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21-04-2020, 15:06
Visit the Cooking Lager site (http://cookinglager.blogspot.com/2020/04/support-craft-beer.html)
Support Craft Beer. What type of endeavours ask for your support? You know actually ask you to support them as opposed to say offer you something of value for a price you either can or can’t afford? Those things which ask for more than a transactional relationship. They ask you to care, love even. Football, certainly. It is arguably a form of commercial entertainment where we are not just asked to buy a ticket and enjoy it like a movie, we are asked to passively participate in something secondary to the main event and support a particular outcome for a particular team. There is a conceit that somehow this can affect the outcome, that it influences the players to perform or not in some way. We are expected to buy in to care about a result that doesn’t have any material effect on our wellbeing. Yet it seems to. Supporters can be happy or sad if their team wins or loses. Whole nations can come together for moments when the structure is altered to form national teams instead of club teams. Rivals are expected to come together then dissipate back to old rivalries. What is asked for isn’t the price of a ticket, more a lifelong loyalty. A relationship that participants are asked to let define a part of their identity. When the commercial nature of some participants is revealed like the player that is only there for the money, a disappointment is apparent despite all participants knowing that the player cannot really have developed any loyalty as it was obvious they turned up for the money. Doesn’t make them a bad person really but a talented South American footballer has little other reason to punt up in a North of England city. It’s not for the weather, best bitter or mushy peas. Lad’s from a dirt-poor village in a crime ridden mafia run country. Wanting an out and some moolar doesn’t make him a bad lad. Who wouldn’t? He’s not robbing old ladies for it. A fella turned up and offered him 100k a week to kick a ball in a cold wet dark foreign place. A few years of that is life changing. Of course, he’s going to turn up for the money. And yet if I was to watch a football match with you and claim I didn’t care much who won, I just want to be entertained and this ticket to the red team was cheaper than the blue team across the city so here I am, you’d think me suspect, not quite right. You must have an allegiance to something more than yourself? You can’t love football?
I bet you are ahead of me now, support football, support craft beer thing. Metaphor, analogy. He’s gonna tell me that supporting football is a mugs game, I’m being ripped off, therefore supporting craft beer is a mugs game but basically I like my DIPA and Carlberg don’t do it for me you know so crack on but whatever. Life is more than a series of transactions. More than estimating value against a market price and making a decision to buy or sell. It’s about heart, belonging, identity, family. So yes, you support craft breweries and support your local team. You are part of something more than yourself. Life is no longer cold and lonely and hard and frightening and meaningless; it is a warm hug and a stroke of your hair and a lullaby to get you to sleep.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OBab8aeaQBc/Xp7_DGYLMNI/AAAAAAAABAI/OCb_hOlOjbIhQ_gm0quxzbO2whDkn7aNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/b92d4e73277d69f5914c0095b15c88d8.jpg (https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OBab8aeaQBc/Xp7_DGYLMNI/AAAAAAAABAI/OCb_hOlOjbIhQ_gm0quxzbO2whDkn7aNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/b92d4e73277d69f5914c0095b15c88d8.jpg)
Why is this? What is going on? Can we make sense of this? I don’t know whether I can, but I’ve got an idea or two to share. I might or might not be on to something. Can I go way way back? Back before feudalism even, the economic system of the past and arguably the economic system of the future (enjoy it, generation rent, beg them to not charge you rent when you’ve no cash. Suck it up or you know, change it).
