Dear Roger, Rog, Risky, Risque, Mirror Boy & co,
Further with my comments on your 9/3 15:54 -0500 and 9/3 16:08 -0500 review
of my 9/2 19:56 +0100 answer to the question
'1a BY WHAT METHOD SHOULD WE DEFINE THE PATH TOWARD DQ?'
If I understand you rightly, you suggest 9/3 15:54 -0500 to simply choose
(applying 'direct experience') a path (for a social pattern of values) that
balances stability and versatility. Choosing such a path implies choosing an
intellectual pattern of values that respects social and biological patterns
of values (its foundation). You think this means something else than what I
wrote.
What I wrote 9/2 19:56 +0100 (in a nutshell) was:
'Choose from the available intellectual patterns of value the one that is
most Meaningful. That requires religious experience and/or aesthetic
judgement.
Use the chosen intellectual pattern of values to judge how the balance can
be enhanced between stability and versatility of the social pattern of
values concerned.'
If we translate 'most Meaningful' as 'best' for the occasion and 'religious
experience and/or aesthetic judgement' as 'direct experience', the main
difference is that I propose a two-step approach (choosing an intellectual
pattern of values and applying it) while you suggest that choosing an
intellectual pattern of values and applying it (choosing a path) are the
same step. I don't see an essential difference between those two methods.
Let's just try our different (?) methods and see if they result in different
answers.
My (general) description of that path was 9/2 19:56 +0100:
'It will be a path which combines:
- a relatively better share of "fame and fortune" for internal
relative losers to more effectively lure them away from opting
out and becoming external entities,
- a relatively worse share of "fame and fortune" losses for
external entities in external win/lose or lose/lose interactions
to more effectively lure them into opting in and becoming
internal entities,
- more motivation for relative losers to emulate the relative
winners and
- more motivation for relative winners to stay ahead.'
I read both your comments of 10/2 16:13 -0500 and of 9/3 16:08 -0500 as
agreement.
You add 9/3 16:08 -0500 however:
'If individuals believe they can never compete fairly, they will tend to opt
out. This applies both to losers and winners (winners will opt out if their
efforts/contributions/qualities are never recognized.)'
I propose to distinguish between the social and the intellectual aspects of
your addition:
The social aspect is that people are lured in or pushed out by experiencing
high or low status without reflecting on their behavior.
An early stone age human without sexual partner whose family met another
family group would join that other group when an attractive member of that
other group would react in kind to the interest it showed. This choice to
switch was bound with habits preventing inbreeding (like only males or only
females being allowed to do so) and rituals making everyone clear who
belonged to what group (like 'farewell' gestures or 'expulsion' gestures).
The IDEA that this constituted a 'marriage' only occurred after humans
started using rituals and language to reflect on their experience however,
50.000 - 100.000 years ago.
A Mexican peasant flooded with TV, magazine and bill-board images of wealth
across the Northern border and without enough compensating experiences (like
satisfying family life or high status in its community), will try to cross
that border whatever the obstacles (leaving aside the influence from
patriotism and ideas about 'belonging' where he knows the ways of life).
A senior executive of a large company, that -in contacts with a Fortune 500
company- is offered better conditions allowing him occasional scuba diving
vacations on the Virgin Islands, will gladly accept that offer (leaving
aside responsibilities left behind and ideas about 'wishing to finish a job
first').
You will get the picture of the social pattern of values that is behind all
of this.
The intellectual aspect of your addition involves 'beliefs' about future
possibilities, ideas about being involved in 'competition', the value of
'fair competition', the identification with individual
'efforts/contributions/qualities' and the value of having those
'efforts/contributions/qualities' 'recognized' and (fairly) rewarded.
In the case of the early stone age human this social pattern of values had
no 'reflection' on the intellectual level yet. So that's where we should
look for a 'pure' social pattern of values (leaving aside the biological
aspect of sexual attraction of course).
It is important to distinguish social and intellectual aspects, because when
we mix them up it becomes impossible to FIRST describe different social
patterns of values (or different phases in the migration of a social pattern
of values toward or away from DQ) and only THEN judge from an intellectual
point of view the relative balance between stability and versatility of
those social patterns of values (or whether that balance is in- or
decreasing during the migration).
Is (the balance between stability and versatility of) a successful economy
served with job-hopping company executives? We won't get any further than
establishing the (intellectual) truth of an answer to that question in the
context of the dominant intellectual pattern of values (or at least the
intellectual pattern of values assumed by the observer) when the description
of the phenomenon already contains an appeal to the implicit, 'indisputable'
core ideas of that intellectual pattern of values. We won't be able to make
the choice for an intellectual pattern of values explicit and if we happen
to start from different intellectual viewpoints, we will never agree.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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