Recognition

 

Birds of prey have no hierarchical societies, they are not depending on each other. Eagles, buzzards and hawks live solitary. Consequently they have no need for a mutual arms race, nor do they feel any urgency for pacifying politics. But because man is a social animal, human freedom does incorporate a tendency for power and violence.

His culture provides man a faculty to direct social tensions and the accompanying destructive forces in a positive way. To some extent we are able to prevent an arms race within our freedom. The cultural way in which we try to realize this is usually called politics. In modern human society the social pacification is realised by means of transferring a part of the individual power and sovereignty to a state monopoly. So the state – even a democratic state – inevitably deprives the individual of liberties which he cares for in his private sphere.

 

No living being can exist without limits: ‘Through the limit something is what it is, and in the limit it has its quality’, according to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1832). The limit both distinguishes and connects individual beings. According to the human condition, as a natural member of the community, freedom implies both self-limitation and border clashes. If freedom means self-preservation and self-determination, it also implies a will to power to attain this and also violence to achieve this in case of border clashes. And because freedom is equally applicable to others – I aim for power over others who aim for power over me –  power is a dynamic and accumulating phenomena (Safranski, 2003).

 

Due to his consciousness a human being always misses some part of his actual presence. And because his identity is partly an object of reflection, this identity is never self-evident. On the other hand, because consciousness is only an island in the sea of unconsciousness his self-determination is always incomplete. Both – the lack of self-evidence and the failing self-determination – are tending to cause discontent about the past and fear for the future. For most ‘unfinished animals’ self-preservation means continuous and restless self-realization.

Just like all other beings man has his limits, but these limits are not clearly marked. Whenever a human being feels limited – whether by others or by himself – he desires to pass these limits. Not knowing his exact limits, he perpetually tends to exceed himself. By nature most human beings are confronted with an uneasy undetermined inner state.

 

All the words above with the prefix ‘self’ are the result of the human self-relation – the conscious and unconscious reflection on his own identity. In this relation there are two selves: an experiencing self and a reflecting and remembering self.

The self-relation is subject to several factors, like the individual’s physical, chemical and neural constitution and unconscious, inner and environmental impulses. A central role in self-relation is reserved for the individual’s autobiographical memory. Its neural correlate is maintained by feedback and reinforcement. In this reinforcement recognition serves as one of the major impulses.

 

For a human well-being his own identity is essential.[1] For this he depends more or less on a positive self-relation. Whenever our self-relation feels inadequate we try to improve it, mostly by raising our self-image. But we cannot achieve this by ourselves. Our self-image is depending on recognition, which in its turn depends on human relations. Because the lack of self-evidence we are judging and comparing perpetually and at the same time we are judged and compared. We depend on the judgement of others, so we tend to judge their judgement. Whereas the essence of negative freedom is distinction, recognition implies mutual dependence.[2]

 

Except maybe for some real autonomous creatures, recognition is a primary human need. It is the main source for our identity and self-esteem. And as we depend on each other for recognition, it is a heteronomous source. Now a certain quantity of recognition may boost our self-esteem, at least for the moment. But it’s similar to drinking – the thirst is quenched for a certain period. After a while we get thirsty again and we need another drink. The same counts for self-esteem. For most of us our self-esteem is never fully saturated. Status is always accompanied by the fear for loss of status. The status of a sovereign needs a steady confirmation. And the subjects in turn are in a regular need of flattering.

 

Already Thomas Hobbes realized that recognition is a basic human need. In his Leviathan (1651) he summarises some differences between man and animal. To start with he mentioned ‘that men are continually in competition for Honour and Dignity, which these creatures are not; and consequently amongst men there ariseth on that ground, Envy and Hatred, and finally Warre; but amongst these not so.’

 

For political groups, minorities, lower classes, but also for entire states and nations recognition can be a very strong desire, dictated by discontent and fear. In several occasions recognition appears to be more urgent than freedom. ‘What oppressed classes or nationalities, as a rule, demand is neither simply unhampered liberty of action for their members, nor, above everything, equality of social or economic opportunity, still less assignment of a place in a frictionless, organic state devised by the rational lawgiver. What they want, as often as not, is simply recognition (of their class or nation, or colour or race) as an independent source of human activity, as an entity with a will of its own, intending to act in accordance with it (whether it is good or legitimate, or not), and not to be ruled, educated, guided, with however light a hand, as being not quite fully human, and therefore not quite fully free.’ (Berlin, 1958)

 

In practice the desire for recognition originates from different levels of needs. Both the sovereign and his court dignitaries can rely on some faculty for self-determination. Their identity needs to be acknowledged and determined by each other (and of course by the citizens). Basically their need is a confirmation of current values, believes and achievements.

