WIP write- up: On Hayek’s “The Abuse and Decline of Reason”
(((an unedited, single sitting write-up for future reference and edit)))
We see a certain state of affairs around us and in the world in general. What brings that about? Is it brought about by human design or planning, or is it brought about by human spontaneity led actions? Or is it a structural-functional organization of both, with different role and intensity at different times? What ought to be done further to improve…more planning or more spontaneity or something that can synthesize these?
We live in a world of inter-actions. Humans being one part of the action. Hence, its important to understand what assumptions we carry about an individual human being? (((Although, by framing the unit of observation as individual, we might already be undermining the question of where does the individual begin and end, where are the edges, how do the relational aspects play out in our observations or they don’t))). Meanwhile, we can go in a direction and see what emerges. Sometimes it could help going down a path to obviate it for later.
Human ability to gain knowledge, can all humans gain comprehensive, dense and integrated knowledge about everything? Or there are limits to it? What then the human uses to guide ones action if the knowledge acquisition is limited?
Human ability to reason. Is it the same in everyone at all times? What were different schools of ideas around human reasoning capabilities? If knowledge acquisition is limited and different humans acquire different knowledge, and the reasoning/other capacity to process the knowledge is different and limited, how do individuals co-ordinate? How can they co-ordinate? Can there be better co-ordination? Who is to say what is better and how should this “better” be brought out? And there is so much that gets done everyday. So so so much. The utilities, the discretionary, the perishables, the abstract idea exchange in political and business and social milieu. So, how is it that the limits weigh in and yet produce so much?
Each passing day, we are treated to contesting of various ideas. Ideas that more or less try to establish “what’s the right thing to do?”. And in order to further one’s or one’s group’s idea, there is deployment of various kinds of reasoning.
The era in which the book was initially imagined is very telling. Hayek was witnessing the unfolding of World War 2. He was lamenting the weaponization of reason by various leaders and communities. It was this felt despair that urged him to begin writing this book. Its a completely different story as to what began as a work in 1940s actually took decades to build up and finally being published posthumously.
The first chapter called “Individualism: True or False” sets out to examine as to what the different idea camps (for sake of simplicity the collectivism/socialism Vs the individualism) really mean by the word “individual”.
Quoting from a paragraph from the book as follows
Adam Ferguson expressed it, “nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action but not the result of human design”; and that the spontaneous collaboration of free men often creates things which are greater than their individual minds can ever fully comprehend. This is the great theme of Josiah Tucker and Adam Smith, of Adam Ferguson and Edmund Burke, the great discovery of classical political economy which has become the basis of our understanding not only of economic life but of most truly social phenomena.
In order to begin to understand, if we can hold a principle that questions are embedded in questions, answers are embedded in answer and concepts are embedded in concept.
Lets take a simple example. Imagine you and I do not know each other and begin to talk. How would we even go about doing this? Who speaks first? What does it signal when one initiates the conversation? What gestures prior to the first word count or weigh in? What parts of our identities have already conversed with each other (latently) and they weigh in on our beginning, during and end of the conversation? How will we take turns to speak and listen? How do we negotiate the disagreements and agreements? And how do rules get established for our conversation? Are there rules in the law of the land that govern our conversation? Are there norms? Are these norms of the place where we are while conversing, or our background or those around us or some other?
This simple act of talking to each other have so many factors into play. And they have things that evolved over human history and also an on-going process of the evolution. Some could be located outside the individual and some inside.
To begin, not all those who are affected by the establishment (rules, norms, incentives) understand or accept the establishment in the same manner and degree. They chose to navigate them in their own ways?
So we find here that there is some form of structural-functional ways in which the establishment and the various groups/individuals interact. Their interactions needs more nuance.
Whatever be the interactions, something has to be said or looked out for the way in the which the establishment continues. The establishment in an oversimplified understanding is some form where individuals behave as a collective.
Now, while the establishment may have other things, they have some form of rules, norms, incentives (as placeholders). These could be brought about by varying degree of decision-making participation depending on the nature of the establishment…from one person defining them to a few people defining them or all members defining them.
The establishment continues in some form. Such form can be a function of the hierarchy (differential roles, decision making powers, etc), memberships (who can be a member and not), symbols, member’s faith in the establishment, transition of power, factors of trust-fairness-pride-community and more.
