Re: MD Is Society Progressing?Dear Rod,
You suggest 13/3 23:13 +0000 to answer another question before '1. How to
define the path toward absolute quality?'
Summarizing your 13/3 13:43 +0000 posting that could be:
'0. How to propagate openness to new ideas?'
(This implies willingness to leave behind patterns hindering openness and
propagating such openness.)
In principle every intellectual pattern of values is open to new ideas,
because it is only a pattern. A few exceptions (deviating ideas) don't
destroy an intellectual pattern of values (don't make it impossible to
experience that pattern).
I suggested 9/2 19:56 +0100 that an intellectual pattern of values is that
which preserves/reproduces a
particular set of ideas. Minor deviations don't endanger this
preservation/reproduction.
I also suggested that an intellectual pattern of values contains several
alternative sets of ideas competing for the status of being most 'true' with
an indisputable common denominator that enables 'intellectual competition'
for this status. Only this indisputable core of an intellectual pattern of
values is preserved/reproduced. The competition for 'truth' among the sets
of ideas in the fringe (that don't contradict the core) is essential for the
preservation/reproduction of the core. E.g. without discussion about HOW to
create wealth, the idea THAT it is important to create wealth dies.
(Preservation/reproduction of) Buddhist and Taoist ideas about what
constitutes social quality (other than wealth) may suffer from the fact that
they are rooted in social patterns of values that discourage discussion that
might endanger the social status of their elites.
So every intellectual pattern of values is also open to new ideas that don't
dispute its core.
In order to define the path (of society in general and/or global society) to
absolute quality these two types of 'openness to new ideas' (the openness to
minor deviations of every pattern and the opennes to ideas that don't
dispute its core of intellectual patterns of values) are not enough.
Remember absolute quality goes beyond both social quality (status or fame &
fortune that are relative to those of others) and intellectual quality
(truth or 'fit with reality' as defined by the indisputable core of an
intellectual pattern of values). The 'openness to new ideas' we need
requires openness to new intellectual patterns of values.
As I wrote 9/2 19:56 +0100: 'Alternative intellectual patterns of values
have different "common denominators" for disputes and therefore can't be
reconciled by appealing to "truth".'
Neither can they be disputed or changed by appealing to 'truth'.
Openness to new fringe ideas, to new truth, requires a social pattern of
values that encourages discussion.
Openness to new core ideas, to Meaning (my 9/2 19:56 +0100 suggestion for
indicating the higher level value beyond truth), to DQ may require an
intellectual pattern of values that is ... near but not highest in quality.
The highest level intellectual pattern of values, the one that has migrated
farthest toward DQ, balances maximum stability and versatility and
harmonizes with DQ. (As I suggested 9/2 19:56 +0100.) Maximum stability
implies maximum immunity to change of its core ideas. Maximum versatility
implies maximum openness to new fringe ideas, deflecting initiatives to
challenge core ideas. And relative harmony with DQ means relatively less
need to take a next step toward DQ compared to an intellectual pattern of
values that is just lagging behind in the migration toward DQ.
My Dutch-English dictionary translates as 'dialectics of progress' something
that could be more directly translated as 'the law of the inhibiting lead'.
It is a (descriptive) law that was invented by (I think Dutch) historians to
explain the phenomenon that a next step in social progress is usually set
not by the leading society, but by a society that is just lagging behind.
(The Netherlands surpassed Spain in the 16th century, the UK surpassed the
Netherlands in the 18th century and the US surpassed the UK in the 20th
century. 'Leading' meant in a limited politico-economic sense.) Maybe this
'law of the inhibiting lead' is also valid for intellectual patterns of
values?
If so, propagating openness to real radical new ideas requires taking as
starting point an intellectual pattern of values that is just lagging behind
the 'top dog', that consequently has taken batterings from the dominant
intellectual pattern of values on its core ideas and that is therefore more
open to change of its core ideas.
I'd bet on religion (rather than science) as a good starting point. (If only
I were allowed to bet... Being a Quaker I'm not (-;) Traditional religious
ways of ascribing Meaning to everything have been eroded by the scientific
world view (in some religious movements more than for others..., among
Quakers especially so), but the notion that striving for Meaning goes beyond
striving for truth has stayed.
Does this answer your question? Do you have other suggestions for an answer?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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