Oppressed or discriminated groups desire a more fundamental recognition. They are lacking an elementary faculty for self-determination. Not having this faculty is a deep offence against one’s self-esteem and self-respect. As long as this need is not publicly recognized one can’t even think of improving an inadequate self-relation. This lack is the very sting of discrimination. Here too, the desire for recognition is generally much stronger than the desire for freedom.  ‘So much can I desire this, that I may, in my bitter longing for status, prefer to be bullied and misgoverned by some member of my own race or social class, by whom I am, nevertheless, recognised as a man and a rival - that is as an equal - to being well and tolerantly treated by someone from some higher and remoter group, someone who does not recognise me for what I wish to feel myself to be.’ (Berlin, 1958)

 

Recognition is the source of social, cultural, religious and political identity. Even nations depend on status or self-esteem. That was the case in the nineteenth century.[3] But also in the modern changing world. Especially the identity of individual people appears to be of growing importance. Since the end of the Cold War, identity has become a central issue in international affairs. According to Samuel Huntington the question ‘whose side are you on?’ has been replaced by the more fundamental question ‘Who are you?’. ‘Every state must answer this question. The answer, the cultural identity, determines the place of the state in international politics and designates its friends and enemies.’

In his famous Clash of the Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1997) Samuel Huntington discerned four causes for international conflicts based on identity:[4]

·         The feeling of superiority (and sometimes inferiority) towards communities and peoples who are considered to be foreign;

·         Fear for these foreign communities and peoples and the accompanying lack of confidence;

·         Communicative problems caused by different languages and the mutual understanding of decent behaviour;

·         Missing familiarity with the presumptions, motivations, social manners and social traditions of foreign communities and peoples.

 

Indeed, identity is a crucial factor in social life and has become key issue in national and international relations. Yet Huntington tends to simplify the relation of human nature, need for recognition and identity (or status), when he poses: ‘It is human to hate. For self-definition and motivation people need enemies: business competitors, rivals in achievement or political opponents. They naturally distrust and see as threats those who are different and have the capability to harm them’.

Love and hate are very strong emotions, but surely no primary ones. Primary are attraction and aversion. Or, as Jeremy Bentham (1780) wrote: ‘Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure’. Hate is a derived emotion in which some conscious deliberation is involved. In modern international politics hate is often a consequence of denied or refused recognition.[5]

 

Generally recognition deals with others, but not specifically with enemies. In this matter Huntington tends to exaggerate his arguments. Of course we have a natural inclination to distrust ‘those who are different and have the capability to harm us’. But there’s more. Obviously not all people who are different want to harm us, or even have the capability to harm us. And obviously we meet foreign people who are friendly, cooperative and trustworthy.

The distrust of foreign people is a natural inclination, but the more fundamental problem is how we cope with it, what we do with it. Do we use the narrow margin to oppose ourselves or do we follow our inclination to watch TV news, to get uneasy, to overstress problems and incidents, to believe simple and clear explanations, to think in simple schemes and to trust simple and thorough solutions and strong leaders?

 

A final word about the marginal role of recognition in modern economic politics. Since his primal focus on self-interest, Milton Friedman seemed to pay little attention to recognition. ‘No one who buys bread knows whether the wheat from which it is made was grown by a Communist or a Republican, by a constitutionalist or a Fascist, or, for that matter, by a Negro or a white’ (Friedman, 1962). He added: ‘An impersonal market separates economic activities from political views and protects men from being discriminated against in their economic activities for reasons that are irrelevant to their productivity, whether these reasons are associated with their views or their color.’

 

So thanks to self-interest the market will prevent its participants to discriminate. Friedman concluded: ‘As a general rule, any minority that counts on specific majority action to defend its interests is short-sighted in the extreme. Acceptance of a general self-denying ordinance applying to a class of cases may inhibit specific majorities from exploiting specific minorities. In the absence of such a  self-denying ordinance, majorities can surely be counted on to use their power to give effect to their preferences, or if you will, prejudices, not to protect minorities from the prejudices of majorities.’

 

Apparently Friedman has underestimated the power of recognition and self-esteem. It may have been due to his character (no lack of self-confidence). A more plausible explanation for this is the pursuit of objectively predicting theories by several economic theorists and ideologists. This pursuit strengthens the believe in – and the worship of – mathematical models, and a disdain for psychological and social factors.[6]

In Friedman’s view moral and politics are entirely subordinated to the self-interest and market mechanism. As we will see further ahead, this view has been one of the justifications of interventions in foreign politics and economics in which the foreign identity and self-esteem were totally discarded.

