The Polar Elements of Anthropology

There are TWO polar elements that make up Anthropology. These are the Organic evolution of Humans and the Second is the Superorganic (or Culture).

The First is the Organic pole that focuses on humans and their evolution as a species. It makes up the core of Paleoanthropology as carried out by archaeologist and paleontologist focused on early humans.

The Second is the Superorganic pole that focuses on the ideational or cultural domain of humans living in supraorganic or social groups. It makes up the broad areas of Social/Cultural anthropology and Linguistic Anthropology.

One must also remember that between the poles there comes a blending of elements. Physical anthropology, for example, ranges from the study of the similarities and differences in the physical body of individuals to the effects of physical reproduction (genes) on a supra-organic population. Linguistics, in the broader sense as semiotics, deals not only with the encoding of sound patterns, but also on the range of behavioral communication activities performed by individuals that melds into the superorganic (meanings) of cultures.

The former is existential in the sense that its evidence is physical and real in the form of archaeological sites, bones, tools, and features. The latter is ideational in the sense that it is expressed through language and behaviors. These are the ways that the members of the social unit express themselves and their meanings through their behavior and their works (technologies).

To ignore the former is to ignore the fact that humans are part of the natural evolution of life on the planet. To ignore the latter is to ignore the importance of culture as the mechanism through which humans have risen to the point of the dominant species on the planet. To ignore the middle ground is to ignore what has and will make us human.

The emergence of technology, or transorganic behavior, as the human method for solving survival problems and transmitting the solutions across generations is the link between the organic and superorganic poles. It is also the glue that holds us together as a self-aware and self-reflective species.

Updated version 8 14 2018

Church vs Art : Is this important?

Have you seen "Avatar," the movie?

Here is an essay I wrote sometime ago right after seeing the 3D version of Avatar. Since then the movie has gone to DVD, HBO, Netflick, and other formats, yet, I find now months later, that there is a message in the public response to the movie of anthropological interest. I think it touches a deeper nerve for our time, a message about our underlying beliefs about religion and art as cultural expressions.

I found the 3D version of the movie to be beautiful and impressive. The story line is predictable, as sci-fi goes. It deals with the question of technologically driven civilization verses the "primitive" world of sentient beings living in harmony with their world. On this simplistic level, it is pure entertainment. The battle scenes remind me of the final battle in episode 6 of Star Wars, albeit the CGI is generations more realistic and engaging.

I really enjoyed the nearly 3 hours of escape, as did my fellow audience members. Therefore it surprised me that the Vatican would get all upset by the movie.

Vatican says 'Avatar' is no masterpiece

Yet, this is a good example of super-organic (or institutional) competition. Religion vs Art, Religion vs Science and Art. The Roman Catholic church is one of humanity's great institutions with a life of approximately 1500 years, over a billion human cells world wide, and which has demonstrated an ability to survive many changes in its environment. It has both influence that environment and has reluctantly adapted to it. But it is also a example of one entity in the species of religion.

At one time in Western Europe, the Church was the patron of great art as well as the source of inspiration of great art. Religious art and religious themes have and do serve as a core of much of art today. The themes of art and the themes of religion overlap and complement one another. The nature of humankind, the reasons for suffering, the conflict between Good and Evil, mankind's place in the Universe, love and hate, judgment and forgiveness, death and resurrection, are universal themes which challenge all societies and cultures. They are part of the human condition.

The Church, which has both fostered and repressed scientific inquiry over its life time, is one institution of many that attempt to address these issues. Today it is attempting to act as the censor of the science that is leading to human spiritual progress, even when offered as a entertainment.

Science has added tremendously to our understanding of these issues, especially in the 20th century. Art, especially Sci-Fy, as a superorganic species made up of individuals and their corporate entities translate science into images and metaphors that bring these discoveries and understanding to the masses.

