There are two kinds of people: those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don't.

Lynne Kiesling points to a Forbes article by Rich Karlgaard that identifies two kinds of people: "opportunity seekers" love charging into the unknown future; "problem solvers" resist forward motion until all present-day problems are gone. This is in response to Virginia Postrel's dichotomy of people: dynamists and stasists.

Both dichotomies ring false to me. There's something there that they are nibbling at but they haven't nailed it. An earlier attempt at the problem, Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival, seems to have more depth. Her dichotomies are summarized by Stewart Brand here:

THE COMMERCIAL MORAL SYNDROME Shun force. Come to voluntary agreements. Be honest. Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens. Compete. Respect contracts. Use initiative and enterprise. Be open to inventiveness and novelty. Be efficient. Promote comfort and convenience. Dissent for the sake of the task. Invest for productive purposes. Be industrious. Be thrifty. Be optimistic.

THE GUARDIAN MORAL SYNDROME Shun trading. Exert prowess. Be obedient and disciplined. Adhere to tradition. Respect hierarchy. Be loyal. Take vengeance. Deceive for the sake of the task. Make rich use of leisure. Be ostentatious. Dispense largesse. Be exclusive. Show fortitude. Be fatalistic. Treasure honor.

The three dichotomies are much alike but Jacobs' seems richer. I'm especially intrigued by one pair of opposing characteristics: commercial types, which includes scientists, "Dissent for the sake of the task"; guardian types, which includes politicians, bureaucrats and academics (except scientists), "Deceive for the sake of the task."

One dissents just for drill, the other lies for the same reason. One of my pet peeves has always been the way political activists of all types lie about everything, even when there is no benefit to doing so. They feel no guilt or shame in doing so, which has always seemed to be sociopathy to me. They mung up the social mind just because they can. Wreckers without a purpose. But if you accept Jacobs' moral dichotomy it's just part of a moral syndrome, a way of seeing and being in the world that has a strong them and us component. Everything is broken for them, there are threats behind every tree, so they keep 'em guessing.

I don't fully buy any of the dichotomies, or any dichotomy, but they all provide some insights and also, perhaps, some confusion. Few if any real people can be categorized these ways. It is interesting that differences between political groups are of less significance than the difference between political groups and non-political groups. The political approach, the government-bureaucrat-rules approach, is much the same for all parties. They quibble about the details but are in substantial agreement. This is worth grasping since Jacobs' claim, one that I find to be evidence based, is that there is a substantial fraction of humanity that views the world very differently.

Another Jacobs' claim is that real trouble arrises from hybridization and collusion between the two moral systems. Her examples include organized crime and the military-industrial complex, but we can extrapolate that blending to many other cases such as collusion between any business segment - builders, energy, transportation, mining etc. - and government. Neither moral system can maintain integrity or internal consistency when mingling with the other.

Karlgaard draws a different conclusion from his dichotomy:

Americans Want Optimism

Republicans will continue to win elections if they appeal to opportunity seekers. They'll get trounced if they overreact to today's polls and decide they must trade their opportunity-seeking philosophy for problem solving. America wants its political leaders to be optimistic about the future. We want to be shown the possibilities and opportunities--bold races to the moon, shining cities on a hill and bridges to the future. Politicians lose when they focus on problems.

Well, perhaps. But does it make much difference which party wins? It seems not, at least compared to the gulf between political and non-political segments of society. Karlgaard notes that "Starting with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, Republicans have presented themselves as opportunity seekers. Theirs has been the party that favors lower taxes and less regulation, school choice and business without speed bumps." But they haven't actually walked the talk. Government got bigger. The regulations and speed bumps were moved around, but they are still around.

If Jacobs is right then it is well to reduce the mingling, but that means that the current domination of society by Guardian types is a problem. It isn't better integration that is needed, it is segregation and balance - separate but equal, or something like that. I'm not sure that equal is proper either. My view is that Guardians should have the lesser domain since they are of diminishing value in a fully populated world where force is almost always the B answer. Peaceful, cooperative, mutually beneficial exchange is simply a better approach than seizing what is desired. Big sticks are relics of a previous eon.

The dichotomy I grew up with, and have heard others voice as well, is between Mom's rules and Dad's rules. Mom's rules were detailed and specific - don't do this and don't do that, do this and do that. Dad has just one rule: don't make it my problem. Mom's rules are nearly impossible to follow perfectly all the time so you are sure to get in trouble at some point and be harshed on. But you don't have to think much, just obey. Dad's rule is also very difficult to follow because the responsibility is all on you. Nothing is forbidden or required but if you get in a bind and he has to bail you out then you are in a world of hurt. You have to think three steps ahead and make choices, something that is very hard for a kid with an immature pre-frontal cortex no matter how much raw intelligence he has.

All of these other dichotomies seem to me to be variations of Mom's and Dad's rules, lent extra gravitas by formalization and perhaps some pretense that we are not actually talking about the paternalistic, or maternalistic, relation between society as a whole and those who appoint themselves or seek appointment as Guardians. The rub for me is that my kids have kids and I really have no use for either paternalism or maternalism at this point. I suspect this is true for most people. The Guardian system is an anachronism, something hanging on past its sell-by date that came from a time when the vast majority of the population was infantalized by overwheening power - slaves, servants, serfs, peasants and the like where children in the eyes of royalty and power.

One result we might expect from our rapidly enlarging social mind as ICT becomes ubiquitous is that ever more people will twig to the irrelevance of Guardians. It is a Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum choice between competing parties of Guardians since they are both wedded to the old system. Why bother to choose? But, how do we escape from them? If Karlgaard is right about Americans then a sure fire winning strategy is to talk Reagan talk, but actually do it this time. I'm not sure. I doubt that this could happen anyway. I think my bet would be on the whimper scenario: a string of bumbling, ineffectual, grid-locked administrations will demonstrate the irrelevance of politics for real world issues. People will gradually turn off to the whole circus. It may be a long bet.