Go back to human nature, the origin of the species. How we seek food, how we pick the best cave, how we mate, how we form families, how we relate to groups, how we defend ourselves. In 1963 W.D Hamilton in “The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour” advanced a concept of “inclusive fitness”. This involved not only Darwinian personal survival and reproduction but importantly the survival of close relatives with shared genes. An idea that altruism evolved as a form of rational self-interest. The continuation of a set of genes was not always best served by individual selfish behaviour but favoured those groups that contained individuals prepared to sacrifice themselves for others that shared their set of genes. It is an argument that all tribes prior to the emergence of agriculture were inbreeding family groups. Like what you still find in places like Burnley. Howard Margolis in “Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality” argued that human society changed faster than human genetic makeup creating a genetic inertia that leads people to treat other members of an in group as genetic kin and thus extending altruism to people you are not related to but form a group with. That group can be friends, a town, a team, a nation, a club, a twitter hashtag. This is why people die for their country rather than say bollocks to that, put their hands up and offer to learn German and eat sauerkraut. It is a genetically influenced motivational factor. Your mind is not a blank slate but a prewired circuit board that makes some responses more readily learned and attractive than others. This epigenetic tendency to behave with an in-group if it comprised of close relatives can be exploited to sell you more than a football season ticket, pile of worthless crowd funded craft brewery shares and a box of expensive beer. You can be in the group if you follow these rules. Behavioural, transactional. Sometimes there’s a uniform. It can be a daft hat and a beard, but the best ones have uniforms.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KYz-nB8uwA/Xp7_HbY1o3I/AAAAAAAABAM/TiyXgsuYR4AV25CwCev6uoF5b-YCu7fKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/tumblr_n2uge3lQ0i1tsqyslo1_500.jpg (https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KYz-nB8uwA/Xp7_HbY1o3I/AAAAAAAABAM/TiyXgsuYR4AV25CwCev6uoF5b-YCu7fKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/tumblr_n2uge3lQ0i1tsqyslo1_500.jpg)
Like in Burnley
I am not making an argument to leave an in group. Belonging is important. Like family. I’m not making any argument at all. I’m offering an explanation you can take or leave. Humanity is tribal. We are all reliant on others in the groups we are members of and we must follow the rules and act as if the group matters more than the individual. You must support the groups you are members of. The rules can and do evolve into a sense of morality, for morality is the best support of any set of rules. That supporting the in group is morally right. But here is where I leave it to part 2, if I get around to it, considering whether the model of craft and artisanal production is a more moral proposition than large corporate mass production.
But for now, support Craft Beer. These breweries, these pubs, that belong to someone else not you, require your ongoing support. Be in the group. Let me hug you. Support them. Support Craft Beer. If you loved beer you would support craft beer. You can't care about beer otherwise. It's not just a product, or transaction. It is a family. Support Craft Beer.
More... (http://cookinglager.blogspot.com/2020/04/support-craft-beer.html)
Support Craft Beer. What type of endeavours ask for your support? You know actually ask you to support them as opposed to say offer you something of value for a price you either can or can’t afford? Those things which ask for more than a transactional relationship. They ask you to care, love even. Football, certainly. It is arguably a form of commercial entertainment where we are not just asked to buy a ticket and enjoy it like a movie, we are asked to passively participate in something secondary to the main event and support a particular outcome for a particular team. There is a conceit that somehow this can affect the outcome, that it influences the players to perform or not in some way. We are expected to buy in to care about a result that doesn’t have any material effect on our wellbeing. Yet it seems to. Supporters can be happy or sad if their team wins or loses. Whole nations can come together for moments when the structure is altered to form national teams instead of club teams. Rivals are expected to come together then dissipate back to old rivalries. What is asked for isn’t the price of a ticket, more a lifelong loyalty. A relationship that participants are asked to let define a part of their identity. When the commercial nature of some participants is revealed like the player that is only there for the money, a disappointment is apparent despite all participants knowing that the player cannot really have developed any loyalty as it was obvious they turned up for the money. Doesn’t make them a bad person really but a talented South American footballer has little other reason to punt up in a North of England city. It’s not for the weather, best bitter or mushy peas. Lad’s from a dirt-poor village in a crime ridden mafia run country. Wanting an out and some moolar doesn’t make him a bad lad. Who wouldn’t? He’s not robbing old ladies for it. A fella turned up and offered him 100k a week to kick a ball in a cold wet dark foreign place. A few years of that is life changing. Of course, he’s going to turn up for the money. And yet if I was to watch a football match with you and claim I didn’t care much who won, I just want to be entertained and this ticket to the red team was cheaper than the blue team across the city so here I am, you’d think me suspect, not quite right. You must have an allegiance to something more than yourself? You can’t love football?
