Unintended consequences of private passion can form durable social institutions

Evidence

The actual phrase is not Vico’s it is perhaps an echo of Hegel’s “ruse of reason”—but the idea is. Vico’s theory of divine providence held that men themselves constructed a world according to a divine plan of which they were not aware. “For out of the passions of men each bent on his private advantage, for the sake of which they would live like wild beasts in the wilderness, it [providence] has made the civil institutions by which they may live in human society.” Vico, The New Science , Cornell, 1968, p. 62. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2047

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the proto-Hegelian idea that providence/ruse of reason produces civil order from selfish passions — the unconscious-historical-process concept Gramsci’s theory of historical materialism engages.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s ‘ruse of reason’ / unintended-consequence theorizing that underlies how ideology and civil society emerge without conscious design — relevant to the constructed-and-naturalized ‘Other’ the Islamophobia toolkit describes. — connects to: Uncoordinated private passions can yield orderly civil institutions unintentionally; Social institutions emerge to substitute for trust relationships that cannot work — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 787; Erotic desire fundamentally resists social regulation and institutions — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Uncoordinated private passions can yield orderly civil institutions unintentionally #corroborates (0.98)
• Erotic desire fundamentally resists social regulation and institutions #complicates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406
• Private associations form the hegemonic apparatus underlying the coercive State #exemplifies (0.76) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 984
• Individual motives become social only through forms of mutual interaction #expands (0.74) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 194
• Social institutions emerge to substitute for trust relationships that cannot work #qualifies (0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 787