Dear Roger, Rog, Risky, Risque, Mirror Boy & co,
What you wrote 24/3 8:36 -0500 to explain how you meant 'defining social
progress' seems to me to boil down to a combination of 'finding' and
'creating' it. You make it a very concrete, 'trial and error' type of
activity.
Your metaphor
'the path would emerge out of the otherwise unmarked forest floor ... by
trying different directions'
reminds me of my 11/3 23:10 +0100 metaphorical
'there are no rights and no paths to heaven safe the rights we grant each
other and the paths we cut in the jungle. Doing just that, granting others
rights and cutting paths in the social jungle, is exactly what gives
our lives Meaning.'
in reply to Rod's 10/3 23:20 -0000:
'There is no way forward, there are ways forward, none of which are wholly
good or bad, you seem to want to define a new code of practice for mankind,
there is no such thing, there are six billion people on this planet all
moving forward in their own small way, who can tell any of them they are
wrong.
There are no rights of man, these are only those rights we wish to have for
ourselves, the second we are born we have no rights, they are given to us by
society, they mean nothing.
There is no right path to enlightenment, DQ or whatever you want to call it,
All there is the notion of good, a good man/woman, a good society.'
I wrote 9/2 19:56 +0100:
'It is ... useful to distinguish between
- the "path of migration" which [a] social pattern of values would take of
itself without any intervention from the
intellectual level,
- the path it would take under influence of the already present intellectual
patterns of values and
- the path it can take under influence of the intellectual pattern of values
of your choice.'
Your way of 'defining social progress' corresponds to the first option. You
identify yourself with that social pattern of values and experience for
yourself its path of migration, without any recourse to intellect (maps made
by earlier travelers in the same jungle or from photographs taken from an
airplane or satellite).
My 'defining in a descriptive sense' corresponds to the second option. I
first describe the path a social pattern of values would take under
influence of already present intellectual patterns of values.
My 'defining in a prescriptive sense' corresponds to the third option. In
due course I will try to describe the path which a social pattern of values
will take under influence of the intellectual pattern of values of my
choice.
You wrote 24/3 8:41 -0500:
'the difference between the two of us might be that you are looking for the
theory of progress, and I am just looking for the methodology to discover
progress. I am looking for the "scientific method" of society.'
Your metaphor suggests that you are just looking for a primitive, social
method of making progress (trail and error), renouncing any 'methodology'
(reflection on method as opposed to 'directly experiencing' the outcome) or
'scientific method' (which would imply studying past attempts to find a path
in that particular or comparable social jungles and experimenting on scale
models of it instead of setting off at random).
You wrote 23/9 12:36 -0400:
'I agree that gross imbalances can foster very unhealthy power imbalances
that can lead to exploitation. ... I don't think the problem is success, it
is failure. My goal ... is to export recipes for others to create similar
wealth, freedom, health etc.'
How can one 'export recipes for others' if (as you wrote 24/3 8:36 -0500)
'other cultures ... need to define their own way'? Your qualifications
'until the paths in the forest merge' and 'with support from those of us
further along' suggest that according to you those paths in the forest have
not merged yet and that (consequently) 'support from those of us further
along' is not possible yet (as they are not on the same path).
'Trial and error' is a bit meager as a recipe to export. Most cultures are
already employing intellectual methods to plan their path. 'Trial and error'
would be a step back in their progress.
Doesn't a 'recipe' (applicable elsewhere) imply the need for a theory of
progress, for choosing an intellectual pattern of values that can help us to
improve on what we find by just 'trial and error'?
You should know that intellectual methods of cutting paths in the social
jungle are going freely over the world already at great speed. Every
goddamned dictator and kleptocrat sends his children to school in the USA,
the UK or France (and a few in the Netherlands) and a lot of them were
educated there themselves. They certainly DO use the methods they learn 'to
create similar wealth, freedom, health etc.' as they see there ...
mainly for themselves.
How do you intend to export recipes for creating social quality in a way
that doesn't make the already wealthy wealthier, the already free more free
and the relatively healthy healthier still or that at least enhances the
chances of the disadvantaged just as much?
