Hello all: After wading through a week's worth of posts and getting
acquainted with the listmembers, I must respond:
RE: INTELLECT improving society?
RED says:
Why would intellect want to improve SOCIETY? IMO intellect wants to
move us towards a purely intellectual plane of existence. How cann
it do this by perfecting society? Since we are still in the middle
(or perhaps the start) of this transition, it may APPEAR to be seeking to
improve society but it seemms unlikely for this to be the case by mere
definition of the value planes!
DANILA answers:
By "intellect" I meant here the abstract noun referring to
people's ability to think purposefully or create purposefully. I was NOT
referring to INTELLECTUAL value patterns, which are a product of the use
of intellect. I agree that when people create INTELLECTUAL value patterns
they am not thinking about or aware of society or SOCIAl value patterns.
I personally dread the idea of a world run entirely to conform to
INTELLECTUAL value patterns.
First, because for this to happen SOCIAL patterns must be weakened so
much that people do not have coherent SOCIAL values to organize
themselves to oppose INTELLECTUAL pattern that doesn't work with a better
INTELLECTUAL pattern. We already see the INTELLECTUAL value pattern of
"free markets are a holy thing" being imposed in the West, and
it hurts more people than it helps IMO but people cannot fight it easily.
Second, becauase even though I agree with Marco that art is just as
valuable an INTELLECTUAl value pattern as logical thought (really one is
holistic, the other analytic), in practice the INTELLECTUAL value
patterns used by political leaders are usually philosophies (political,
economic, etc.), not art. They rally the people using artistic symbols
(Triumph of the Will) but they reorganize society using doctrine or
dogma.
Third--and I apologize in advance for hurting anyone's feelings--the kind
of people who want to intellectualize society, by using analytic
INTELLECTUAL value patterns to change the world, tend to see art,
intuition and SOCIAL values as unimportant, for weaklings and women.
People who think holistically, who value the ability to create art as
well as the ability to think logically, who value kind hearts as well as
adherence to "the truth", do not have the singleminded drive to
impose their INTELLECTUAL values on society by weakening SOCIAL values.
Fourth, SOCIAL values are not bad by definition, because they have been
shaped by past (good) INTELLECTUAL value patterns. I think that human
cultures are reservoirs of past experiments with INTELLECTUAL
infiltration of the SOCIAL level, and that by studying them we can learn
about the process: how far it can go, who stops it, who creates it,
etc.
Sincerely,
Danila
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