Hello Kenneth, hello all,
there are so many good and inspiring post, that I finally accepted the fact,
that cannot I find a word on all of them. Be sure, that I have read everthing,
seeped down in my sub-consciousness and will come up again in a different
context someday in a, hopeful, beneficial one at least to myself. Nothing gets
lost anyway!
>> Johannes:
> So that has lead me to the conclusion, that it must the perspective we
> look upon this being responsible for not understanding it. This was even
> more astonishing because when we look at everything else by means of the MoQ
> it works in an almost elegant and beautiful way.
>
To which Kenneth answered:
> <<That can mean two things,
> 1_ the Moq- terms as applied upon this list are wrong or perhaps not com-
> plete.
> 2_ that I, not fully Moq well grounded has a wrong perspective looking
> upon it.
Johannes:
I sounds as if YOU felt blamed, by my writings for not having understood the
MoQ. I would be rather sorry if this is the case because this would have been an
misunderstanding then.
No, I meant to say, that I always look very eagerly at all those exchanges
concerning this issue. I'm not completely satisfied with Pirsigs approach to
that; I don't consider his thoughts about this relation 'wrong' or 'bad', no I
wish to find out more about it.
I believe this is no 'ghost' I do see. Many of us feel a bit shaky about this, I
think. And new members (Welcome, Newcomers!) always bring new viewpoints to our
discussion, so do the 'memes'.
>> Johannes:
> A near-by example: What is a family? A family CONSIST of at least a man
> and a woman and perhaps a few children. But when an imagined
> 'six-level'-alien would like to find out more about human beings family, it
> would'nt be sufficient to describe what makes a man and what makes a woman;
> he (it) should look at what special value arises from this 'family-system',
> isn't it?
To which Kenneth answered:
> << Have you ever watched the TV- serie called, The third rock from the
> Sun, where aliens were sent to earth to study what it is like to be human?
> Great show, good laugh !! If you ever have the chance, do so, all the
> anwsers you need are there !! There is more to it, than just family...
Johannes:
No. I don't have a tv-set, 'cause it would be only a 'time-thief', but I try to
look upon 'us' - the human beings - often, in order to achieve a more distant
perspective. I don't know if it works, though! :-)
> And yes, in a broader sense we have to look at the simple individual to
> see what makes society.
> Take for example, not a very good one, but good enough to get my point
> across, Germany just before WO II, how is it possible that millions sworn
> in Hitler as their leader, if not, I must be careful here, each individual
> had
> the desire to do so !? ( Each had his/ hers reasons).
> Of course, you can argue propaganda, fear, unemployment etc made it
> Hitler easier, but if not the ' Volksgeist ' was the trigger, what was !?
>
> Like you, I suspect you are Dutch, when the Dutch football team is playing
> the whole of Holland is set alight in an Orange colour.
> Each of you is so delicated to the task to scream the team forward that it
> becomes a collective movement. But is started within you, a desire, a need,
> a genetic or memetic twist started of the whole thing, like it started
> within all
> the others at the same time. In memetics such a thing is called the Diana-
> Virus ( idit Susan Blackmore) Others would call this our collective con-
> sciousness ( Jung).
>
> It is IMO very wise to say that Intellect is connected to the ' social ',
> indeed
> it can not walk alone, it has no reason to take over the Social Texture
> either, because if it does it would comprimize its own existence.
> Like I said, Intellect is ' BETWEEN ' people, it is what people are con-
> nected by.
Johannes:
I have to apologize for my sloppy writing again, but when I see interesting
articles here, I tend to answer them in a rush normally; I promise, once more
:-) to work them out more thoroughly. Now, it looks as if you had misunderstood
my post a bit.
With my 'family' example I intended to outline my point of view, that a family
is a special value-being. I think a family cannot be explained by the
observation of a single woman (remember the sixth-level alien again), describing
what she does all day long as also the observation of a single man (f.e. driving
a car! :-)) ) gives you sufficient information of what excatly MAKES a family.
Besides the biological need of at least a short-time-binding of a couple
'leading' to 'little' human beings (you the 6th-level alien! ;-) ), you will
find out, that a family-situation first of all sets free different kinds of
behaviour and instincts could not be found in the single individual, but
secondary a family is a value on it's own, a very special value-being. It is IMO
not only the different set of behaviour, that now dominates each of both, but
moreover I can discover a sort of 'value-distortion' for the ideal case - when
there is none a patrnership won't last for long - that pulls them together and
makes this 'value-being' called family.
I had chosen this example for representing at least the most visible, the
smallest and presumably the most important 'value-being' to any higher social
'value-being' can be formed out of this. And there we have memes to make all
those small and bigger 'value-beings' that finally makes a society or a nation
more flexible and more elastic.
As far as I have understood now, memes are all kinds of pattern, that get
exchanged between society's members, (so the other way round as I have
interpreted it before) that are useful or successful or at least any pattern you
have to know of, to be 'online', is that right?
Have memes something to do with 'mimic' in the sense of a copying others simply
by imitating them, even without verbal communication, but also including it
(i.e. verbal exchange).
