Israeli Nobel winner says something interesting.

Posted by Geoff Beck on October 11, 2005, 02:02 PM | #

Ok Soren, that point is?

Posted by Soren Renner on October 11, 2005, 02:45 PM | #

I just thought it was slightly noticeworthy - “Israeli economist proclaims war ‘rational’!” Not much of a point. Sorry Geoff.

Posted by Guessedworker on October 11, 2005, 04:34 PM | #

Well, let’s see what is or is not interesting here.

First, I think it is always interesting when Jewish intellectuals begin to re-order the world as ideas, and do it in the name of humanity.  With all due respect to the illustrious Professor Aumann, whose motives are doubtless beyond reproach, there is, shall we say, a certain track record here.  It is not unknown for very intelligent men to be guided by very basic, partisan considerations, to put it mildly.

So the first interesting question, regardless of the Professor’s own person, is: how would an ethnocentric Jew see war? 

Answer: fairly obviously, as a behaviour of non-Jews which must be curtailed.  Is that what is going on in Prof Aumann’s adumbrations on the nature and meaning of war?  Is that the secret at the heart of his thinking?

Perhaps ... I don’t know.  But I am going to leave that whole subject hanging there, except to note a couple of points.

1) For me to write what I just did, in the full expectation that my audience of MR readers will understand the quite intentional gaps I have left in what is evidently a rich narrative, bespeaks a belief on my part in the existence of a shared knowledge.  I don’t have to give you chapter and verse on the JQ.  You already know it - or, at least, that is my presumption.  That, if you like, is the membership fee for your entry to this discussion.  Without it you can’t join in.

The really intriguing thing here is that I am assuming a shared knowledge of something someone else might be assuming is a secret - or at least a secret to be kept from us.

2) The concept of Common Knowledge is Robert Aumann’s specialism, and his particular approach to it, announced to the world way back in 1976, was to model a hierarchical basis for shared knowledge, such as I have just presented (sorry guys, but in this example little ole me is at the top of the heirarchy).

So, with that said I can now proceed a little further.  The second interesting aspect of Aumann’s statement as reported by Soren is that he assumes war is rational and, in a strict sense, reasonable.

In other words it has a calculable, publicly acknowledgeable benefit and a cost to both warring parties, and the benefit justifies the cost, and these things are common knowledge to the active agents involved.  War proceeds until such time as the cost exceeds the benefit for one of the parties, and this knowledge, too, is made common to the active agents of that party.

The essence of inter-ethnic war, as a class of events, is no mystery.  In other words it is common knowledge that human populations compete for resources to underpin their own genetic future.

And this brings me to a third interesting aspect of the Professor’s statement.  War for resources is genetic competition.  It is not rational in any intellectualising sense.  It is visceral opportunism.  And whilst I might construct an intellectual model of that opportunist warmaking, nonetheless I have rationalised the model.  I do not have access through my intellect to rationalise the genetic.

Thus, from my perspective, Aumann’s goal is unachievable.  But it is a very Jewish intellectual goal all the same.  If one considers the efforts of giants like Boas, Freud and Adorno right down to little people like Jared Diamond and Tim Wise, the denial of Nature in humanity, especially of race as an active component in our relationship with the world, IS the Jewish contribution to the Western philosophical canon.

OK ... so that wasn’t interesting.  Back to the drawing board!

Posted by Mrs. Blessed on October 11, 2005, 04:40 PM | #

Actually, I thought you were referring to this:

“Rashi said that the home of man is his wife. I’m very sorry that my home is not here. My home had the biggest impact on my life. She always told me: ‘You scientists can write endless articles, but most of them will be forgotten over the years. I influence the education of my children, and I too will be forgotten in another 150 years – but my influence will exist, and dozens and hundreds of children will walk around who were influenced by me.’

And that is why the IP is more successful than we are.