In my opinion that requires developing a theory about why the
rich/free/healthy get relatively richer/more free/healthier in the first
place: describing the unbalanced path social patterns of values take under
the influence of the already present intellectual patterns of values. The
present ways in which recipes are spreading over the world (elite children
being educated in the most successful countries being only one of those
ways) create 'gross imbalances [that] foster very unhealthy power imbalances
that can lead to exploitation'. What would be your suggestions for such a
theory and for methods of preventing the creation those imbalances that can
be deduced from that theory?
I am glad you continue (24/3 8:36 -0500) to write that you are 'fine at
starting with intellectual hypotheses, and seeing how they work'.
Your suggestion to 'start with proven solutions that lead to the current
best results', reminds me of what I wrote 9/2 21:04 +0500 about social
patterns of values:
'A social pattern of values is reproduced by people copying behavior of
other people over generations; its
static latch is reproduced behavior or "culture", "accumulated ways to do
things" ... that have proven conducive to survival.'
To me it seems essential to distinguish between different types of 'best
results'.
1) biological best results: more survival chances for species and ecosystems
by offering more freedom from want (the primary purpose of social patterns
of values)
2) the 'purposes of its own' social patterns of values 'go off on' when they
'get more sophisticated' (see 'Lila' ch. 12): survival of the social pattern
of values itself by balancing stability and versatility in harmony with an
intellectual pattern of values (the secondary purpose of social patterns of
values)
3) social best results: more survival chances for groups and societies by
offering them more freedom from social evils (the primary purpose of
intellectual patterns of values)
4) the 'purposes of its own' intellectual patterns of values 'go off on'
when they 'get more sophisticated': survival of the intellectual pattern of
values itself by balancing stability and versatility in harmony with Dynamic
Quality (the secondary purpose of social patterns of values).
The results you suggest 24/3 8:36 -0500 ('the best combination of health,
wealth, opportunity, freedom, self determination, environmental harmony,
fairness, and ... a strong foundation for intellectual progress') are a
mixture of these different types of results. Consequently these results have
to be accomplished by a mixture of primary social progress (when it is still
subservient to biological patterns of values), secondary social progress
(when it goes off on purposes of its own), primary intellectual progress
(when it is still subservient to social patterns of values) and secondary
intellectual progress (when it goes off
on purposes of its own). These types of progress coexist; they don't only
succeed each other.
Depending on interpretation a word like 'health' can indicate results of all
four types. (See John B.'s 17/3 14:03 +1000 posting for a very broad
interpretation of 'health'. The most common interpretation in everyday
parlance indicates only results of the first type.)
'Wealth' too allows quite diverse interpretations (somewhat less than
'health' however: types 1,
2 and 3 I'd say).
'Opportunity' seems to me to indicate results of type 2 and 3.
'Freedom' can again be interpreted as indicating results of all four types.
I would interpret 'self determination' mainly as results of type 3 and 4,
but type 2 may also be possible.
'Environmental harmony' is a strange mixture of results of type 1 and 4, I'd
say.
'Fairness', being a typical intellectual value (a 'reflection' on social
level results), can only be a result of type 3 and 4.
'Founding intellectual progress' is a mixture of results of type 1 and 3.
What are the 'proven solutions that lead to the current best results' of
these types?
1) The primary purpose of social patterns of values, more survival chances
for species and ecosystems by offering more freedom from want, is served by
technology, accumulated ways to do things that have proven conducive to
survival. ('Technology' can be used in a social or an intellectual sense:
the actual ways in which we do things or the reflection on and description
of the best ways to do things. I use it in the social sense here.)
Primary social progress, which is subservient to biological patterns of
values, is closely related to technological progress. It is not identical
however. Technological progress is not always conducive to survival. Some
types of technological 'progress' unbalance ecosystems or represent a kind
of 'stagnation' in the sense that they don't address urgent survival
problems. Technological 'progress' can represent primary social regression
rather than progress ... This should be kept in mind, even if I use
'technological progress' hereafter as more or less synonymous with primary
social progress.
Without an intellectual level (or while intellect was still primitive)
technological progress only proceeds by trial and error. Primary
intellectual progress (subservient to social patterns of values)
'turbo-charges' technological progress.
The current best results of type 1 available to humanity, to global society,
are more than sufficient to safeguard survival of homo sapiens and of all
mother earth's ecosystems. If these methods of biological survival would be
freely available to all societies, further technological progress would be
unnecessary. The fact that these means of biological survival are
distributed unequally among different groups of people (social patterns of
values) corresponds to unequal opportunities for social patterns of values
to 'go off on purposes of [their] own'. If a society does not have the
technological means to safeguard its own survival and that of its ecosystem
(its environment), the survival of the social pattern of values holding that
society together is severely threatened.
Primary social progress implies competition of social patterns of values
with the forces of nature and of growing cooperation to support technology
of increasing complexity. Primary social progress is finite. It ends when a
society has guaranteed its survival to the extent that it has created a
technology that is in harmony with the biological patterns of values that
sustain it, its ecosystem.
2) The secondary purpose of social patterns of values, their own survival,
is served by 'creative status management': creation of new status symbols,
reapportioning status symbols etc. in order to prevent opting out and
stimulate opting in and in order to motivate development of practices that
serve collective interests. (I use 'status' in the sense of a common
denominator of all sorts of rewards and incentives.)
Secondary social progress implies competition between societies (fuelling
their evolution) and growing inclusiveness (scale; yielding more competitive
strength) combined with growing complexity and internal diversity
(offsetting the reduction of competition implied by decreasing numbers of
more inclusive societies). We already identified stability, versatility and
harmony with an intellectual pattern of values as success factors for that
type of progress. ('Success isn't theoretical, it is directly observable.'
as you wrote 16/3 13:09 -0500. For me that is implied by talking about
social progress as distinguished from intellectual progress.)
Without intellectual level secondary social progress too proceeds by trial
and error and is 'turbo-charged' by primary intellectual progress.
Secondary social progress is infinite. A society can always go on becoming
more competitive, inclusive, complex and internally diverse. You identified
this 12/1 13:47 -0500 as 'the Red Queen effect -- you run faster and faster
just to stay in the same place' ('the same place' implying to me that the
society stays just as guaranteed of its survival as before in terms of its
harmony with the biological patterns of values that sustain it).
>From my point of view you were mixing primary and secondary social progress
when you wrote 12/1 13:47 -0500:
'social quality CAN lead to progress along various dimensions while relative
social rankings/status are always zero sum. People and nations strive for
status and power and though any relative gain comes only at the cost of
relative losses, at an absolute level, quality marches forward. The Red
Queen effect leads to constant striving in a zero sum game that creates
valuable, positive sum aspects of social quality.'
3) The primary purpose of intellectual patterns of values, more survival
chances for groups and societies by offering more freedom from social evils,
is served by science and by technology in its intellectual sense,
accumulated knowledge ('know-how'). Note that it has a component enhancing
biological results (turbo-charging primary social progress) AND a component
enhancing social results (turbo-charging secondary social progress).
Primary intellectual progress is not identical with increasing knowledge.
Knowledge is not always conducive to group survival. Some types unbalance
societies or don't address urgent social problems. This should be kept in
mind ...
A 5th level of values, whenever it occurs, will be recognizable by the
'turbo-charging' of intellectual progress. One component of this will be
that it will become much easier to guarantee survival for groups and
societies. The current best results of type 3 (knowledge in the
intellectually progressive sense) available to humanity, to global society,
are not yet sufficient to safeguard survival of groups and societies that
want to survive. What's primarily needed for that is collective rights and
expertise, the right and the ability of any group and any society not to be
pushed back (by social competition) into a situation in which it does not
have the technological means to safeguard its own survival and that of its
ecosystem.
Primary intellectual progress implies competition of intellectual patterns
of values with social forces and of growing integration of systems of ideas.
Primary intellectual progress is finite. It ends when individuals have
guaranteed their survival to the extent that they have gained rights and
expertise that are in harmony with the social patterns of values that
sustain them, their culture.
4) The secondary purpose of intellectual patterns of values, their own
survival, is served by 'creative management of truth': creation of new
'realities' (like mythology, all kinds of 'laws', cyberspace...),
rearranging relations of 'meaning' and 'abstraction' between these realities
etc. in order to the right mix of stability and dispute and in order to
motivate development of ideas that serve individual interests.
