Hi, David,
Thank you for your insight into this subject, I liked it very much.
You developped many interesting points on the social side of language
and Intellect, that I'll try to comment to make them fit under my view
of the social/intellectual split.
David Lind wrote:
>
> Denis....I would have to disagree with your last post. asking someone
> about the weather is not necessarily an intellectual activity in my
> opinion. The gist I got from your post was that talking becomes an
> intellectual activity when new information is exchanged or when the
> communication serves more than just the social need to communicate.
First thing to note, a discussion, since language is the Intellectual
machine-code, is always a social interaction. Most intellectual
activities take place in a social frame. Universities, laboratories,
mailing-lists are the social frame of the intellectual level. The fact
we use language to think 'higher thoughts' is also a sort of social
dependency. A french biologist, H. Laborit, has consistently
demonstrated that to become human a child need a social environment.
Otherwise, some parts of his neural system atrophies and can never be
fully developped again. It's the tragic case of 'feral children'.
Language, as the machine-code, has social aspects, but not only. The
view I object to is David B.'s opinion that language creates the mythos,
which then creates Intellect, thus putting the mythos (and Language)
into the social level only. The machine-code metaphor is lost, and
Intellect becomes a creation of the Greeks, thus depriving many humans
of their rights as intellectual beings. Any human with a low IQ, and
most individuals belonging to 'primitive cultures', thus become
non-Intellectual beings, little more than dogs in this view. I don't
like this AT ALL.
As I said, Intellect needs a social frame (it's the dependency of the
levels), and Language and its social rules are such a frame. This
mailing-list is a social place with social rules, created to support
Intellectual activity, I'm sure everyone will agree to that. Diana has
created a community here (and a thousand THANK YOU for that, Diana).
As such, there are a few social rules one must obey to initiate an
Intellectual activity. Preserving your interlocutor's face is one of
them, and if you browse the rules of MF and MD (or RTFM, in Horse's
words), you'll find that the only 'Intellectual' rule is that you must
discuss ZMM and Lila. All the rest is good social behaviour.
To come back to 'weather-asking', this is a kind of ritual way of
acknowledging the desire for communication. Since Language is both a
Social and Intellectual thing (it's the machine-code between the levels)
it must acknowledge rules on both sides. Thus, communication can be
mostly social, but as I said, if the intellectual rules aren't obeyed,
it doesn't last. The information exchanged in a social interaction
doesn't have to be new, but it must be of interest to both parties, for
a start.
> Could it be that talking about the weather, when done as a purely
> social interaction (i.e. I don't really care about the weather, but
> feel the need to reach out to another human being) and becomes an
> intellectual activity when done to find out information (i.e. I'm
> going on a trip and knowing what the weather is like may be helpful in
> my planning)? I've done both. Sometimes asking about the weather
> serves no other purpose than to reach out. I might as well be asking
> about the football game (I'm not a football fan, so asking about the
> game, for me seems to ALWAYS be a social activity - i don't care who
> won). However, when I have an outdoor gig, I ask about the weather
> because the INFORMATION I might receive would be beneficial.
>
I've seen discussions about football last for HOURS, with each match
commented, analysed and criticized, the worth of the coach and players
dissected, and prognostics made and argued at length. I've never seen
why I should deem this not intellectual. They were people using their
judgment, making assessments of value, with structured thoughts and
analyses, hypothesis and refutations. The subject might be of no
interest to you (and me) but that's no reason to say that this use of
language isn't intellectual.
The reason I think nearly any use of language is also intellectual is
because information is exchanged, no matter what. Even if you don't care
about the answer, it was given. I'm sure such conversation lasted longer
when you actually were interested in what you were asking for. Perhaps
you wanted details, or veered of on a new subject you were more
interested in. But "just reaching out", while it can be nice, is also
limiting the intellectual side of the conversation. When you just reach
out, you probably don't say much.
The day after I wrote this post, I went to buy some bread. The woman
doing the service just bumped her head on the shelf above her as I came
in. I asked if she was OK, she answered yes, and that she often did it
since the shelf was misplaced. I said that well, for me it was the
cupboards in my kitchen. We laughed, and then I bought my bread and said
goodbye.
If you analyse this interaction, you'll find that I asked her if she was
OK to be seen as compassionate and to avoid her thinking I was making
fun of her. Her answer was a justification to preserve her face. My
answer was also designed to preserve her face. So very social, no ?
But how did we do this ? We exchanged informations. They had to make
sense within the situation, some intellectual needs had to be fulfilled
too. Once the social imperatives were fulfilled, the conversation ended,
because we had no other imperatives. But, still, my answers had to be
relevant to the situation. It's not the ends, but the means that were
intellectual here.
