Great people & Little people

There are great people and there are little people, and the thing which separates them is this: great people put other people first; little people put themselves first.

Why is this? Great people are the hole that is left when they are removed from the universe. They are definied by the infinite world around them. Little people are what is left when the universe is removed. Great people prosper, little people wither and die.

This is not an easy thing to grasp. I have struggled for many years and still can't make the transition from little person to great person.

The problem is best expressed by what dominates our western societies: the question of how to stop people from cheating. Cheating is the only sin, all other sins are cheating and all other virtues are not cheating. When cheat when we put ourselves first, we are virtuous when we put others first.

In both moral classes and evolution classes at uni we looked at the prisoners dilemma. This game presents the following conumdrum: you do not know whether your partner will co-operate or cheat but if you both co-operate you both gain. If you both cheat you lose. But if only you cheats you do best, and if only your parner cheats you do worst. Obviously you should cooperate rationally knowing that your partner will be thinking the same - thus you both do well. However the temptation is to cheat because knowing your partner will cooperate you stand to gain a lot more. But then you realise they will be thinking the same so you will both lose. So you go back to coperating and it goes around in circles. The end of the game is to realise that you are both going around in circles and just to take the plunge and cooperate. Thus you both do well.

However in a world of rational people an irrational person who doesn't think like this finds that they start doing very well and the system breaks down. As a result we think we can't take the risk and so the whole society suffers as everyone starts cheating to protect themselves from the odd rogue cheater. Then when everyone really is cheating all the time you have no choice but to cheat and that is where society is today.

We now have an economic system and a legal system that assumes that everyone will cheat. Every detail is verified, everyu penny is counted, every interaction subject to a contract. The cost to society is astronomical - the efficiency and the ability for people to operate under the weight of bureaucracy is being eroded. I've argued before that this is pointless because it is not the system which keeps people in order, but the people who make the system: even if everyone in the whole society became a police officer we would still not be able to control crime - the crime would simply be in the police system. And if an small elite become the enforcers they do not have the power to subdue the masses. Society works because people play the prisoners dilemma rationally, when they fail to play well the society is effecively disbanded. This is where we are heading.

So why do some people not play the game well? These are the small people and a society is only as good as its smallest person - so we all suffer their foolishness. The small people can be found at all levels of society: it is not a feature of wealth or class or education or anything - the current establishment is made of small people. As argued the instinct to heirachy seems fundamental in many people but it is patently for small people. To have a position "in the system" is by definition to be above those people who have not been as successful and below those who confer the status. If we were big people we would see that actually we are nowhere, if we are small people then we look up and down from our perspective and see this as being somewhere.

Politicians who have spent their lives playing the game of status are most probably small people. People of great financial wealth of often small people (I cite my most recent bosses as prime examples who taught me so much about all this). But it is not necessarily the case: many politicians and business men are magnanimous and occupy their position for the benefit of those around them. These are the truely great men.

If you ever feel that you are a failure because you have failed to get this status in a company or society, or you failed to get rich, or your football team fell out of the division, or the girl turned you down, or you have lost something of great value then actually you are a small person because you look at things from inside yourself looking out. "I am the measure of all things" says the small man. I have more money that this person, I have less money than that person - if this is your world you are small.

By contrast the great man says this person has a lot of money, that person is poor. They might then think from this that the rich person might be able to fund a project to help the poor person. Somewhere at the back of the great man's thoughts would be the simple practical detail of how much they had.

It is because we firmly believe that I must take care of myself that leads even potentially great people to become defensive. Suddenly under threat they look inwards, build the wall and start to plan for themselves. They become risk averse and are more likely to cheat. Wishing therefore to benefit themselves even at the expense of other people they become small, and the system spirals into cheating. This is why we must remain great people, always, even if we end up on a cross some day in the future.

The psychology of the great person is rather unfashionable at the moment. The heroes we see in the American media are actually small people mostly. They are greater than the mass it is true, but ultimately the look to save only their family, or their nation or their planet or some version of themselves looking outwards. The true heroes are looking in, they see themselves being sacrificed. They do not stand up for themselves, they do not become defensive or protectionist. They are the opposite side of the spectrum from the banks we see today.

The odd thing is to realise that the whole society is dominated by small people. I am used to thinking radically but it must be fearful for those who have "served" their state. To see the state as actually a parochial small minded creature whose decisions are as profoundly wrong as the criminals it seeks to bring to justice is bizarre, yet I can see no alternative but to think this.

Last night on the BBC Radio 3 A.C.Grayling and a government advisor were discussing the distinction between combatants and non-combatants - that is the distinction between soldiers and civilians. A difficult division it was concluded but one that needs to be drawn. Yet the language used was steeped in acceptance of war and the idea of a just war. Surely the division is a false one because no-one is ever justified in killing another. If the Afghanis are the right people to be shot in the war there, then why don't the Afghanis shoot themselves? It is because they disagree about who is the right person to be shot. If everyone must always disagree about who is the right person to be shot (which is the essence of war) then how can we talk about justice? Yet people are dragged into this foolishness. It is because they are small people and the country that they represent is a small creature.

America speaks like a great person at the moment. Obama speaks about the World, he speaks as though he realises that a happy World is a happy America. Yet we know that hidden in the rhetoric is the old parochialism that really decisions will be made from the inside looking out - the Americans who voted for bush are still alive (though many think they are the right ones to be shot) they will never see beyond home grown policies. The rally under the sign of Jesus but they are very last people in the world to offer their place on the cross for him.

So for all my big talk what happens when your country is threatened. What would I do (if I was a great man) faced with the rise of the Nazis or the rise of Jihadist Islam? The honest truth now is I don't know, I puzzle this daily - to solve this is to know how to face the man who threatens you with a knife in the street. The first thing to realise is that the Nazi and the Jihadist are not wrong. They are at a place where dominantion of another country or people seems the right thing - that is a fact not to be disputed. To enter that discussion and think that really it is them that should be dominated is to think like them. Already every "civilised" response in history is small minded.

We can agree that the common soldier, death camp worker or suicide bomber are probably not the people to enter into discourse with - they most probably "follow orders" and this is not therefore their situation. But find the ring leaders who have set the division amonst people and find what they want. The answer has to be one that makes both sides no longer think that the other side is the right one to kill. It is hard work, it takes great men.

I'm running out of time on this terminal: but hopefully greatmen/smallmen will be concluded in plain words soon...