Peter Emmerson

For three years or so I have been going through what has often been, and in some respects still is, a painful and distressing reconfiguring of my habitus, in order to put my teenage traumas and 55 years of fatigue and self-sabotaging to bed.  My aim is to flourish as I did when a child.

As part of this process I have needed to test my relationships past and present to see who I can trust, to see who loves me and cares for me.  By opening yourself up in all your vulnerability, you expose people for what they are and find those who are worthy.  One wonderful example is my father.  I lost him both physically and emotionally this day in 1966 when he died – why did he leave me so broken and unprepared?  Through my re-evaluation I have found him again in all his joy, love and warmth.  An essential aspect of my habitus has been restored. 

52 years ago today we spent our first morning without the person who kept us safe.  Living had changed inexorably – Dad was dead.

What becomes of those who are broken hearted?  If they can’t find joy in taking care of themselves then probably a long slow dying.

Glossary of terms.

Thact: I-orientated; homo clausus; homines aperti.  Thact is a new verb that I use in an attempt to dissolve an artificial division between ‘thought’ and ‘action’ that has developed in relation to formal analyses such as those carried out by philosophers and their allies who operate with an I-oriented approach, as per Descartes, which favours development of notions such as mind as separate and above body – ‘I think therefore I am’.  Norbert Elias suggested we call this image of people – ‘homo clausus’ or closed person.  Sociologists would benefit from seeing themselves as always connected, ‘open people’ (Elias, 1978) or ‘homines aperti’.

Habitus: intuitive and experiogenetic.  Habitus is a concept I learned from Norbert Elias who wanted to dispense with damaging notions such as personality that mislead us by giving precedence to genetic/biological influences  above those of  experience/learning, a way of thacting typical of homo clausus.  He makes a crucial point that we are less dominated by our biology than any other life-form – we have a remarkable capacity for learning and controlling our biological predispositions.  I often hear people describe their thacting as instinctive.  This is, I would argue, a misnomer.  In fact we are overwhelmingly creatures of intuition rather than instinct: at this moment I can only offer up my reflexes as evidence of significant instinctive thacting, which, as far as we know, require only spinal cord involvement with little involvement of our brains.  However, even reflexes develop interdependently with experience as disease processes show.  In other words we develop a habitus rather than are given a personality defined at conception.

Unlike so many sociologists Elias does not discount biological processes altogether.  In positing habitus he wanted to emphasize developmental interdependencies between genetic and sensory/experiential processes.  From this perspective our habituses never stop changing as long as we are alive.  I like to think that our genes predispose us to make cerebral connections with experiences to form our habitus.  This approach allows us to dissolve another artificial separation typical of homo clausus between genetics and experience, often described in terms of nature-nurture or more generally as rational-empirical.  Correspondingly, our personalities are natural and rational.  In contrast our habitus is neither genetic nor experiential, rational nor empirical, it is experiogenetic.  Everything we are is an interdependent process of development involving genes and experience which privileges neither.  Our habitus is like a compound that develops in our brain structured by a series of processes which involve interdependent correspondences between our genetic structures/predispositions and our experience/learning.  So much of our experience is mediated by our contact with others, language use being a very influential component making our habitus overwhelmingly figurational.  Processes of genetic and sensory experience cannot be separated as they presuppose each other – they interdepend.  Everything about us is experiogenetic; intuitive rather than instinctive.

Figuration/figurational.  Norbert Elias wanted to develop properly sociological language to facilitate understanding of sociological processes.  Figuration is a very important example.  Figuration is a process concept that as far as I can see is meant to reorient sociological perceptions and understanding by making them more connected with realities.  Interdependently, in doing this we develop a more reality congruent habitus and become homines aperti rather than homo clausus.  Correspondingly we are facilitated to explore connectedness and processes rather than statics.  Homo clausus conceives sociological evidence as closed, discrete units such as family, class, tribe and society, which give a misguided impression that sociological evidence is somehow thing-like, static and separate from us who study it, which it never is.  Homines aperti see connectedness through figurations which are transitory ‘webs if interdependence’ (Elias, 1978) that we are always caught up in.  From this perspective ‘social’ is replaced by ‘figurational’.