 

 


 

[1] According to Axel Honneth (1992) the human identity reveals itself generally in three basic moods. Most fundamental and vulnerable is self-confidence which is a result of affective recognition in our early years. Then we have self-esteem which is promoted by the recognition of someone’s unique lifestyle or individuality. And finally there is self-respect, caused by a formal, social and legal recognition.

[2] It may seem that recognition also implies distance. One of the modern ways to attain recognition is by means of individual self-expression and self-promotion. Indeed, to achieve this one needs some distance to others. But without the presence of others there is no self-expression.

Another way to attain recognition is to seek shelter and affirmation in the middle of congenials. Here one needs mutual dependence for his self-relation.

Both ways are visible in the relation of a sovereign and his subjects. A sovereign desires to be acknowledged by his subjects, but the subjects desire their recognition as well. The sovereign gains his status by means of authority, charisma, favours and kind turns, Olympic Games, horse-riding with nude upper body or driving luxurious cars. His subjects on the other hand have to gain recognition by flattering, kindness,  exemplariness, or on the contrary by demonstrations and provocations. In this pursuit individuals are not hesitating to give up some of their freedom. In case of ‘Honour and Dignity’ they even sacrifice their lives.

[3] Among the causes of the outbreak of the First World War there were rivalry and hostility between the European powers. There was an imperial rivalry for wealth, power and prestige as well as economic and military rivalry. Self-esteem and loss of status were at stake. ‘One bluff was piled on top of another’ (Taylor, 1963). Under these circumstances, and thanks to the accompanying misperceptions, the lack of recognition and the fear for the intents of the competitors, diplomacy was likely to fail. When the war broke out the military forces went marching to the front in confidence of and love for the national case.

This erupting nationalism was build up since the conquests of Napoleon and his European project of unifying administrative and social institutions. Romanticism and the search for local identity were flowering all over Europe. Nationalism, one of the main appearances of political recognition, gave a strong inner pressure for imperialism and international conflicts, just like steam give power to the industrialization.

After the Treaty of Vienna in 1815 Russia had operated as controller of the new balance of powers. Russia itself though escaped from the control and strived for a continuous expansion. One of the goals was ice free harbours in the Black Sea, so Russia conquered the Ukraine. In 1853 Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war, later called the Crimean war. To stop Russia's expansion, France and Britain joined the battle.

In the meantime the French domination over Europe from the early nineteenth century was threatened by the unification of Germany under Bismarck and the growing strength of Prussia. The shift of political powers was reflected in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the candidacy of prince Leopold for the throne of Spain in 1868 (persuaded by Bismarck) and the following Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

At the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 the European colonial powers, Turkey and the United States competed to gain control over the African continent. After three months haggling, artificial geometric boundaries had been constructed over the continent, disregarding the natural, cultural and linguistic distribution of the indigenous African population. The major players of the conference were Great Britain, France, Portugal and Germany, who were already controlling most of colonial Africa coasts at the time. The new map of Africa resembled their international recognition.

[4] Huntington’s use of the term ‘civilization’ and the confusion with ‘culture’ have been criticized. According to Huntington a civilization is the highest level cultural association of communities. ‘It can be defined by means of common, objectively discernable elements, like language, history, religion, habits, institutions and by the subjective self-identification of the people in question.’ This is a questionable definition.

In a more commonly accepted view, civilization deals mainly with the perspective of progression. It depends on the actual development stage and the penetration grade in society of three universal (and culture independent) factors: education, science and technology. According to Bagby (1958) civilizations are ‘societies with cities’. Culture in its turn reflects characteristic patterns of human behaviour and the accompanying artefacts, utterances, imaginations, meanings, values, norms, roles and mutual relationships. In other words: predictable and repeated, transferred and acquired behaving and expressions, that are typical for communities and societies. Whereas a civilization is orientated forwardly, a culture is rooted in – mainly rural – tradition. See f.i. Heirman (2006)

[5] Recently Anthony Greenwald and Thomas Pettigrew have argued that ingroup favoritism is plausibly more significant as a basis for discrimination than is outgroup-directed hostility. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.demo.oonair.net/pubmed/24661244

[6] Characteristic for this believe is a statement by the former US Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. In an interview by Gillian Tett some years after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 Greenspan stated: ‘Behavioral economics by itself gets you nowhere and the reason is that you cannot create a macro model based on just [that]. To their credit, behavioral economists don’t [even] claim they can’ (FT Magazine, October 25, 2013).

Astonishing in this statement is the phrase ‘to their credit’. The crucial point is not that behavioral models are inferior because they cannot predict, but that pure mathematical economic models cannot accurately predict, because they are necessarily simplified, at least not behavioral. When even behavioral models cannot predict, it’s too bad for economic models in general.