Mundia & Modia: The two worlds in which we live

We humans live in two worlds. One world, I call Mundia, is the world of immutable laws: gravity, electromagnetism, supply and demand, etc. - it is the world that we see when we look out at the natural landscape.The other world, I call Modia, is the world of social relationships: love, hate, admiration, envy, loyalty, gratitude, etc. - it is the world that we see when we look out at the social landscape.

I believe that, while all of us live in both worlds, most of us live in one world much more than the other: we are Mundians or Modians, not both. Mundians look out at the world and see the natural landscape; Modians, the social landscape. This fact explains a lot of phenomena that have puzzled me for a long time. At the most basic level it explains this: when faced with a problem, what is the heuristic that we use for solving it? Mundians use a naturalistic model, while Modians use a sociological model. The nature of these two models is very different, often leading to very different answers.

Mundia: The world is made of immutable laws. We can successfully manipulate the world by learning them. Over thousands of years, our society has gradually built up a knowledge of the world's immutable laws, and the best way to educate oneself is to learn this collective wisdom. If something is unknown, or if there is some disagreement, the way to resolve it is to understand things better; whether by experimentation or by reason. The facts speak for themselves.

Modia: The world is made of relationships between people. We can successfully manipulate the world by figuring out who is powerful, or by becoming powerful ourselves. We must learn to be responsive to people in the right way, or to act in a way which will elicit the response we want. How we look, dress, and the opinions we hold are all factors in interpersonal relationships, which signal to others our social status.

Now, you might think that Mundia and Modia are non-overlapping magisteria. If only they were! I will give you an example of how they are not: the anthropogenic global warming debate. I am not, personally, knowledgeable enough about this issue to have an informed opinion about it. Most likely, neither are you. But, there is a good chance that you have an opinion, informed or not, and might even believe it very strongly! So how did you form you opinion? The answer most likely depends on whether you are Mundian or Modian. A Modian would say: "Obviously, there is anthropogenic global warming, there is consensus among the experts!" A Mundian would say, "Even though there is a consensus among experts on this issue, there are some experts who disagree. How do we know they are not right? Only a few decades ago the experts were warning about global cooling. Minority views have often overturned the scientific consensus. The jury is still out." Note that I'm not saying anything about the truth value of anthropogenic global warming! Only about the heuristic that we use to make decisions when we are not well-informed.

You might also notice that being pro-AGW is generally associated with the political left, while being anti-AGW is associated with the right. I don't much like the terms "left" and "right" as political descriptions ("liberal" and "conservative" are even worse) because to most people they imply ideology. I don't believe that ideology is consistent over time. When I look at the ideology of the left or right a hundred years ago, and look at it now, I don't see much continuity. When I look at policy I see even less. The continuity that I do see is the difference between Mundia and Modia.

Why is it that Hollywood tends to be leftist, while farmers tend to be on the right? It is because success in Hollywood depends on successfully manipulating people, while farmers must manipulate nature. You can make a list of professions, and easily see that the more Modian they are, the more left-leaning they tend to be, and the more Mundian they are, the more right-leaning. Thus people who work in the media tend to be on the left, and engineers on the right. Business people tend to be on the right, because they are judged by objective standards of profit and loss. But those business people whose success depends on understanding fashion tend more to the left. Wherever you see objective standards, you see Mundians; wherever the the standards are subjective, Modians.

All human institutions tend to become Modian over time, for the simple reason that they are made up of people. The more subjective the criteria for success, the more Modian the organization will become. Those institutions that have little or no exogenous criteria for success, like government, academia, or the non-profit sector, will inevitably come to be dominated by Modians, whatever their explicit goals may be. Businesses, which must make a profit to survive, are not immune to this tendency. Though they have exogenous criteria for success, it is a difficult task to propagate the objective criteria down through the ranks; at each level of decision making there will be some degree of subjectivity. But in the business world, there is some good news for Mundians: those businesses that become too Modian will fail.

Mundia and Modia explain why people tend to move rightwards as they age. We are all born Modians, knowing nothing about the world, but trusting our parents to inform us. Later we learn from our teachers, and our peers. It is usually perfectly clear what the right opinions of our society are,  and we accept them as fact. As we move away from the orbit of our parents, an interesting thing happens. We become acutely aware of the social hierarchy of our peers. It often becomes clear that the high-status opinions are different, often diametrically opposed, to that of our parents. Which do we choose? Most of us still don't have a well-formed inner model of the world with which to make a Mundian decision, but we value our status among our peers, so it's an easy choice.

