Kevin's Watch

One of tutors at uni firmly believes the entire world can be explained by endelssly repeating two words: "Who benefits?" The explanation for just about anything lies in the answer to that question. Any thoughts?

I fear this may be a dead end thread, but I guess that'll just be because nobody benefits from it.

This reminds me of those folks who try to explain all human behavior in terms of economics, of religion, of sexual drive, etc. It isn't seem particularly invalid so much as incomplete.

I agree with Zahir, but I do think that it's a valid method of examination, if not the only possible one. We're hard-wired to seek whatever advantage we can.

--A

And when we're not acting in our own interests, we'll be acting in someone else's, and there'll be reasons for that. I agree it doesn't give a total view of the world, though. But is certainly interesting, particularly when you view things like sociology through that lens.

I think "benefits" covers economics, religion, sexual drive, and many others. If we try to fit things only into "Who will get rich from this?", we will miss if the actual motivation is that guy trying to get that woman into bed. Trying to see all kinds of benefit, we will see more. Colombo solved a case one time because he kept thinking, "Father loves son." So he killed the guy who was gonna expose his son's plagiarism.

Sounds like Wright's "zero-sum" model. Essentially, it proposes that two groups interact in such a way as to try to benefit themselves. If both groups are benefited, hey! The interaction will last longer. If one group feels cheated, however, this one will cause problems for the interaction.

You also have to consider some other questions:

1. Who is the "Who" of the question? For example, individuals often identify themselves very strongly with others, not necessarily even those with whom they have personal contact. We often feel a sense of self associated with sports teams, with ethnicities, with fellow members of a religion, etc. I recently read a fascinating essay about a riot in 1788 in which the slaves of New York City and the wealthiest upper crust of the same city found themselves on the same side--against physicians and medical students who were violating the graves of both groups.

2. What are the perceived benefits? As opposed perhaps to the actual ones. To give a concrete example--there is a common perception in some states that large numbers of illegal immigrants translate into higher levels of crime. In fact there is zero evidence of such a thing (although I would not argue there aren't other problems). Likewise prior to WW2 the majority of Americans (according to opinion polls) felt the world was safer if the League of Nations had no means to exert influence on aggressive countries. Well, methinks in hindsight we can see they were clearly wrong on that.

"follow the money" seems to work well.
Even those of us who are not materialistic need money to live, and our lives would be made easier with more of it.

Lord Zombiac wrote:"follow the money" seems to work well.
Even those of us who are not materialistic need money to live, and our lives would be made easier with more of it.

heh...what's that old joke? "Money can't buy happiness, but it makes being miserable a lot more fun." something like that.

Anyway...these single-point methods can reveal a lot. But have blind spots, of course.

Funny thing when you do this kind of thing, though: You often find startling disparities in who is supposed to vs. who actually does, peeps who think they're benefiting and aren't, and peeps who think they aren't and are.
[look really really closely at Farm subsidies...if you can find and follow the actual data/money...I put some significant hours into it once, and all I can say for sure is I still don't know, but it ain't family farmers, and the analysis out there is mostly truthy, not factual]

Yeah, I think Zahir was right to point out the perception of benefit, as opposed to any actual benefits. And like Fist said, benefits can be intangible as well.

--A