Influence.  As someone schooled in physical engineering I associate power with discrete machines, whether car engines or nuclear power stations.  Physical engineers can investigate and calculate how powerful such machines are very successfully using a causal analysis of work done over a period of time: a 10 watt light bulb being half as powerful as another of 20 watts.  We can use a similar approach to estimate human bodily power.  However, human figurations are bound together by much more intangible yet strong forces as webs/networks of interdependencies: human figurations are not discrete, material ‘things’ physically screwed or bolted together that can be analysed causally.  Correspondingly, from my perspective ‘power’ is an insufficiently reality congruent concept that reifies figurational processes allowing inadequate engagement with figurational processes.  Accordingly, it needs replacing.  To start with we might use ‘influence’.

Figurations are comprised of people whose bodies have physical ‘power’ which needs translating sociologically as ‘influence’.  Punching someone is a very manifest, violent thact that can be analysed causally in terms of physical power: a physical engineer might look for a well-known cause of violence such as excessive alcohol use.  However, this would only be a partial explanation as there are many significant sociological/figurational forces that interdepend with alcohol use that cannot be isolated in a causal chain: not all intoxicated people react violently.  Habitus factors as self-control, shame, fear, self-esteem, need for vengeance, training linked with figurational pressures such as onlookers, ethnic acceptance of violence etc., may well have come together to trigger this violent thact but didn’t cause it.  By assessing figurational processes using influence we get a more realistic, accurate picture of all those interdependencies involved in a violent thact.  I am not saying that using ‘influence’ solves our difficulties with ‘power’.  However, I do believe that ‘influence’ is a step in a more realistic direction that encourages us to abandon ‘power’ as a notion that causally over-simplifies our sociological perceptions.  ‘Influence’ grounds us in complexity and interdependencies.

Theometaphysician: a priest, philosopher or pure mathematician whose job it is to establish absolute truths.

Engineering.  I want to replace ‘science’ with ‘engineering’.  Science is a theometaphysical, over-idealized, systemic, thing-like notion that is designed to promote a belief that mundane physical realities are governed by absolute truths.  These absolute truths are in fact made by people to control those anxieties and fears that interdepend with our comparatively uncertain everyday experiences.  As a more appropriate notion, ‘engineer’ rather than ‘scientist’ engages much more directly and effectively with our mundane experiences allowing us to get to grips with real problems.  Engineers are grounded in comparatively uncertain mundanities rather than high flown pure mathematical fantasies.  Physical scientists and pure mathematicians want to explore Mars, physical engineers want to build more efficient batteries.  Social scientists want to understand inequality, domination, class etc., all things that reify figurational mundanities.  Figurational engineers want to tackle abuse of influence; especially violent thacts, comparative differences in life expectation, health, wealth etc.  Science is a philosophical project, a search for absolute truth guided by pure mathematical standards as Karl Popper showed in The Logic of Scientific Discovery.  Engineers use mathematical tools to sort out real problems by developing technology that works within agreed tolerances, + or – a millimetre: absolute accuracy is not obtainable.  I want to suggest that we sociologize science by renaming it engineering.  Engineering is more verbal and hands-on, thereby more processual suggestive of what we do in tackling real material problems, rather than ideal nonsenses.  Sociologists are figurational engineers.

Theometaphysician: a person whose job is to construct absolute truths using theological, metaphysical and/or mathematical techniques.  Often involves all three but can rely on just one.

A-t heuristic: a derivation of Tversky & Kahneman’s well tried concept.  In one instance they used it to explain how we make judgements based on previous experiences which are always biased.  I want to suggest that our habitus is in part structured by ‘heuristics’ as taken for granted packages of learning that help us engage with and interpret our mundane experiences.  There is a similarity between heuristic and Piaget’s concept of ‘schema’.  I want to suggest that some heuristics have more numerous and significant connections are more influential and take precedence over others.  These heuristics ground our feelings of fear and anxiety facilitating us to take control of our comparatively uncertain mundane experiences, especially when we encounter confusion.  These are ‘truth hubs’ that comprise our ‘go to’ beliefs developed by theometaphysicians who have developed techniques of certainty from which we have derived absolute truths of which there are two: supernatural/religious – oriented to sacred texts; metaphysical/secular – oriented to logical verbal (philosophy) and logical numerical (pure mathematics) analytics.

Having stood at a crossroads for a year or so ‘through all kinds of windy weather’ I know now who my friends are.  Thank you xx.