As we age, we gradually learn more about Mundia. Its immutable nature means that our knowledge about it is cumulative. Occasionally, we learn things that seem to contradict what we think we know, and we have to reconcile our ideas, but the direction is always forward. Nothing of the sort happens in Modia, at least on a macro scale. Opinion-makers are always changing. Intellectual fashions go in and out of style. To a Modian, it's all natural; keeping up with the latest fashion is instinctive. But a Mundian soon becomes disillusioned; the world is supposed to be immutable! When our personal experiences of the world contradict the social messages, Mundians reject the social messages. And so, they gradually move the the right.

You might have detected above my own personal bias. I am, I admit, a Mundian. But I do not believe that Mundians are always right, nor is Modia an illusion. In fact, Modia is probably more important than Mundia, even to Mundians! Mundians crave social success, and status, more than they crave success in farming, or building bridges that won't fall down. A typical Mundian mistake is to assume that success in Mundia will naturally lead to success in Modia. It might, but it might not. A successful movie star will always be more popular than a successful businessman. I also think that Modia is important in its own right, especially on the micro level: interpersonal relations. On the macro level, marketing is part of life, for better or for worse, and it's an important skill. In the arts, why not? Viva la Modia! Why not enjoy it?

The problem comes when you use Modian skills to solve a Mundian problem, or vice versa. Everybody knows that Modian skills won't keep your bridges from falling down, but we still choose bridge-builders partly, at least, for Modian reasons. Everybody knows that truth isn't a popularity contest, but we still tend to view a recent scientific consensus as truth, and call dissenters deniers. Conversely, Mundia won't help you get along with your spouse, your co-workers, or make you popular.

In then end, we humans live in two worlds: Mundia and Modia. Enjoy the difference.

Peaks and Valleys

I want to talk about the most important misunderstanding most people have: Most people think that happiness is a peak experience. A peak experience, as I mean it, is an experience that gives rise to strong emotions, whether positive or negative – the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, danger, falling in love, etc. People who are not happy (this, I think, includes most westerners) assume that happiness should be the ultimate peak experience. Many of them feel this way because they find their lives boring, which seems like the opposite of a peak experience. The impression is reinforced by the media, which has trouble depicting happiness, but no trouble depicting peak experiences. (Indeed, a characteristic of the evolution of the media, even during my own lifetime, is an increasing emphasis on increasingly extreme peak experiences.)

Happiness, however, is a valley experience. It is not a feeling of euphoria, but more like a feeling of peace. In fact, I might characterize it even more mundanely as a feeling of at-home-ness. To one who has never experienced it, it sounds like happiness is demotivating, but the opposite is true. It is a kind of flavor-enhancer to life. It enables you to feel peak experiences all the more. Unhappy people often seek out increasingly extreme peak experiences – because they can’t fully feel their peaks, and don’t really enjoy their experiences.

The way to achieve happiness is to feel with certainty that your life has meaning. In our tribal past this was easy – your life was dedicated to the tribe, and this gave meaning to your life. In the modern world, you have to work harder. For some people, their family is enough – a kind of minimalist tribe. Others dedicate their lives to their country, or a good cause, or their job. All of these are worth something. The more meaningful you feel your life, the happier you will be.

Something strange about Israel

There's something strange about Israel. Okay, there are a lot of strange things about Israel, but I want to talk about one thing that I sometimes see mentioned, but I've never seen analyzed.

By most accounts Israel is the second-largest high-tech center in the world. What's so strange about that? After all, someplace has to be the third largest high-tech center! Well, I grew up in the third-largest high-tech center in the world (Boston, Massachusetts) and I worked there in high-tech for two and a half years. Something like 90% of the people there working in high-tech are from outside of the Boston area (often, from outside the US) who came to Boston specifically to work in high-tech. The rest (like me) were children of people who came to Boston for the same reason.

The same is true for Silicon Valley, and for the lesser high-tech centers in the US. But, though many people come to Israel from abroad, none of them come specifically to work in high-tech. (The majority are fleeing oppression in countries like Russia, Ethiopia, and France) The distance from Jerusalem to Haifa, which contains most of Israel's population, is approximately the same as the distance from San Jose to San Francisco, its population is slightly less (about 5 million) about the same as Massachusetts.