I bet you are ahead of me now, support football, support craft beer thing. Metaphor, analogy. He’s gonna tell me that supporting football is a mugs game, I’m being ripped off, therefore supporting craft beer is a mugs game but basically I like my DIPA and Carlberg don’t do it for me you know so crack on but whatever. Life is more than a series of transactions. More than estimating value against a market price and making a decision to buy or sell. It’s about heart, belonging, identity, family. So yes, you support craft breweries and support your local team. You are part of something more than yourself. Life is no longer cold and lonely and hard and frightening and meaningless; it is a warm hug and a stroke of your hair and a lullaby to get you to sleep.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OBab8aeaQBc/Xp7_DGYLMNI/AAAAAAAABAI/OCb_hOlOjbIhQ_gm0quxzbO2whDkn7aNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/b92d4e73277d69f5914c0095b15c88d8.jpg (https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OBab8aeaQBc/Xp7_DGYLMNI/AAAAAAAABAI/OCb_hOlOjbIhQ_gm0quxzbO2whDkn7aNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/b92d4e73277d69f5914c0095b15c88d8.jpg)
Why is this? What is going on? Can we make sense of this? I don’t know whether I can, but I’ve got an idea or two to share. I might or might not be on to something. Can I go way way back? Back before feudalism even, the economic system of the past and arguably the economic system of the future (enjoy it, generation rent, beg them to not charge you rent when you’ve no cash. Suck it up or you know, change it).
Go back to human nature, the origin of the species. How we seek food, how we pick the best cave, how we mate, how we form families, how we relate to groups, how we defend ourselves. In 1963 W.D Hamilton in “The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour” advanced a concept of “inclusive fitness”. This involved not only Darwinian personal survival and reproduction but importantly the survival of close relatives with shared genes. An idea that altruism evolved as a form of rational self-interest. The continuation of a set of genes was not always best served by individual selfish behaviour but favoured those groups that contained individuals prepared to sacrifice themselves for others that shared their set of genes. It is an argument that all tribes prior to the emergence of agriculture were inbreeding family groups. Like what you still find in places like Burnley. Howard Margolis in “Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality” argued that human society changed faster than human genetic makeup creating a genetic inertia that leads people to treat other members of an in group as genetic kin and thus extending altruism to people you are not related to but form a group with. That group can be friends, a town, a team, a nation, a club, a twitter hashtag. This is why people die for their country rather than say bollocks to that, put their hands up and offer to learn German and eat sauerkraut. It is a genetically influenced motivational factor. Your mind is not a blank slate but a prewired circuit board that makes some responses more readily learned and attractive than others. This epigenetic tendency to behave with an in-group if it comprised of close relatives can be exploited to sell you more than a football season ticket, pile of worthless crowd funded craft brewery shares and a box of expensive beer. You can be in the group if you follow these rules. Behavioural, transactional. Sometimes there’s a uniform. It can be a daft hat and a beard, but the best ones have uniforms.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KYz-nB8uwA/Xp7_HbY1o3I/AAAAAAAABAM/TiyXgsuYR4AV25CwCev6uoF5b-YCu7fKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/tumblr_n2uge3lQ0i1tsqyslo1_500.jpg (https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KYz-nB8uwA/Xp7_HbY1o3I/AAAAAAAABAM/TiyXgsuYR4AV25CwCev6uoF5b-YCu7fKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/tumblr_n2uge3lQ0i1tsqyslo1_500.jpg)
Like in Burnley
I am not making an argument to leave an in group. Belonging is important. Like family. I’m not making any argument at all. I’m offering an explanation you can take or leave. Humanity is tribal. We are all reliant on others in the groups we are members of and we must follow the rules and act as if the group matters more than the individual. You must support the groups you are members of. The rules can and do evolve into a sense of morality, for morality is the best support of any set of rules. That supporting the in group is morally right. But here is where I leave it to part 2, if I get around to it, considering whether the model of craft and artisanal production is a more moral proposition than large corporate mass production.
But for now, support Craft Beer. These breweries, these pubs, that belong to someone else not you, require your ongoing support. Be in the group. Let me hug you. Support them. Support Craft Beer. If you loved beer you would support craft beer. You can't care about beer otherwise. It's not just a product, or transaction. It is a family. Support Craft Beer.
More... (http://cookinglager.blogspot.com/2020/04/support-craft-beer.html)