Geiss / Erdogan / Krell Research Jungle

Proceedings of the International Student Research Conference at Zeppelin University 2021
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-7568-0519-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 218 Seiten

The International Student Research Conference (ISRC) 2021 attracted students all over the world to present their works to an interested audience at Zeppelin University. Under this year's theme "Research Jungle", eight participants were chosen to be part of its conference proceedings. Spanning a broad variaty of topics from gender & culture to economics and politics as well as COVID-19 and Digitalization, this anthology aims to capture and preserve the research efforts of students from all over the world. Visit our Research Jungle and discover the findings of our young researchers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Geiss, Maya

Erdogan, Aynur

Krell, Felix

Söffner, Jan

Leseproben

1.0 INTRODUCTION
On the 6th of January 2021, a group of American protesters stormed the Washington Capitol, an incident portrayed by the German media at the time in direct comparison with events six months earlier in Germany, during which anti-COVID-policy protesters and so-called Reichsbürger (conspiracy theorists who claim the law of the German Kaiserreich still applies) attempted to storm the German parliament building. In both cases, the actions were interpreted as an attack on the ruling democratic system; in the US, the incident was framed as an act of domestic terrorism and a near-coup (Sacco 2021; Tucker & Jalonick 2021; Flicking 2021). This portrayal, however, cannot be made in qualitative terms, since the violence in the US had serious repercussions, whereas the protesters in Germany were prevented from entering the Reichstag by just three police officers. Nevertheless, a similarity between the two cases can be found, namely, both involved the intrusion of hostile symbols in the domain of the official constitutional sphere. Based on the works of Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt, it could be argued that these two incidents are two intensity levels on the same escalation spectrum, which has at its end the tensions that could spark a civil war. Hobbes describes the state as a unified multitude with a common goal to leave the so-called state of nature,1 as a group that makes a contract that empowers one sovereign to rule over the people (Hobbes 1996). The newborn state can be destroyed by having its sovereign power undermined by a competing force that claims sovereignty within the same state, or which questions the legitimacy of the ruling sovereign, given that it creates a grouping of citizens that perceives the “other side” as the enemy (Schmitt 2015). The intensification of the conflict that leads to friend-enemy grouping can go so far as to become a civil war. If we accept this interpretation, there needs to be a criterion that allows us to determine the intensity levels, so that the acute danger of violent inner conflicts can be gauged within a spectrum. The goal of this article is, then, to explore one potential criterion. Based on the investigations of the research group TRACE (Transmission in Rhetorics, Arts and Cultural Evolution), one can formulate a theory that links the central elements of a functioning society to the perception of its central artefacts and consequently to the stability of the observed culture/community/society. Since a strong bond to this “imagined community” (Anderson 2006) is crucial to creating common sense, measuring people’s perceptions regarding their central artefacts could be considered a valid means of assessing the stability of a given culture/community/society, as well as the risk of political instability, which in the worst-case scenario could lead to civil war. In this article, the crucial concepts for a successful culture/community/society will first be clarified, after which said concepts will be combined with insights on the subject of civil war and the latest experimental findings. This will allow the theory presented in the following sections to be transformed into a concrete experiment design that is meant to offer at least the first parameter for creating a civil war index. This parameter alone will of course not be sufficient to reliably forecast civil wars; nevertheless, it will be of great value in terms of exploring the connection between the people and their central artefacts, given that their perceptions of the latter can offer important insights into their state of mind, their willingness to cooperate, and consequently, to maintaining political stability. Developing such a measurement instrument and subsequently finding and exploring further important and measurable parameters could allow us to assess the risk of civil war and precisely analyze its causes. In this way, it may be possible to prevent civil wars from erupting, or at the very least to be sufficiently prepared to stop them from becoming catastrophic. Considering that the theory presented here is directly derived from the successfully tested experiment design of the TRACE group and employs their theoretical models and methods, other references that might discuss this particular topic will not be taken into account at this stage of the creation of a civil war index. 2.0 CULTURE AND COMMON SENSE