Today, we are in the middle of a great debate about mankind's future and its responsibility for the planet. Global warming and its consequences for humans and the global ecosystem are really important issues. Human technology and human institutions (the superoragnic manifestations of human inventiveness) are the source of much of recent change. Global pandemics, droughts, flooding, weather changes, pollution of all kinds, extinctions, are both the results of human superorganic activity, and the planet's response to that activity.

If Avatar has a spiritual message, it is just this. Technology, once a human tool for survival, has become a sentient super-organic life form in which individual human are but functional cells carrying out the will of the super-organism.

We see the short term greed represented in the "Corporation" and humans who inhabit it such as Colonel Miles Quaritch and Parker Selfridge, representative for the Resources Development Administration. The creature's need to feed off the much-desired natural resource, the mineral Unobtanium. According to Parker it can save Earth from its present energy crisis. This brings the moral conflict between harmony and chaos into focus.

Pandora, an apt name, is a living planet (actually a satellite of the planet of Polyphemus) whose dominant species, Na'vi, live in harmony with the other creatures who make up the organic structure of this super-organic entity.

The Pope apparently fears that this movie would lead to a neo-paganism. One thing is for certain by opposing the movie, he will generate even higher revenues for the film. He might also help to draw attention to the central moral problem of human existence and purpose.

But then his is but one voice and one opinion, for others check out the Wikipedia section on Avatar Critical reception and judge for yourself.

Something we should think about - Does our technology destroy our humanity?

In a recent article entitled The Moral Hazard of Drones  in the New York Times John Kaag and Sarah Kreps raise a very critical question about our relationship with our technology. They state, "

As in the myth of Gyges, our use of drone warfare confuses our ability to kill without detection with the moral right to do so.

As anthropologists (scientists and  humanists), we should recognize from our archaeological and ethnographic archives the moral hazard that this conundrum presents to our species. Do we have an answer to it?

 Human beings exist in a Superorganic environment created by our unique intelligence, our collective memories and the technologies these have produced that enable us to become the dominant species on this planet. For a million years our species and precursors have relied on technology to give us an edge in the evolutionary game of survival of the fittest. But over the past 500 years, our technology and the environment it creates for us has become as much a threat to humanity and its survival as it has been the tool by which the superorganic evolves.

If you question this assumption, think of the millions of human beings who died because the invention of navigational tools and science, and deep water sailing ships broke down the natural barriers between the old and new worlds. These brought the Europeans and their diseases to the new world and disseminated the peoples who lived here. Just as the rapid growth in international air travel today brings peoples from all parts of world and their products together in a one world system where humans competes with and use advanced technologies to survive.

One might argue that this is the old Luddite argument against the machine and technology. That it is the political argument that favors labor over technology, that pits labor against capital. But these are political arguments easily dismissed by partisan philosophies and ideologies.

The question Kaag and Kreps present is moral, not political, but the solution may require a political solution. It has to do with the question of survival of our humanity. If you study the HISTORY of the technology of weapons, you will find that going from the hand axe that one uses to beat the prey to death and move to today to the predator drone where you sit in air conditioned quarters half way around the world and destroy a truck (and kill the human occupant), you will find that we become more psychological desensitized or disengaged the further and further away we become from the physical act of killing.

To be human is to have empathy. There are only a few species that we know of with this capacity. There is only one species so physically generalized that it has adopted technology as it means to adapting to environmental change. The further removed our technology makes us from the consequences of our action, the less empathy we have for the victim. As the technology of killing becomes more sophisticated and efficient, the whole process has becomes more mechanical and dehumanizing.

The question is a practical, pragmatic one. When killing is a job, there is a lose of one's humanity, a lose of empathy. Terrorism is successful only as long as we put a human face on the deaths and suffering that the terrorist can produce. The whole of the United States military technology has not been able to stop or beat terrorist attacks using technologies like IEDs or using using a human bomb. Our greatest fear is that A TERRORIST will obtain and successfully deploy a WMV (technology) in a major populated setting. How do we control this and not lose our own humanity? 

Where is the responsibility for the moral hazard that this technology imposes on our species?