No, I'm german and this 'collective nichtmare' of the 3rd Reich has presumably
also brought me to questions leading to questions leading to.... .
I haven't found any - not at all - appropriate explanation to what happened in
those 12 years and when I meet those 'persons' on this or that Internet-forum,
'of whom I believe' they are Neo-Nazis, I'm forced even harder to think about
reasons, explainations, and all those neverending W-questions. While brooding
and thinking about my alternative systems-concept - what I call value-being, if
there are no better ideas in the near future - I guess, I made some progress at
last.
I have spend much time on arguing with people on the dicussion-forum of the
German conservatives homepage with conservatives, social-democrates left ones,
green ones (which is nearest to my own position) and those 'PERSONS' I mentioned
above, trying to force them to show the 'colour of their coat'.
They have lots of dirty propaganda-tricks, but most of them are lacking normal
possiblities of conversation; unfortunately not all of them are dumb and they
have widespread 'networks' to many european (sweden, denmark, russia),
outer-european countries and obviously very good connections to american
'white-aryan-whatsoever'-organisations. (They had send me a hate-mail once,
coming from a 'mixmaster', USA obviously). Now while discussing (as far as it
was possible) with those 'PERSONS' especially, I really have learned a lot to
say the least.
I always feel to say something more, when the 3rd Reich is being discussed, you
know, and thinking about it occupies quite an amount of my time, as said above.
Due to an atrocious death of a 6 year-old, which is believed to be murder at
last, I posted on this forum as an attempt to give/find explanaition
(www.cdu.de; forum; Innenpolitik; Sebnitz - wie konnte das passieren?), what I
called (s.a.) 'value-distortion'.
This value-distortion I defined in analogy to space-time-distortion, which means
a slowing-down of time under the influence of high gravitational forces, that
makes the local-time of a human-being (as also clocks and everything else)
ticking very slow, comparing to the earth. I consider this as also as a
'value-distortion' - sort of gravitational-valuing - but furthermore consider
other intervaluing relations, social agglomarations of any kind, i.e. villages,
cities, regions, as also whole countries or nations as also being subject to a
very special sort of value-distortion.
This effect, IMO, is caused by a very strong feeling and responsibility for the
group, the fear to be excluded by the group and the people, who care for one
another on the one hand and a feeling of alienation to the bigger social-context
on the other hand; a sort of 'move-closer-to-each -other'-feeling in combination
with other factors of destabilistion in the single individual (sebnitz is a
small town in former Eastern-germany, economically far down..that sort of
things).
I'm going to post on this again, because this seems to be able to explain at
least better but still no sufficiently, how could this happen. Also going to
apply this on other examples, that I'd been thinking through lately.
Finally, (again it took me longer to get here; didn't you say "it has been
writing you Diana?") I want to comment on the mass-hysteria-effect you mentioned
above.
The described football phenomenon is something astonishing as well as impressing
in a positive way, to see those thousands of people getting up in a moment when
something special happens. As I'm not a friend of mass-events such like big
music-events, not to mention football- or soccer-games - it makes me nervous
and is always a strain even when I like what's the reason for it - I'm normally
an observer and can't feel the 'wave' (anyone know this experiment - USA
seventies?) the takes you away.
I only know this of political demonstration, f.e. lately an
Anti-Nazi-Demonstration in Kassel, that 'something' happens to the people,
which is MUCH different from what you do as an Individual. And even the less
socially-influenced persons will feel different in this crowd.
I remember having heard of a book of an english journalist, who has joined a
group of hooligans, incognito of course; it was to freeze the blood in your
veins, something that make you catch a least a glimpse of, generally spoken, the
outbreak of dynmical mass events. And you always will ask yourselves again and
again where intellect has been in that very moment?
A last word to the 'volksgeist'. What happend in those dark years, is to me and
most of my generation even more frightening and presumably almost the same black
hole of non-understanding as it is for you. And to say that EVERYBODY has
supported Hitler and his SS-Criminals is simply not true and futhermore to say
that Germans have 'special-genes' for mass-murder (or the like) as lately
publicized, is an escape from understanding due to the enormity of evil energy,
but can be no serious hypothesis.
All this is is a heavy burden to many even younger people just like me and
seeped deep down into the german mythos, which is good and we shall no forget
about it, but someday you should give the german people the chance to find to
itself again.
I very well understand feelings of deep grief and revenge towards my people.
Nevertheless it wouldn't be very fair to discover the devil or incarnation of
evil as being a basic character-trait of the Germans; this won't getting us to
anywhere. As you can see, I'm very well aware of the fact, that being a german
is still not really quite normal.
In case, to some of you, this is an answer to no question asked, I apologize for
moaning, but to everybody who feels the urge to talk about this and especially
to find out whether I can draw some new lines on this issue, as I mentioned
above, I'm willing and wishing to discuss it. I hope no misunderstandings arise
from this writing; the contrary was my goal.
Thanks for reading and for your patience,
Wish you well,
JoVo
P.S.: Danila and Chris, I intended to include some ideas about the
'Hang-loose'-sort of Human being and their role for a society, but I have to
postpone this until next.
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