The continuation of the establishment could be inducing something we may call as “Establishment Quotient”, i.e., how the establishment is experienced by individual or groups as either conducing or constraining. Thus, for some individuals or groups, it could be constraining. Thereafter, the individuals or groups could cultiavte their own coping mechanisms. Some might move in order to modify the establishment, and it may need to come from imagination of some better state of affairs than the current one.
Now, we need to be careful to not suggest that every individual will have the same design in mind. They may have different nuance, intention, motivation, emotion, appropriateness, effort, hindrances, vindication or altruism and such bearings. It could also be the case that one has first person feltness or the empathy of wanting the change to occur. However, that may be not nuanced enough or coinciding with the nuance of someone else.
Human Design Driven Order or Human Action Driven Spontaneous Order
There could be more such threads of deliberations in order to examine what we began, namely the idea that broadly the two schools competing have something missing. The schools being that human design (or design by few) influences or orders human actions (of the many), and the other school being that the human actions (of the many) produces spontaneous order and such order is not the product of human design.
Hayek tries to support the idea of the later (spontaneous order brought by human action) by saying that “free men often create things which are greater than their individual minds can ever fully comprehend”. And one could unpack this to see if this is true in all cases with all individuals at all times.
For example, I am writing this analysis or my impulse to what i make of the paragraph from Hayek’s book. In so doing, i have limits to what i can access and process and hold while writing this. As in I cannot go back to Hayek and ask him what he means by a particular thing written in his book. I have to refer to his writings or speech. I cannot access what was the context in which he was thinking-feeling and arriving at the conclusions. Similarly, i do not know what the reader of my comment would take as an import. There is clearly an issue of what we can access to in terms of knowledge. And then we do not know as to how does this knowing correspond to the “comprehension” that Hayek’s paragraph mentions. What this bring us to could be the essential crossroad of “how much do we know”, “what is knowable by individual”, “what is knowable by collective”, “in the absence of knowing it all, how do we function with what we so know in limited manner”, and so on.
I believe that Hayek’s 1940s essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society” also contributes an interesting insight here. His idea that the “price” of anything actually stands in as a “signal” for many other things, and without knowing those other things, one could take “price” as a proxy or derivative and guide one’s own action. Similarly, humans may not comprehend most things but they could take some proxy or derivatives to guide their action.
Once we agree to this idea of taking “price” or something that can be an “indicator” as “what ought to be done”, is the precise thing that some people might use to direct “not just one’s own action but someone else’s action”. And if there is such a thing (no comprehensive but indicative) that can guide people’s action at the level of two or few individuals, then the same indicative could be brought to fore and guide many people’s action.
So, there is this “indicator” and not “comprehensive” knowing or knowledge. And different persons can have different span-scale of the same “indicator” or different “indicator” to understand the situation and the ought.
Then there is the “reasoning capability” which is different in different individuals at different times. How does this work with the different indicators of knowledge that we come in contact with?
All of the indicator and reasoning that guides spontaneous human action is in some way towards avoiding some form of disorder or move towards some form of order. Or may we further nuance that there is the need for a desired order or desired disorder as opposed to undesired order or undesired disorder. Such disorder or order are dynamic in nature. And it could be at different scales or spans.
Let me share an example. Imagine you work in an institution and one day you fall sick. This falling sick causes two disruption or disorder. One is in the personal individual system (at biological and or psychological level) and the other in form of not being able to synchronize one’s tasks with rest of the tasks of the institution. Such disorder needs to be attended such that there is the returning of order.
This simple example demonstrates that the disorder could be located inside the individual or the interactions between individuals. Such disorders come in various forms and intensity, i.e., misunderstanding, pushing each other, trust issues, oneupmanships, etc.
Why do we have to call these as disorders? The simplest place to look for answering this would be to look at the texture or nature of experiences we have of our various interactions (with persons, things or situation). Some of them would give us a feel one of the following: feel friction/disorder- can overcome, feel friction/disorder cant overcome. There is a sort of
i can do it or
i can handle it
i want to do this
i need to go through this
this helps me grow
And of course, there are other aspects located in an individual in terms of sense of flow, meaning and peace.
Once Michael Sandel, Political Philosopher at Harvard University, mentioned, “Skepticism is the resting place of reason”. I feel similar at the temporary closing of writing down this piece above…it isnt finished yet…it has opened many threads…however, i am comfortable to be in the #SettledUnsettled state, a #BetaConclusion state…to let this simmer before i come back and address it further
…to be continued
Hayek, F.A. Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason (The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek) (pp. 53-54). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