Culture: Is it of any scientific value or just a hollowed out concept?

I have posted a link on several anthropology groups on LinkedIn which lead people to this blog and my posting,  "Anthropology needs a common professional vocabulary”.  I have received some interesting responses. One, in particular, states

"As life is dynamic, sop [sic] is the evolution of terminology [sic] to handle the changes involved. to abandon the meaning of established terminology is to abandom [sic] the research done using those terms, ..."

 

leads me to the following response.

This is a great observation but it doesn't go far enough. There are unintended consequences as well. As the terminology changes it also sucks out the underlying insight that promoted its use in the first place. The terms either become "hollow" or "rarefied" to the point that they are meaningless.

Take "culture" as used today by the profession. "Culture" has had a very important role in the evolution of anthropology and our interpretation of humanity as more than a species of animal in biology's taxonomy of life. When Tylor defined the term, it meant all of those traits that seemed to distinguish "humans" from other animal species. Today, culture is used as an excuse or justification for differences in behavior especially for minorities (that is ANY sub-group within a larger group).

Kroeber, borrowing from Spencer, defined "culture" in terms of its locus in human experience as something that is "Superorganic". That is, culture is something which exists outside the organic individual human animal. This insight builds on two terms -- Culture is the term that Tylor applied to non-literate and pre-literate peoples for "civilization" and the Superorganic placed the emphasis on Tylor's concept of "shared values".

Malinowski and his contemporary, Talcott Parsons, expanded the definition further by linking the organic (biological and psychology needs) to the Superorganic as the mechanism for "sharing" and "capturing and preserving" experience. For Malinowski it is the "institution" and "institutional complex" where this takes place. The "institution" builds on Tylor and Kroeber by laying the foundation for structuring the elements in Tylor's "culture" into a researchable and analytical object defined in terms of its output/function/purpose in supporting the individual and the group. Culture is to be found in the institutional Chart.

Parsons and his colleagues took a slightly different approach. They focused on the behavior that leads to the satisfaction of organic needs and how these are institutionalized in society to form an action system -- a flow of energy and function that serves to maintain a social system. And Culture is found in the those elements that make up the Pattern Maintenance function.

All of this is built on the Tylor definition of "Culture". If we were to take the present day term "culture" we might and do come to the same conclusion that differences in "culture" produce differences in behavior at the organic and societal (supra-organic) level. But today's definitions will not explain "why?".

Why is this? I would hypothesize that it is because structural/functionalism fell out of favor in the 1960s and on. It lost its favor because the stress or focus was on stability. The question was "Why do cultures persist despite strong environmental pressures from other cultures to force change?" This is the heart of the work of Edward H. Spicer's "persistent culture" concept.

In the mid 1960s, in light of the Viet Nam war, civil rights movement etc. structural/functionalism became associated with a philosophical position which favored the status quo. Culture is conservative. The world and its problems of inequality, in the view of many, called for a radical solution - a solution that would break the gravitational pull of tradition and culture. The question changed from a "Why?" question to a "How? question. The question thus became a solution. “How can we propel mankind into a more equitable and "just" orbit?” (The space age was just emerging at this time).

Marxism and other theories that focused on power relationships took over the social sciences. "Power" replaced "culture" as the ideological style of the social sciences and has found a strong home within academic anthropology and its institutions. Rather than scientific, these theories are divisive. They are loaded with ideological content. 

Anthropology has become fragmented into philosophical camps and concepts, such as "culture", "structure" and "function," have become just so many hollowed out or rarefied words.

MEME: Concept or Toy?

 "Meme" as Dawkins' intended the term, as the second replicator and meme as it has become popular culture's new word for "fad" or trait are two entirely different concepts. My focus is on the former and I see the latter as the "toy" phase of the concept. As we know, many of our human innovations begin as toys before they are translated into real products and practical knowledge.

