From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 07:44:51 BST
Dear Sam,
You wrote 28 Mar 2003 14:37:16 -0000:
'I'm not certain we disagree. My point was really that, to understand what
social values predominate, we should look to what is celebrated (ie to who
is a celebrity). Those are the people who are most copied.'
If we don't disagree, we are simply talking past each other. My point was
really that the kind of values that can 'predominate' and 'be celebrated'
are not MoQish value or static quality. To call such values 'social' or
'biological' or 'intellectual' creates confusion about the way static
quality in the MoQ can and should be categorized.
For a social pattern of value to be stable and/or versatile (to embody
'social static quality' in the MoQish sense) it is of no relevance at all
what 'values' (what attributes of people) are copied. We could distinguish
social patterns of value from each other by the attributes of people that
command the highest 'status' or 'celebrity' and that by being copied
maintain those social patterns of value. According to me that way of
distinguishing does not correspond to the distinction between low- and
high-quality or between primitive and more advanced in an evolutionary
sense, however. The relative ranking in my MoQ of a social pattern of value
in which sporting a bare belly dominates and one in which regular attendance
of Mass/Communion/Meeting for Worship/etc. dominates does not correlate with
a scale on which the value of these behaviors are ranked. It depends solely
on the way these behaviors are copied. The fact that the social pattern of
sporting bare bellies employs modern mass media for its maintenance is for
me a reason to rank it higher than the social pattern of attending religious
services.
You asked me to expand on the following:
I don't call the 4th level 'individual' however, because that would
strengthen the misunderstanding that the 4th level has no 'social' aspects
(in the SOMish sense of the word 'social', not referring to the 3th level).
It has, because motives must be recognized and shared by others to 'work',
to be experienced as 'valid'.
This should not be understood to mean that motives MUST meet with agreement
among others before they can form intellectual patterns of value. It is
enough if others recognize my utterances as motives for my actions and
can reproduce them as MY motives. E.g. for terrorism (the idea that
terrifying people is a just way to achieve political goals) to have effect
and to be maintained as an intellectual pattern of value it is enough for
one terrorist to present that idea in a way that convinces others that he
really believes in it (for instance by making others commit suicidal mass
murders) even if no-one else agree with that idea. Even if Bin Laden finds
no-one else to attack the U.S. in a comparable way and only Al Jazeera
broadcasts his speeches (side by side with Bush's speeches), a lot of people
will stay afraid for a long time that he is still trying to achieve his
goals in such a way, i.e. that his terrorism still exists.
Approval by others CAN occasionally help to spread ideas and strengthen an
intellectual pattern of value, though. (-;
As long as utterances are not copied unthinking, because of the status of
the one they are copied from, copying motives for action is typical for the
4th level according to me. (Utterances that ARE copied unthinking, are NOT
motivating action of the one who copies. 'Unthinking' and 'motivating' don't
square.)
You thought it strange and possibly self-contradictory that I wrote:
'Individuals distinguish themselves from each other by a different choice
(of several items) from the available motivations for action (and thus by
different patterns of action, if they are consistent).'
You rhetorically replied:
'On what basis is a choice made if not on the basis of motivations? You seem
to get stuck into circular reasoning if you talk about choosing motivations
(or an infinite regress).'
I didn't mean 'choice' in the sense of 'conscious choice', implying
motivation, here. I had better written:
'Individuals distinguish themselves from each other by participating in
different sets of the available motivations for action (and thus by
different patterns of action, if they are consistent).' The quality
experience that drives one to start participating in an intellectual pattern
of value (in addition to or substituting other intellectual patterns of
value) is not an experience of static intellectual quality ('truth' or any
other such measure of quality internal to a particular intellectual pattern
of value), but Dynamic Quality (in the absence of static patterns of value
on a higher than intellectual level).
At the end of your 28 March post you wrote:
'I'm using "myth" to describe the basic presuppositions within which the
intellect functions.'
Then you indeed use 'myth' in a different sense than I use to do. Locating
mythological thinking in the 4th level, but evolutionary preceding rational
thinking, myths for me almost by definition refer to 'low-quality
intellectual patterns of value'.
'Basic presuppositions for rational thinking' can be taken either from
pre-rational or from post-rational sources. In the first case thinking is
not yet fully 'rational'. In the last case thinking is starting to go beyond
rational thinking and possibly beyond the intellectual level. I don't think
it is clarifying things to understand 'myth' in a sense so broad that it
includes both.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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