11. Two examples of damage done by using a-t heuristics: warring and finance

With little help from pure mathematicians, engineers have struggled to develop heuristics capable of modelling figurational processes where rates of change can be volatile.  Of course one major difficulty, if I am right, is that accurate modelling of comparative uncertainties cannot be done by pure mathematicians who after all as formal logicians have habituses structured by supernatural and verbal logical a-t heuristics (s&v a-t heuristics).  Accordingly, we are very likely to continue perpetually deploying traditional, I-oriented, s&v a-t heuristics designed to impose command and control systems on dynamic comparatively uncertain mundanities, and continue neglecting to engineer heuristics capable of investigating figurational processes and synthesizing models of persistent catastrophic problems such as warring.  The cost of using s&v a-t heuristics is that we tend to prolong a manifestly damaging and tragic process such as warring by perceiving and treating it as if it was a ‘thing’ in its own right and beyond human control: from this perspective warring is seen as a fatalistic, even useful Hegelian dialectical inevitability rather than a figurational problem to be engineered.

To develop this point further I want to look at financial processes.  By adopting a-t heuristics as our default position with pure mathematicians as guarantors, we feel safe in thacting with conviction and are prone to over-confidence and an illusion of control: we genuinely think we know what we are doing.  Interdependently, when things start changing quickly or go wrong and control is lost, we are taken by surprise and even panic.  A good example in financial terms concerns our use of ‘stability/instability’.  Stability/instability is a dialectical tool, an a-t heuristic developed by theometaphysicians to exercise control over what is in fact a figurational process that cannot be controlled with our presently available linear heuristical technology such as statistics that is incapable of engaging with volatilities.  Concomitantly, when serious financial volatility emerges we interpret what is an ordinary figurational process in catastrophic terms using concepts such as crash or crisis.  If we did not use such a-t heuristics we would be less complacent and better prepared for financial volatility, knowing that there are only ever differing rates of change.  From my perspective collapses in business confidence come about through gross misinterpretation of expectable fluctuations in business thactivities which at present are managed ineffectively using a-t heuristics such as stability/instability.

Nonetheless, there are financial people who are aware of these tendencies and who are working on alternative concepts which may lead to a more processual approach.  Nassim Taleb (2008) has developed a philosophical idea used by David Hume to explain our inability to use facts as predictors of future events.  A ‘Black Swan’ event according to Taleb, is a catastrophe that will occur whatever we do.  In drawing our attention to such likely occurrences Taleb is emphasizing complexity and change and most importantly, our propensity for delusions of control.  In developing a notion such as ‘Black Swan’ event, Taleb is from my point of view asking economists to reject a-t heuristics such as stability and interdependently, accept our need for processual concepts that correspond with comparatively uncertain mundanities.  If this style of analysis takes off we may be able to engineer our financial problems using non-linear mathematical heuristics that will allow better engagement with dynamic figurational processes.  However, formal economic analysis is at present still heavily influenced by theological and philosophical dogma, hence our continued economic and political infatuation with a-t heuristics such as stability which predispose us to treat economic problems as things rather than figurational processes.  In doing so we create an artificial boundary between economic experiences and those who live them.  Even though Nassim Taleb (Richard Thaler’s work on behavioural economics may also make a contribution) has been influential in arguing for change, we continue to deploy inappropriate concepts from our compendium of discourses on absolute certainty such as instability, crisis or crash as.  These tools are brought to bear on comparatively uncertain mundanities by people whose habitus is structured by a-t heuristics and who deem dynamic processes to be something abnormal.  We are correspondingly far too underprepared for threats and neglectful of developing engineering heuristics.

10. Truth technology and control. Engineers (scientists) and pure mathematicians gain influence but have problems developing heuristics for dynamic non-linear figurational processes leaving priests and philosophers in charge.

There is such a clear disparity between our experience of immutable, I-oriented (a version of homo clausus directly referenced to Descartes) a-t heuristics derived from supernatural and/or logical command systems, and more unpredictable, even volatile comparatively uncertain mundane processes, that it is difficult to support any belief that a-t heuristics are meant to be sincere attempts to model/engineer mundanities.  Accordingly, we should see a-t heuristics as interdependent aspects of a cognitive truth technology designed and developed by theometaphysicians to provide us, especially those people operating from established figurations, with a secure platform from which to thact and thrive in our dynamic universe that is often uncontrollable and very threatening.  Adopting a-t heuristics, which are by definition true without doubt, allows us to control cognitive dissonance (fear) by guaranteeing certainty and mandating us to believe that we know exactly what we are doing even when things go catastrophically wrong.  In this sense a-t heuristics are need-statements, often minimally engaged with facts, which provide faulty simulations of those mundane processes they purport to axiomatize.  Nonetheless, pure mathematicians have managed to open up sufficient engagement with mundane processes to develop less I-oriented a-t heuristics of real practical utility, as their spectacularly fruitful 350 year partnership with engineers (usually called scientists) patently evidences.  Interestingly however, as pure mathematicians have grown in influence during this period from Newton to Higgs, philosophers and especially priests have seen their influence decline in places like Britain where engineers have been able to flourish.  From my perspective a key aspect of such decline has been an inability of priests and philosophers to reduce levels of I-orientation in their heuristics.