I believe what Dawkins was getting at is that at some point the gonads produced a genetic set that altered the way a species could adapt to a rapidly changing environment. That change took place in the way the brain or central nervous system processes information. The change reorganized the way and the capacity to receive and process input from the sensory systems. This resulted in a change the way individuals learn from experience and to store memories. It enables the individual to recall past experiences and correlate these stored memories with an immediate environmental challenge or problem.

Such recall (memory) would enable the organism to response more efficiently and effectively to opportunities and/or threats -- increasing its chance of survival over others without such an adaptation.

That memory is what I would consider to be the "meme". Initially, it might take the form of a simple S -> R (stimulus -> response pattern) or even an instinct triggered by external or even internal sources.

"Meme" in this context would be the behavioral response to emotions generated by the stimulus. The behavioral responses in higher animals would include learned behaviors. Learned by individual experience as when a new born begins to explore its body and learns where its body ends and the world begins; and social learning as when a lioness teaches her cubs to hunt.

"Meme" may have a genetic base but it is more than a "trait." It is an advanced adaptation of the gene, to continue Dawkins Self Gene analogy, to insure its success in competition with other genes. It is the transcendence of a chemically based DNA sequenced gene to a superorganic neuron sequenced "gene" or what is defined as "meme".

There are many interesting questions and potential answers that the "meme" concept offers -- especially for anthropologists -- as it relates to the success of Homo sapiens over the other hominids. And for biology, it could help in our understanding the success of animals over plants. Learning is a critical adaptation for life forms that are free to move in their environment and play a role as both predator and prey in that environment. Further, it can link the principles of behavioral psychology and cognitive psychology to the evolution of language and culture.


Meme provides an analogous mechanism to the gene as the mechanism for non-biological social and cultural evolution. It brings back something we need to reconsider, the lamarckian evolutionary model. Our theories of cultural and social evolution imply an evolution by means of acquired characteristics which is based on a biological agent (human) but advanced by a supra-organic entity, which Malinowski defined as the institution.

While children play with their internet memes we are learning something about the process whereby they emerge, become manifest, develop, evolve and die. Link these with the advances in ethology and neuroscience and we may gain a real understanding of culture or the super-organic as a derivative of the meme.

There is a place for the "meme" in our understanding of human development.

What Do We MEME in Anthropology

A recent article in the Atlantic  "Are LOLCats Making Us Smart?," describes the popular fad of LOLCats and how this phenomenon is drawing the attention of academic researchers at such events as the ROFLCon, -- a conference devoted to Internet memes and the mini-celebrities that have emerged. The Atlantic, in another article, entitled "Memes are people too ..." describes the conference.

The "meme" is an extremely important concept for anthropology as the science of humanity (the human species). The term, coined by Dawkins in his "The Selfish Gene", addressed a very real problem in human/social/cultural evolution, "How do you explain the super-sonic development of humanity as the dominant species on the planet from an evolutionary (biological) point of view?" The answer he suggested is that you don't. You have to look to something that while it acts like a gene (encapsulating basic fundamental information for a biological organism) but which is not physically (chemically) based. This he called the "meme."

When Darwin (& Wallace) discovered the principle and mechanism for species evolution -- "survival of the fittest", it took the rediscovery of Mendel’s pea experiments to demonstrate how that process works (although it was long understood in agriculture and animal breeding on a practical level). Almost a century later, Watson and Crick, and Rosalind Franklin, aided with by the technological invention of x-ray crystallography, discovered the double helix nature of DNA, the basis of the gene. This has produced a explosion of understanding and application of the concept of the genetic technology.

But despite attempts to extend the power of the gene into the field of social organization of species and especially the human species, through sociobiology, such explanations are inadequate given the relativity short time period of Homo sapiens existence as just one of a variety of Hominid species to today being the dominate species on the planet.

The "meme" is a concept that helps to explain how this could and can happen -- which was Dawkins' point. Memetics is a relatively new field of study and considered by many as a fad. In the context of the internet, the term "meme" has taken on a superficial meaning of graphic images that has gone viral. The concept is still in a "toy" stage as the Atlantic stories demonstrate, yet I suspect in time will be given the serious attention it deserves.

