure of
groups in order to grow their group.  Therefore in a semi-conscious way
emotion structure has always been a factor in growing large national left
movements.  But we could make progress in a material way by identifying what
exactly is the requirements of a human being emotionally.

I'll point at two well known examples.  Children orphaned during WWII were
given food and shelter, wrapped in blankets, and then left alone in rooms by
themselves.  They showed signs of touch deprivation.  They frequently died
very young.  The guess is that total isolation from human contact (emotions
are transmitted through touch) killed them.  Secondly sleep deprivation
(closely linked to the mood system) kills.  Emotion nourishment for
individuals may be provided through media in various ways which we can
understand in terms of building a left movement.  We want to be able to
understand what face to face does in terms of transmitting emotion structure
so we can build groups.  And understand how the media provides those
structures as well as the more understood elements of language production or
words.

Ultimately then to understand on the mass scale what the whole working class
needs to feel ok about their organizations and movement.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor