Jonathan B. Marder (>) wrote on Sun, 25 Oct 1998 to Richard Budd
(>>):
> > And while I also agree that emotion is a
> >powerful social motivator I can't help but feeling as though the term
> >seemingly excludes any impersonal social relationship. Perhaps
> >"Responsibility" is a better way to refer to the 'cement' of society.
> >Unless you consider "responsibility" an "emotion".
> Excellent suggestion Richard!. "Responsibility" fits very well with
> social "arete". It's worth reading the discussion in ZAMM about arete.
> The tragedy of the last quarter century is the erosion of social
> responsibility as a value. In Lila, Pirsig describes how social values
> are under attack from the biological and the intellectual levels.
> Neither pay any heed to social responsibility. Thus we have hippies
> IRRESPONSIBLY dropping out from society, and technologists IRRESPONSIBLY
> pursuing intellectual projetcs without any ethical considerations.
> Richard is right. Responsibility is the ethic of society - doing the
> right thing - ARETE.
Hi Jonathan, Richard B and Group.
No objections to "responsibility", it's a good and laudable quality
along with honesty and reliability and dozen other, but it was
something more basic that I tried to catch with EMOTION.
If I ask: what is it that makes responsibility good, most people
will provide arguments of how it is necessary for a society to
survive, but what I mean is: What makes you *feel* good when obeying
the social rules ....and bad when not ....on the personal
plane?
As I see it: Emotions are how the Social Value expresses itself
at the most basic plane, where Society connects to Biology
(an important tenet is that all value levels have their roots in
in the lower level), it's not only a carrot, but a stick as well.
Guilt is an unbearable emotion, imprisonment is a mere
inconvenience in comparison - yes, one may even feel good being
punished, which proves how enormous powerful the social dimension
is.
> > And while I also agree that emotion is a
> >powerful social motivator I can't help but feeling as though the term
> >seemingly excludes any impersonal social relationship. Perhaps
> >"Responsibility" is a better way to refer to the 'cement' of society.
> >Unless you consider "responsibility" an "emotion"
"....impersonal social relationship"? Is there such a thing? Even the
big collectives - countries or states, union of states - where
99,99 of the population - and the administration - is out of
(personal) reach keep their individuals connected through symbols and
rituals that bring emotions to bear.
Bodvar
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