Nevertheless, priests and philosophers still have considerable influence as fundamentalist religious figurations and Michael Sandel testify.  This state of affairs is in part explained by an inability of pure mathematicians to develop heuristics capable of modelling figurational (social scientific) mundanities, leaving priests and philosophers to carry on as usual.  By developing statistical heuristics pure mathematicians have made some contribution to our understanding by making it clear that linear heuristics cannot model figurational processes accurately.  Even so, recent developments of non-linear ‘chaotic’ models may prove more useful.  What with continued priestly/philosopher influence and limited development of mathematical heuristics, we have seen a dearth of engineered alternatives becoming available, leaving figurational engineers little option but to default to ancient conventions and deploy supernatural and/or verbal logical a-t heuristics, even though I believe they seriously inhibit their capacity to engage with and model figurational mundanities.  Accordingly, supernatural and verbal logical a-t heuristics still prevail largely unchallenged as tools for analysing figurational issues.

9. A gradual loosening of our habituation to a-t heuristics: Protestantism, Nietzsche and engineering, politicians notwithstanding.

We could easily discuss such issues in relation to that other more recent version of conviction politics that championed individuality and market forces and validated Thatcher’s figuration to destroy so many people’s lives.  This essay is not a polemic against socialism; it is a polemic against our committed and uncritical acceptance of applying a-t heuristics.  Sadly from my point of view, in allowing an a-t heuristic such as socialism to govern their policy making, Attlee’s figuration was thacting normally and duly delivered us down a well-trodden idealistic road built on fantasy that very predictably ended in failure and electoral disenchantment.  These theometaphysical heuristics are so habituated into our thactivity that they seem as natural as drinking water: from this perspective we are by nature logical, structured by God’s divine hand.  In fact these heuristics are human inventions and so desensitizing to our critical faculties that we persist in obsessively pursuing impossible aims, whilst ignoring more fruitful, mundane, engineering heuristics.  300 years of engineering triumphs speak for themselves as a means of delivering substantive answers to human problems.  In addition, these remarkable successes have made us very aware of inadequacies in much ancient theometaphysical technology, especially theological, but also, philosophical a-t heuristics.

To some degree our unwillingness to apply engineering heuristics to political problems is explained by habit.  However, applying engineering heuristics implies a closer engagement with comparatively uncertain mundanities, and interdependently, a recognition that a-t heuristics have less validity.  Living with these changes decreases our feelings of certainty, security and control, such that thacting with conviction becomes much more difficult both in personal and figurational terms.  As we engage more and more closely with comparative uncertainties, a-t heuristics become less and less viable and may even need to be abandoned altogether in favour of more practical evidence-oriented, engineered heuristics – an example being proverbial beliefs (p-b heuristics).  P-b heuristics are at best contingent, assessable only as probabilities not certainties: too many cooks may spoil broths, but not always so.  Living according to p-b heuristics increases cognitive dissonance by denying complete self-belief/conviction and making domination more difficult to sustain.  Correspondingly, relying on p-b heuristics amplifies feelings of personal responsibility as justification for thaction cannot be off-loaded via dogmatic belief: what we call terrorist killing is often validated by an a-t heuristic whether religious, secular or an amalgam of both.  When we confront dilemmas and make decisions with comparative uncertainty we do so without reliance on some external ultimate authority.  As engineered heuristics don’t offer any ultimate authorities, living with them is more insecure and anxiety laden, and for many just too difficult.

Protestants are a good example of people who in rejecting Roman Catholic infallible Papal/priestly authority and needing to know God for themselves, took a significant democratizing step towards comparatively uncertain mundanities.  Concomitantly, Protestants, especially non-conformists, engage with mundane experiences much more directly through personal bible reading.  For such a possibility, biblical translation out of Latin was necessary and with it potential reinterpretation of a sacred text.  A re-authored bible written according to Protestant a-t heuristics made a single, authoritative, specific apostolic meaning much more difficult if not impossible to ascertain.  Very predictably, these re-writes attracted serious often violent resistance from established Catholic figurations.  Divine texts can only be corrupted when meddled with by ordinary, grubby human hands.  Every time they are re-written further interpretation/uncertainty emerges and ancient a-t heuristics will struggle to command authority: Tyndale’s biblical translation was used in producing a later King James Bible thereby delivering mundane interpretation upon interpretation of God’s word.  Not unsurprisingly Protestant religious thactivities spawned schism upon schism.