2.1 COOPERATION One crucial aspect to understand from the outset is that culture is not to be taken as artwork, expressing, as Leonardo Da Vinci suggested, the connection with the truth that an artist sees in himself (see Da Vinci 1882), or as a modern interpretation of behaviors as shown in theatrical productions. Such artefacts can only show the surface of what a culture encompasses. The essential elements of culture lie in what can be referred as the “hardware,” the biological adaptation to the environment (Henrich 2015). This hardware is shaped by the constant struggle to survive and, as soon as survival has been secured, to provide better and safer living circumstances. The competition between population units began on a small scale but has since reached large-scale cultural units, in some cases even leading to war. War is an anthropological constant in human history (Turchin 2007), a cultural expression of selection pressure. If a culture wants to withstand that selection pressure, it has to cooperate, given that cooperation is the foundation for the creation and survival of a culture. In this context, the German research group TRACE (Transmission in Rhetorics, Arts and Cultural Evolution) has formulated a theory of cultures as Maximal Stress Cooperation Units (MSC = Maximal Stress Cooperation). The MSC theorem states that culture is a population that manages to cooperate under maximal stress, i.e., the acute risk of death. In such a situation stress levels rise asymptotically, i.e., without any natural limit, and the peak of these stress levels is reached in the last moment before death (Mühlmann 2011). In such extreme situations, epigenetic effects like gene expression can occur (Mühlmann 2017), and cognitive modules may be established. Cognitive and genetic effects may occur when lifethreatening stimuli are encoded in the emotional episodic memory (Grunwald 2008) – not only the concrete threat itself, but the whole scene of the life-threatening incident. Such a memorized setting can be the architecture in which ritual occurs, for example churches or triumphal arches. In this way, the perception of high-ranking artefacts can be biologically inherited. The information related to the endangerment event is horizontally learned (for example: “beware of the snake”) and the memory is vertically inherited (through sexual and biological reproduction). Thus, cognitive modules can be manifested intra- and trans-generationally (Mühlmann 2007). The fitness advantage of such cognitive modules consists in quick, instinctive reactions to certain stimuli, which can lead to higher chances of survival. And in time, survivors will then be able to reproduce and pass on their cognitive modules. This mechanism demonstrates how our cultural hardware is highly focused on survival. Populations develop certain habits and gestures that may be specifically linked to their culture and that may distinguish them from other populations who developed their own habits in parallel (Mühlmann 2011). These particular behaviors can “out” a possible stranger among a given population, who could instantly be seen as a potential threat for the ingroup and elicit a hyper-reactional defensive attitude (Mühlmann 2007). A perfect example of this situation is the scene in Quentin Tarantino’s movie Inglorious Basterds , when a British spy disguised as a German officer reveals his real identity by ordering three drinks with a gesture showing his pointer, middle and ring fingers, instead of his thumb, pointer and middle fingers, which is the German way. After the revelation, a gunfight breaks out and everyone dies. If a population is under constant stress, the need to outnumber the enemy and consequently to cooperate increases (Turchin 2007). To prevail against the other group, it is necessary for the leader to mobilize the ingroup population. To achieve this, he or she must evoke a range of emotions that help create a bond between the ingroup members themselves, as well as between the ingroup and the cooperation framework (e.g. the nation). Intense emotions that can give a sense of unity to a population can be linked to certain identifying symbols, like a national flag or a statue of a person relevant to the group’s survival, and may be used as triggers to motivate the defense of said group (see also Freud 2017; Weber 1926). The symbol becomes a label for an underlying emotion that is regulated in a beneficial way for the ingroup population, in this case to mobilize for war (Mühlmann 2006). In summary, the struggle for survival and resources creates tensions between populations. Populations develop communication markers, such as certain habits that distinguish them from other populations. In order to survive, the ingroup needs to mobilize sufficient members to outnumber the enemy’s forces. Larger populations mediate the sense of community with symbols that serve as placeholders for the emotions that underlie a sense of unity. These emotions can be regulated by the application of artefacts and declarative markings, which, when used in life-threatening situations, can be memorized biologically, in keeping with the encoding process described above (Mühlmann 2007; Grunwald 2008). The following clarification of the...