Secondary intellectual progress implies competition between individual
values and sets of ideas (fuelling their evolution) and growing unification
(growing sets of ideas and patterns of intellectual values with ever more
adherents) combined with growing complexity and internal diversity
(offsetting the reduction of competition implied by decreasing numbers of
sets of ideas and patterns of intellectual values). Stability, versatility
and
harmony with Dynamic Quality are the success factors for this type of
progress also.
Secondary intellectual progress is -like secondary social progress-
infinite. Individual values and sets of ideas can always go on becoming more
competitive (more successful in claiming to be 'true'), inclusive, complex
and internally diverse.
What's needed besides collective rights to safeguard survival of groups and
societies that want to survive is individual rights (to life, freedom,
happiness and a say in government). Just as the social level 'turbo-charges'
homo sapiens' ability to survive biologically by gaining group survival,
similarly the intellectual level 'turbo-charges' the ability of groups to
survive socially by gaining the survival of individuals and their personal
intellectual values. When groups have gained in primary social progress the
technological means to survive in specific circumstances and competition
between groups for secondary social progress guarantees technological
flexibility, homo sapiens as a whole will always be able to adapt to (even
very adverse) biological or inorganic circumstances (like an ice age, global
warming or a meteor impact like the one that may have 'valued' the
extinction of dinosaurs). Similarly when individuals have gained in primary
intellectual progress the knowledge to uphold their dignity in specific
social conditions and competition between individuals (or rather their
intellectual values) for secondary intellectual progress guarantees
flexibility of ideas, the group of which they are a member will always be
able to adapt to (even very adverse) social or biological circumstances
(like terrorist attacks, invasion by a superior military power or internal
decadence and degeneration like that eroding the defenses of the Roman
empire against barbaric invasions in the 4th and 5th centuries AD).
How's that for a METHODOLOGY of progress (as distinguished from
'DIRECTIONALITY')?
You wrote 24/3 8:36 -0500:
'I am sure that proven religions offer some value along our path, but the
answer isn't in their text.'
What do you mean with 'proven religion'?!? I'm certainly not looking for
literal 'truth' in religious texts. I already told you repeatedly that the
value I'm looking for in religion is 'Meaning', 'pointers' towards DQ. It's
a pity I am constantly losing you whenever I try to explain. Did I manage to
stay in touch with you with my 26/3 23:23 +0100 posting?
You wrote 24/3 8:36 -0500:
'I do not know the Meaning of life.'
Neither do I, for 'Meaning' is not something that can be 'known' as it is
not a subspecies of 'truth' but a subspecies of Quality nearer Dynamic
Quality than 'truth'. By saying something like 'granting others
rights and cutting paths in the social jungle ... gives our lives Meaning' I
don't state a 'truth', but I point a way (right or wrong) to new 'reality'
to test 'truth' against. The Meaning of life is the freedom (from static
intellectual patterns of value) to keep creating new 'realities'. (And
this -again- is not a statement which can be tested for 'truth' or
'falsehood'. It can only be experienced as Meaningful or Meaningless.)
I'm far too libertarian to risk ending up on Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom'.
Hayek's mistake was, that his 'political compass' only showed two points:
South-East (libertarian-right) and North-West (authoritarian-left). He
explained away inconsistencies by presenting every political position that
was not libertarian-right as being authoritarian.
By the time I will be able to proudly present to you my Master Plan for
creating The New Eden, you will see it prefaced by 'No part of this Plan may
be achieved by governmental decree, market power or in any other way that is
inconsistent with its goals without explicit permission of all people
concerned. Any attempt to do so will ruin The Plan.' (I hope you are still
interested by then. It may take me considerably more than 7 months, as
meanwhile I also have to feed my family by bookkeeping.)
If 'agreement [between the two of us or even the 200 of us subscribed to
this mailing list] on core (intellectual) values on what is most important'
leads right to a 'Road to Serfdom', any political party with a common
political program is progressed much further in this direction and your
intended 'export [of] recipes for others to create similar wealth, freedom,
health etc.' is implies enserfing the rest of the world to American Ways. I
won't accuse you of such an intention, so please don't dispose of my
proposal to try and reach agreement between us in such a facile way either.