To understand "culture" and the role that it has played and does play in human existence and evolution, we need a concept that explains the spread of cultural elements across populations and generation and even within populations and generation independent of the biological constraint of passing on of an individual's genetic material to the generation where it will come to dominate the population over time and under the given environment conditions that favored it.

The "meme" is such a concept and worthy of more serious attention than it is currently receiving. The technological advances in brain sciences and neurology may help us to bridge the gap. On the practical side -- understanding the nature of the meme has tremendous implications for education, marketing, advertising, and propaganda.

Is Applied Anthropology a Profession?

My question is based on my dissertation and subsequent career path as well as monitoring of the anthropological profession for the past 30 years. My dissertation began as a study of voluntary associations as particular type of socio-cultural adaptation to the pressure for change in a complex society - sort of a "superorganic" adaptation. The final product entitled, Anthropology and the Social Engineer: A Case Study of the Professionalization and Elaboration of the Social Scientist's Role, drew upon the research done by sociologist and anthropologists who studied modern professions such as medicine, accounting, engineering for a theoretical framework. They define a profession as a subset of an occupation. My own field work in the areas of social program design and evaluation and research into the organizational development of American anthropology confirmed the idea that a professional organization is a special case of the voluntary association form of social organization.

One of the major findings of this research is that a professional tends to express the very sense of "calling" and "commitment" to the ideology of the discipline they pursue that people report in their religious experience. These professions call upon members to subordination of their individual bias to a set of the collective standards established by discipline (faith) and to maintain a special relationship to the lay public being served. This is similar to what one finds in the clergy.

Just as the Church's greatest weapon against the apostate is "excommunication," so too the greatest weapon against a professional is the threat of ostracism, e.g. a lawyer being disbarred or a doctor having his/her medical license pulled. This is usually caused by an extreme breach of professional ethics or standards.

My question is to ascertain how others think and feel about the following situation.

If the AAA, SfAA, or NAPA have codes of ethics but no authority to enforce them and no formal requirements for membership other than paying dues, then are they a profession or simply a voluntary association?

My observation over the past 30 years is that the profession seems to rest solely and exclusively in the academy. Specifically it rests in the university department which can "license" practitioners with tenure and expel members by rescinding tenure. But where else is there a similar professional control over the practice of anthropology?

A truly professional "applied anthropology" or "practicing anthropology" would model itself after the other service professions such as medical, law,social work,engineering, etc. These professions are organized to insure a form of self government to protect members from government interference in their practice, and protect the public they serve from quacks and unethical practitioners by controlling membership.

Androidology or How much longer will humans control the planet?

The recent victory of the machine over the human,

IBM Watson vanquishes human 'Jeopardy!' foes

raises questions about the place of humans in the evolving global culture. While it may seem to be a wonderful advance in human creativity one wonders about its long term impact on the humanistic side of human life.

Is it time that we create a new science, Androidology which would be the study of the evolution and development of self actualizing machines capable of performing the functions that biological organisms currently perform. This is an interesting question when we consider the implications of these devises on the power relationship between humans.

Western culture is beginning to experience what many non-western cultures have long experienced under western colonization. The value of the average human is no longer determined by one's contribution to the local society. Instead, it is determined by a global market which places humans against humans, and humans against capital in the form of technology.

One aspects of an androidology will be determining the evolutionary mnemonics of the android species. For example, Jennings Explains Jeopardy Loss to Watson And 'Know Your Meme' explains his comment in Final Jeopardy comments on the similarities and differences between his Jeopardy strategy and Watson's strategy.

How will androidology relate to anthropology and the other social sciences? Will it compete with the humanistic side of anthropology and the other social sciences?

What happens when humans are bred and enculturated by androids just like what we do with our domesticated animals?

