From: Jim Ledbury (jim.ledbury@dsl.pipex.com)
Date: Sat Mar 20 2004 - 06:25:01 GMT
Valuemetaphysics@aol.com wrote:
>
> I am unsure about the quality of diversity per se. This seems to me to
> be a justification for a lot of BritArt which I find - um - pointless.
> Okay, in this sphere (intellectual) I dislike the art but I will defend
> their right to produce it. I think I am supportive of diversity, but
> with qualifications.
>
> Mark 19-03-04: Hi Jim. I feel diversity can be defended in MoQ terms.
> The position with BritArt may be a socially dominated issue? I find
> the aesthetics of much BritArt to be lacking in intellectual Quality.
>
> Diversity in biological terms means plenty of things. We need this, but
> diversity in disease? Well this one is being played out on many diverse
> levels: intellectual, social and biological. I'm thinking of the
> current todo with multiple disease jabs for kids here (MMR) which is a
> media long runner in Britain, perhaps elsewhere.
>
> Mark 19-03-04: Diversity in disease may result from diversity in life
> forms upon which disease can flourish? However, the latter is of a
> higher evolutionary coherent state and in a better position to 'get
> the upper hand'?
> Disease is, by definition, an aberration of a better state? But the
> better state got 'to be,' 'to exist' in the first place, and the MoQ
> helps explain why.
>
I suspect there is probably an optimal diversity, which would be relate
to concepts found in self-organised chaos. In ecological terms this
would relate to the best filling of all available ecological niches. If
there were fewer species, then there would be gaps to exploit and
divergent evolution/external species would fill them; if there were too
many, then their populations would dwindle and become unviable so we
have some form of dynamic equilibrium. I remember reading an article in
New Scientist a couple of years back about an ecologist (scientist not
activist sense) in Costa Rica concluding that the health of biosphere
was indicated by it's closeness to this optimum level, and that species
were created and became extinct all the time. Unfortunately it's one of
those theories likely to exploited by anti-ecological social forces who
will gleefully seize on its concept that we shouldn't get too hung up
about extinctions out of context.
In other levels I would think that perhaps BritArt is precisely the
point at which diversity is becoming watered down to the point of
non-viability. Maybe that's a cause for celebration as it could be
taken as an indicator of a thriving intellectual ecology :-/. Maybe I
can get out of this unwelcome (to me) apparent support for the state of
BritArt by hypothesising that the intellectual sphere of BritArt is a
closed system, and that it may well be healthy in its own terms but poor
in terms of relating to a wider social/intellectual sphere which I feel
it is one of the basic responsibilities of intellectual quality. I
don't know. Maybe that's dangerously close to a closed intellectual
system which refuses to allow DQ to spread. Or maybe it's a higher yet
value system?
In expanding on the situations where diversity is not synonymous with
quality in a kind of reduction ad absurdam argument (perhaps a naive one
and I'm not suggesting that this is what you meant), a simplistic
approach to diversity == quality would suggest that in biological
science the more animal experimentation done the better. Again, this
can only be the case in a very closed intellectual sphere with no regard
to the wider social feedback resulting from such experimentation. To
suggest that "don't be such a wuss, this is expanding intellectual
quality (aka science)" erodes many healthy social protocols regarding
mutual respect, I would think.
Disease of some form is fairly inevitable in a diverse ecosystem. Taken
on a simplistic level maybe we should celebrate disease as being
indicative of diversity! On the social level, this would be akin to
celebrating criminality I guess. On the intellectual level: I'm not
sure: celebrating plagiarism and scientific fraud and disputation for
it's own sake, I guess. However rather than try to stamp out the
diversity, higher level protocols have to be worked out. With respect
to disease - hygeine. With respect to criminality - laws. With
respect to intellectual abuse - professional ethics, I suppose. In each
case there is (or should be) a celebration of diversity - that is the
extinction of diversity should only be accomplished where the conflict
jeopardizes survival. Which kinda brings us to the state of current
world affairs, I suppose; but I don't want to go there today. But I
would note that it has been hypothesised that the current increases of
basic allergies suffered by children is due to a lack of building up
basic immunities to to over-use of basic hygeine practices. On the
social level this could be analogous to an over-refined set of social
structures (Victorian) where the presence of a mild profanity might
cause the moral equivalent of hyperallergic reaction. On the
intellectual level I guess this would be analogous to excessive witch
hunts and denouncements of heterodox opinions as unscientific. This
could also be expanded to attitudes related to pornography and hate
literature. Celebrating pornography and hate literature per se would be
celebrating the disease as evidence of diversity. To use the law
against them however should be used with caution. I guess this would be
the case when the pornography involved or encouraged rape or child abuse
(non-consensual acts), or where the hate literature consituted
incitement to violence.
However, a lot of this is reasoning (at least I hope it's reasoning) by
analogy and should be used with caution. Each case should be taken on
it's own merits. Overgeneralisation is an intellectual problem.
ATB
Jim
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