You wrote 24/3 8:36 -0500:
'Wealth is one measure of an individuals ability to influence reality. It is
a measure of freedom. Others include health, education/intelligence, status,
etc. Complex systems cannot always be measured on one dimension.'
If wealth, health, etc. are all ONLY understood as measures of ability to
influence reality, of freedom, 'measuring on one dimension' is exactly what
YOU are doing... An essential other dimension is that of static quality,
measured by security, stability, status (!), wealth (as a buffer against
adverse conditions!) etc.
Sometimes individuals and societies SHOULD be kept from pursuing only
uni-dimensional progress; preferably not by force but by convincement of
course. Unfortunately a lot of Americans don't seem to be able to understand
the message of (a lot of people in) the rest of the world that American
Ways -seen from their perspective- ARE neglecting that static dimension.
Your 24/3 8:41 -0500 bicycle metaphor is a bit ridiculous for someone who
uses a bike every day to go anywhere (I don't even have a license for
driving a car). It raises doubt about your insight into the mechanics of
cycling (pedals only go up, forward, down and backward in order to make the
bicycle go forward; in order to move left or right one uses the handlebars).
I understand your intention however of depicting political debate as
collective trial and error to find the path of intellectual progress.
My intention with introducing the concept of 'Meaning' was to suggest a way
of 'turbo-charging' intellectual progress. Again: it's a pity you don't seem
to get my point.
I don't think the mission of the social level can be to minimize any type of
disagreement, because in my definitions of the social and intellectual
levels 'agreeing' and 'disagreeing' (on the 'truth' of anything) only appear
at the intellectual level. Political DEBATE is always an intellectual
activity even if the political PROCESS also has social (unreflective)
aspects.
I still don't know why for you '*right to dignity* is paved with trouble'. I
don't see the trouble. Can you make it more explicit? Do you expect the same
trouble with 'right to be able to uphold your intellectual values' (my
definition of 'right to dignity')? How can demands for 'upholding your
intellectual values' spiral? In my perception they can't, no more than
demands for being kept (barely) alive can spiral. Most specimens of homo
sapiens have only one life and the biological lowest limits of leaving them
in the possession of it are not THAT variable (excepting yogi's). Similarly
a lot of persons have only very little intellectual values (being able to
give one's children a somewhat better future sums up a large part of it) and
most persons recognize something like 'distributive justice' as an
intellectual value. Most persons therefore can't claim much more then being
kept alive and being allowed to make gradual (primary) social progress as
long as a large proportion of the world population can't hope for more than
primary social progress ONLY for their children (and hardly if ever for
themselves).
A 'right to dignity' in my interpretation is a VEEEERY basic level of rights
that limits the unbalance between too much freedom for some and too little
rights for others only marginally.
The big difference for ME between prohibitions or rules or laws against
doing dysfunctional behavior and duties/responsibilities is that the former
imply authoritarian enforcement whereas the latter don't...
Your example of a prohibition to drive over 60 km/hour and a duty to drive
between 20 and 60 km/hour can be revised into an example of a
duty/responsibility to drive no more than 60 km/hour and a rule that you
have to drive between 20 and 60 km/hour. The difference you see in these
concepts is not implied by them for me.
I wrote 24/3 0:07 +0100:
'duties and responsibilities are ... the (only) way to safeguard freedom (of
others). The only way to have freedom ourselves is when other people accept
duties and responsibilities to grant us that freedom (and the rights that
constitute it, fill it in positively)!'
You replied 24/3 8:41 -0500:
'Could you please explain why someone has a duty to grant us freedom?'
You Americans use the word freedom much more often than I feel comfortable
with. I grew up in a (religious) culture in which 'liberalism' stood for
something to be distrusted: Freedom is the freedom of the strong to crush
the weak. The beneficial opposite of freedom was not government intervention
(although a truly, radically, Christian government should intervene on
behalf of the weak), but responsibility, felt by the individual, fed by
group values, inspired by ... something beyond ego.
I can see other points of view too, but that is where I am coming from.
For me it was good to read in 'Lila' ch. 17:
'"Freedom" doesn't mean anything. Freedom's just an escape from something
negative.' And while Pirsig more or less equates the positive value people
attach to freedom with Dynamic Quality, he also makes stresses the need of
obtaining static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously.