Introduction to Chaos Theory and the Superorganic

The complexity of life on this planet and in our universe is a wonder of infinite possibilities which the human mind has yet to comprehend. Businesses startup and then fail, stock markets go up and then down, all the while governments muddle along trying to maintain some sense of order and security for their members. Yet even these best of intentions are overwhelmed by chance. The human tendency for linear thinking is very useful for solving the routine problems of daily life, but a total disaster in uncertain times and circumstances.

Linear thinking is the process of thinking that If A happens, then experience teaches us that B follows. Linear thinking is based on the assumption that there are universal truths which explain the world we live in. It is a form of thinking which is the hallmark of the ideolog and partisan. That is, "there is my way or no way."

Yet beyond the circle of our immediate experience, the truth of such thinking quickly disappears and complexities fog our judgement and ability to coop with the new or unusual. The Superorganic is a level of social organization beyond the individual and beyond the immediate family where we first encounter the limitations of linear thinking applied to human behavior. As the recent movie, It's Complicated, shows even the simplest of human relationships can become unpredicably humorous and sad when the linear thinking of one party fails to account for the linear thinking and circumstances of others.

How do we understand the world when it is becoming more and more complex by the minute? How do we understand and deal with the chaos in our lives?

The following video may help you to understand how Nonlinear thinking gives us an alternative way of thinking about the Chaos in our lives.





Chaos theory is the way to begin to understand how the superorganic behaves.

TOO BIG TO FAIL: Systematic Pragmatism or Moral Hazard

The Economic crisis of 2008-2009 is summarized in the PBS program, Frontline's February 17, 2009 "Inside the Meltdown". This crisis threatened to bring down the American and global economy and lead to the popularization of the phrase "Too big to fail."

"Too big to fail" means that a superorganic entity, "Corporation," is so complex and so intertwined with the other elements that make up the many levels of the superorganic entity known as the "Nation", that the failure of the former could result in the fatal failure or death of the latter.

As the Frontline report makes clear -- when it comes to the superorganic, human moral principles come up against the question of systematic pragmatism. When the survival of the whole depends upon the survival of the one critical part that is TOO BIG TO FAIL, then how do we, as individuals, justify and come to an accommodation with the paradox of personal responsibility vs the greater good?

The questions it raises for us are two-fold:

Should the greed and selfishness which fostered the systematic breakdown of Wall Street's investment banks be punished by letting the individual and institutional immorality be punished by letting them fail regardless of the collateral damage to the nation's financial system? (Moral Hazard)

Or, Should those responsibility for safe guarding the United States' financial system as a whole, step forward and take over the failed system, and, in effect, reward greed and stupidity in order to mitigate the collateral damage and to save the system? (Systematic Pragmatism)

As we come out of the depths of the crisis, it is time to take stock.

Here is the paradox we now face, what was TOO BIG TO FAIL, is today MUCH TOO BIG TO FAIL.

For example: As part of the Bush/Obama solution to the crisis -- big investment banks that failed have been allowed to fail in the case of Lehman Brothers, or forced to merge with stronger ones, i.e. J.P. Morgan/Bear Sterns and Bank of American/Merrill-Lynch. In either case, where there were 5; now there are 2.

Financial innovation such a credit default swaps are sold with no regard to the "product liability" concerns that innovators in other sectors of the economy are held to. Should there be an FDA or CPSC to oversee the manufacture and marketing of "toxic" assets. Should the stock analyst be held accountable for false advertising? Where are the trial lawyers and regulators?

Should the fund managers for the nation's retirement funds, the major investors in Wall Street, be held accountable for their failure as fiduciary agents to safe guard the long term interests of their clients. Should there be special rules for fiduciary capitalism to distinguish it from entrepreneurial capitalism?

Do the survivors of the crisis represent a healthy new heart for our financial system or are they part of the same cancer in the system?

Are the moral ideals of a "free market" and "capitalistic political system" still philosophically valid principles for government today in a global, instantaneous economy where private corporations are free to move assets anywhere at any time without any responsibility to anyone for the consequences?