We can see what happens with still closer secular engagement with mundanities by considering Nietzsche’s philosophy.  He was brought up in a Protestant tradition, but eventually abandoned supernatural authority and safety altogether.  In addition, by denouncing post-Socratic philosophers and pure mathematicians he leaves us very sceptical of any a-t heuristic.  From my perspective Nietzsche’s work is where philosophy ends.  Philosophers are ultimately truth finders.  By engaging with comparatively uncertain mundanities and discovering that there are no absolute truths they lose their raison d’être as per Nietzsche.  Mundane experiences if taken as read without a-t heuristics to confuse our perceptions and cloud our judgements are for engineers not philosophers.  Nietzsche’s philosophy of solitude is as far as philosophers can go without becoming engineers.  He was punished for his heresy by being ostracized and stigmatized.  Life for Nietzsche was a journey of agony and ecstasy, which is to a large extent a process of ‘overcoming’ our habituation to ancient theometaphysical ways.  I would interpret his work as an impossible struggle to make philosophical sense of his engagement with comparative uncertainties.

Nietzsche was less compromising than other philosophers in that he did engage thoroughly with comparative uncertainties and tried to make sense of what he found.  Philosophers generally have been fighting a rear-guard thaction against engagement with mundane uncertainties since engineers became so successful: Descartes began a process of change that was modified by Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche et al., as philosophers had to deal with historical evidence.  They and their theological allies could no longer write off mundane uncertain experiences as logical aberrations, as illusions to be swept away: ‘homo clausus’ was having difficulty making comparative uncertainties fit with its preconceived a-t heuristics.  As far as I’m concerned, Nietzsche needed to develop engineering heuristics to explain more substantively his closer engagement with comparative uncertainties.  But as Nietzsche so bravely affirmed, to challenge a-t heuristics at all in 19^th century Europe was very isolating and dangerous.  I would argue that this state of affairs still largely prevails, especially in politics, where a-t heuristics such as capitalism, socialism, democracy, justice and equality remain very influential as default hubs for figurational formation and every day functioning.  This is partly explained by our personal need for control/safety and sufficient conviction to resist/dominate others.  Such needs make us vulnerable however to political opportunists who use ideal heuristics to take us on flights of fancy in order to win our vote: ‘strong and stable government’ being a recent example.  This is a serious mistake!

8. Socialism as an a-t heuristic: a scientific tool for domination and genocide.

By committing ourselves to a-t heuristics (ideals) such as social justice and equality we are made resistant to life’s grinding hardship and unfairness, knowing that if we go about it in a certain way a utopian tomorrow can be realized, epitomized in modern times by Marx’ scientific dialectical class model: a piece of pseudo-engineering.  As such both socialism and capitalism are a-t heuristics that provide idealistic, definitive answers to what is going wrong in people’s lives and what needs to be done, opening up possibilities of achieving levels of self-belief (that illusion of conviction) needed to push on at all costs even in the face of serious resistance that may well end in martyrdom or killing others.  As an a-t heuristic socialism offered justification for Stalinist and Maoist figurations to sanction genocidal killing and forced migration of large numbers of people who threatened their revolutionary ideals.  On a less murderous scale, a belief in socialism authorized Attlee’s figuration to re-balance responsibility for managing personal welfare, giving government officials much more influence.  These fore-mentioned changes were done with conviction, conviction driven by self-belief in an a-t heuristic – socialism.  In fact, as with other a-t heuristics, socialism is an over-simplification of what actually goes on, high on ideals/science, low on facts/engineering, patterned according to theometaphysical rules, in Marx’ case dialectical materialism.  Such a-t heuristics developed by modern specialists such as Marx provide certainties which can be deployed to control our fear of comparatively uncertain mundane experiences.  Rather than engaging more fully with mundane experiences by deploying engineering techniques that should make us wary of anything ending in ‘ism’, we continue to believe in illusions such as socialism to justify our thactions and supply us with sufficient safe conviction, to fight, dominate and if necessary kill those with whom we disagree.  In this way a-t heuristics offload personal responsibility for killing and dying by giving us reason to believe.