The freedom to change something negative isn't worth a damn if you don't get
something (static!) better instead. Freedom should be specified: what is it
you are escaping from and what is it you are getting instead?
I attempted 24/3 0:07 +0100 to formulate (between brackets) a positive
interpretation of freedom: rights, minimum levels of positive values. It has
to be filled in by stating those values.
I read your 24/3 8:36 -0500 description of freedom as 'ability to influence
reality' as a comparable attempt. The value of that ability is the value of
the changed reality once it has become static again. Doesn't that too need
filling in?
And ... 'ability to influence reality' is almost synonymous with 'strength'
and opposite to 'weakness'. Shouldn't a right to 'freedom' imply the right
to equal ability to influence reality for others that share that same
reality? Shouldn't my claim to freedom, to a specific ability to influence
reality, be at the same time a duty to grant others that same right to
freedom, the same ability to influence that reality to the extent that we
share it?
I don't think anyone 'has' a duty unless he/she feels/accepts it
him/herself. My 'ability to influence reality' very much results from others
having felt responsible for me and having taken upon them the duty to teach
me how to influence reality. As a new-born I was only able to influence my
parents by crying. (We should ask Marco and soon Sam about how it influences
them!) I don't think it needs much explanation that my ability to influence
reality could only grow since because of a lot of people who felt
responsible for me and who accepted the duty to teach me how.
Groups of people, societies, can and must learn too from each other.
Otherwise they never come further than 'trial and error' paths to DQ with
only limited 'turbo-charging' from self-developed intellectual patterns of
values.
Our discussion on whether and where positive sum interactions exist might be
helped forward by my distinction (see before) of primary and secondary
progress at each level.
My suggestion would be that in the context of primary progress (serving the
purposes of the next lower-level) interactions are normally positive sum. If
not, the pattern of values loses its 'raison d'tre' and will disappear.
Marriage would disappear if it wouldn't create net biological (survival)
value. Multicellular organisms would lose in their competition with
single-celled organisms if their internal cooperation wouldn't create
survival value. Trading and labor division create wealth interpreted as a
type 1 or 3 result.
To the extent however that interactions are also part of a secondary
progress context, zero-sum interactions are the norm. Sexually reproducing
organisms (multicellular organisms) gain what asexually reproducing
organisms (single-celled organisms) lose in terms of competitive strength.
The balance shifts, but the ecosystem as a whole survives. Societies with a
more internal trade and with more internal division of labor gain (more
economic refugees want to opt-in) what other societies lose. The system as a
whole, with a hierarchy of more and less successful and more and less
attractive societies stays essentially the same.
Interactions at the biological, social or intellectual level may again be
seen as creating net value (positive sum), when we are asking ourselves
whether they are founding progress at the next higher level. My discussion
of the 'law of the inhibiting lead' (the dialectics of progress) suggests
however that the best foundation for progress at the next level is not
necessarily the highest quality pattern of values of a level. I am not sure
of this however. Maybe the 'law of the inhibiting lead' is only valid for
the internal progress (combined primary and secondary progress?) of a level
and not for the interaction of progress at different levels.
Do you see value in the distinction between primary and secondary progress
in this context?
You end your 24/3 8:41 -0500 posting with:
'You don't need to "wheedle" freedoms out of others. Do you?'
If we interpret 'freedom' as the 'ability to influence reality' and to the
extent that we share that reality, my influence is relative to your
influence. If my influence becomes more, your freedom becomes relatively
less. If I don't need to "wheedle" my freedom out of you (and others sharing
the same reality), that is BECAUSE of the responsibility you and others feel
toward me: to allow me a share of influence too.
Maybe it all boils down to a tendency of you Americans (with Australians and
Canadians?) who inhabit a relatively spacious and ecologically rich country
to experience less that you share the same 'reality'. Everyone can have
his/her own bit (plot, state, whatever) and experiment for him/herself how
best to create wealth or whatever he/she wishes. In Europe we are
historically used to fighting over and (being burnt, dreading the fire)
co-operating in creating wealth etc. You project your experience outward
into global 'reality', we ours. Both are true to an extent. Global society's
path to DQ should encompass both types of experience.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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