If governments are the courts and banks of last resort for their people (citizens), can a republican democracy limit their exposure to financial failure while maintaining a principle of moral hazard applicable to its citizens and institutions equally?

Or, Does a systematic pragmatism require a redefinition of the principles of republican democracy and a formal differentiation in the role of government toward different segments of its citizens?

Should any corporation be allowed to become TOO BIG TO FAIL?

These are the questions the American people and their representatives must address in the remaining months of 2009 and will answer in the election of 2010.

Citizen’s United vs. FEC: America in the Balance .

The United States is about to become a republic of corporations, and not the States nor the people. If the Supreme Court decides in favor of Citizen’s United in the case now before it, the voice of the people will be silenced by the wealth of corporations.

The Supreme Court has within its power to declare human citizens null and void as the owners and source of government power. It will proclaim the CORPORATION as the true citizen of this once great nation founded on the principle of individual human freedom.

This is what is at stake in the case of Citizen’s United against the Federal Election Commission. The case will be argued on the narrow bases of length of the “commercial” as a movie (entertainment) protected under the “free speech” principle, or as political propaganda subject to McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Yet the underlying principle is between the priority of individual human rights over the rights of class privilege and economic power.

The conservative members of the court are reported to have signaled that they would invite arguments to challenge the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold. Over turning McCain-Feingold, would grant to the CEO’s of American and foreign corporations uncontrollable power to buy the government regardless of the wishes of the citizens of this country.

I find this strange. These are the “strict constructionists” and “libertarian” members who should be pro-individual human being and who respect the only contract that counts, the US Constitution. The purpose of that contract, the only purpose, is set forth in the Preamble, which states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That contract is between the people of United States and one another, not between people (humans) and corporations (fictitious persons). Instead these justices appear to be taking the side of the corporations against the true citizens of the country -- born biologically individuals.

The preamble says “ We, the people,” they did it then for ourselves and now we are their “ Posterity”, They “ ordain[ed] and establish[ed] this Constitution of the United States of America” for this purpose.

Human beings are born as an act of nature, or God. Corporations are fictional creatures invented by government and born of state law. When government can create its “fictional citizens” and those “fictional citizens” in turn can buy the government, who needs the people?

Who represents the people’s desire for a more perfect union, justice, tranquility, common defense? Who promotes (much less determines) the common Welfare? And how are the people to secure the blessing of liberty?

Under current McCain Feingold campaign finance law, the individual’s constitutional right is protected and individuals are free to act in a collective fashion to express their preferences. There is no need or reason to grant special status to the corporation when the owners, workers and management can act as individuals already.

Corporations already enjoy special status -- they are allowed to live in perpetuity and those responsible for the corporation are granted limited liability for their actions. No human citizen is granted such special status.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Corporation and empower it to act like a real person without being held accountable as a real person would be, then they will have broken their oath to defend the Constitution. Instead, they will have rewritten the Constitution.

These Strict Constructionist will be legislating. They will be saying that the Corporation is allowed to use its resources to support political activity rather than for the economic activity they promised their investors. Management will become unaccountable to its owners (stockholders) for their fiduciary performance which they were hired to do. We have seen what damage such managerial misbehavior has brought to investors, other stakeholders, and the people of this nation over the last decade. And we have seen the near total lack of accountability and responsibility that they have been held to by government and the courts.

Where and how are the rights of individual citizens to be protected?

McCain-Feingold and similar campaign finance laws, designed to circumscribe corporate political activity, are the only way the balance of power between the individual and the corporation can be maintained.

In my view, strict construction means “WE, the people”, and not “WE, the corporations”. We the people, not some fictional legal construction, own this government.

This case is not that complex. The Supreme Court Justices can decide for the people or for the fictional corporations. Congress has the power and obligation to serve the people by limiting the powers of the vehicles used by those who control great wealth.

What the Supreme Court decides in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission will show just how “strict” these strict constructionists really are.

IS the superorganic at war with the individual?

Here is an insightful commentary on the influence of environment and basic human development.