How can it be that the people who happened to be here created the world's second-largest high-tech center? Joseph Morgenstern suggests a few possible answers:

The answer is rooted in part in the tradition of intellectual curiosity and analysis, which is an aspect of Jewish culture. It is a tradition that emphasizes education and that has produced, out of all numerical proportion, outstanding scientists and inventors. This age-old reverence for education has found expression in the development of a good Israeli public school system and excellent universities and institutes of science and technology.

If that doesn't satisfy you then there's this:

Even more likely, the technological accomplishments may be a result of the innate stubbornness, resilience, and creative drive of a polyglot people. Because of the multi-national mix of the population, many of the researchers have brought with them a variety of experiences and points of view acquired in different parts of the world. All are joined together by the determination to create a country which will become strong in spite of a lack of natural resources and of hostility on the part of most of its neighbors. This need for national security has led to the development of new defense technologies.

Or how about this:

Ambition for a better quality of life and higher standards of living has led to the creation of an export-driven economy. And most Israelis are aware that the ability to sell and succeed in the international marketplace is dependent on their products being more innovative and better priced than those of the country's competitors.

I don't believe any of it. Or rather, I'm willing to believe all of it, but I don't think it explains the facts. Even taken together, it&'s hard to explain why Israel has more high-tech activity than countries like England, France and Germany - countries that each have more than ten times Israel's population, and higher per-capita GNP.

I think that Israeli culture is somehow particularly well-suited to high-tech, and I think the reason is explained in my previous post.

Rules that set you free

Two Jews, three opinions. This is one of the many stereotypes about Jews that you hear. In fact, a glance at a Jewish social function - a wedding, a synagogue service, etc. and you will see what looks like chaos. Jewish Standard Time - means you never know when anything will start, or how long it will take. But there’s another stereotype that I hear a lot: Jews, they really know how to organize themselves! Can both stereotypes have some truth to them? If so, what does it mean?

Observant Jews are required to pray three times a day: morning, afternoon, and evening. When ten or more Jews are together, they are required to conduct their prayers communally. It is a remarkable thing to see the formation of a minyan (prayer group) among people who don’t know each other – in airports, hotels, etc. It’s a seemingly spontaneous crystallization of a previously formless structure, which breaks up as soon as the prayers are finished. I have seen teenagers do it, demonstrating an impressive level of maturity for their age. How does it happen? It happens because there are specific rules that everyone knows, which determine the process. A shaliah sibur (public emissary) needs to be selected to lead the prayers. Usually there’s some jostling as people volunteer each other, but I’ve never seen people fight about it. Once that happens, his nusakh (version) of the prayers determines the version for the minyan as a whole. The rules are somewhat more detailed (for example, if a mourner is present, he is selected), but the specifics aren’t important for this discussion. My point is that since the rules are standardized, and everybody knows them, a randomly formed group becomes self-organizing.

In fact, this is the nature of Judaism in all aspects. Judaism is not a faith-based religion. What is it then? It’s a rule-based religion. An observant Jew follows 613 commandments (misvot). A very wide range of theological opinions is tolerated within Judaism – as long as you observe the commandments. (There are, however a few articles of faith, the most important being belief in one God. Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith represents a consensus, but not universal, view.)

Moreover, Judaism is one of the last traditional religions. By this I mean a couple of related things. First, it is traditional in the sense of "traditional culture" – it explicitly values tradition, and maintains social institutions for preserving it. Second, Judaism is traditional in the sense that its roots go back to prehistoric times: It has no one founder who imparted a unified (synthetic) set of ideas through which to view the world. Instead, its principles are united in an organic sense – they work together to create a lifestyle that satisfies the individual and preserves the community.

Taken together, these characteristics lead to an organic worldview. Though Israelis in general, and Israelis in high-tech in specific, are for the most part not religiously observant, the historic Jewish worldview persists. Israelis tend to assume that random groups will organize themselves, not break up and scatter. Israeli culture is egalitarian in the extreme – Israelis tend to have little respect for authority, not because they are anti-authority, but more because they don’t tend to pay much attention to hierarchy. In spite of this, Israelis are easy to manage, not by giving orders but by making rules and setting goals (goals are actually a kind of rule). Goals define the task, while rules make sure that the parts system, and the people building it, can work together. This is the way to mange for innovation, because you never know, when you start out, exactly what you need to do. You have to rely on the initiative and creativity of your employees. But they also have to be able to work together.