David B. will probably say that our conversation wasn't intellectual at
all, but hey, I still did pretty good, didn't I ? ;)
I think there's a confusion here about what's intellectual and what's
not. The intellectual side doesn't have to be dominant in an exchange,
but it's always there with humans.
It is easy to overlook the intellectual side of such talk, because we
deem ourselves intellectuals, and would probably like to exclude some
people for 'intellectual impurity'. That, I think is why Cntryforce in
his post of 29th Sept. ranted against the 'Dialecticians' in those
forums (and I'm pretty sure I was included in them). He has a point
here, we have to be less haughty. Everyone has something to contribute,
not just in this forum, but also in our lives. I heard a speech in
Canada by an Indian chief which I found very enriching and rational,
even though he never used any S/O Logic, and spoke from his heart. I'm
not going to say this guy isn't doing any intellectual stuff because he
won't abide by my rules.
He talked about what he felt and believed in, and it made perfect sense
for me. Just because I structure my arguments in a very western way
doesn't mean I'm right, and he wrong. If I comment other people's PoVs,
it's not to say they're wrong, but to 'translate' what I understood into
a structure I'm more familiar with.
In you post lower you say "the reason that purely social conversations
die off is because they are not dynamic". There are no purely social
conversations, just as there are no purely intellectual ones, both sides
have to be acknowledged. Even books have to be relevant in the social
context of the reader and the author, otherwise no one reads them. You
can't talk 'out of the blue'.
> I'm confused when you discuss the difference between social and
> intellectual regarding conversation. The take I get from what you
> wrote about is that everyday communication (how are you? how's the
> weather? etc) isn't purely social (but mostly social) because the
> topic may veer off to something beyond the purely social need to
> communicate. Could it be instead that communications such as "how's
> the weather?" are static until they veer off to something else? (at
> which point they could veer to another static area or we could trip
> into dynamic land) and could the reason that purely social
> conversations die off is because they are not dynamic. once they veer
> off, they have the potential of becoming dynamic and therefore stay
> alive. don't know if i'm phrasing this all very well (it's late) but
> it seems that conversations are ruled by the same static/dynamic split
> that everything else is. those conversations that are static are the
> everyday chat we do to socialize and then there are those
> conversations we have that challenge us, inspire us, motivate us -
> dynamic conversations.
>
Your confusion is normal because as I said, both social and intellectual
needs must be fulfilled in any linguistic exchange, and because the ends
and means of both levels are mixed at this level. It makes it hard to
determine in which level we should put language, and I agree that my
last post seemed to put it mostly on the intellectual side (rhetorical
trick, I was trying to prevent David B. to put it entirely on the social
side, but don't tell him). But since it is the connexion between the
levels, of course they are to be mixed in language.
As for the static/dynamic split you make, I think you are right here.
Most conversations last as long as we find something dynamic in them. My
example above was a response to a Dynamic social situation where the
exchange could have been hostile (had I just come in with a smirk on my
face). The social interaction had started with a loss of face on her
part, and we took steps to restore it before the normal interaction
could be resumed (me buying my bread). So language can be used for
social ends, with intellectual means, or for intellectual ends,
acknowledging social means. But in any case they last until some static
latching is achieved.
I'm sure if you somehow transpose this interaction into a chimp society,
you'll have one member physically comforting the hurt one, to make him
feel part of the group. He won't exchange information to achieve this.
It's the influence of the intellectual side upon the social one in human
societies that changed the means of achieving social ends. It is another
example of the interaction of the levels.
> a side note....years ago, a room mate of mine did an exercise for one
> of his psych classes. for a week, whenever someone asked how he was
> (generally a purely social activity - i mean, how often do we REALLY
> want to know exactly how someone else is doing when we ask that?) he
> would tell them. exactly how he was. in detail. he got some very
> strange responses. people seemed to resent the information (don't get
> me wrong, he wasn't going on ad naseum, he just let them know exactly
> how he was). imagine telling a store clerk all about your day when
> they ask "how are you today?" (a social nicety)
This is an example of what happens when an intellectual end is pursued
without paying respects to the social side of language. You cannot
initiate a conversation without sacrificing on the altar of the social
side. Try to talk about the MOQ to just about anyone in the street, and
I'm sure you'll get equally strange answers (if you don't get
committed). Some information can't be given or asked for without some
social link being establish, and even then, they are levels within the
links. If I ask you about the size of your penis, I'm sure I'm going to
get a VERY strange answer, even though we have initiated a social and
intellectual interaction ! ;)
Well, I hope I've clarified some points here, and that my position makes
more sense to you now. The intellect is not always present in human
interactions, but when we talk, it is there, no matter how trivial this
may seem. Exchanging info, not matter to which end, has some
intellectual choices involved in it. If I send you a poem, it might be
for social purposes, but if the poem is too obscure, or hasn't any
relevance to the situation, I'm not going to achieve my ends.
Let me know if I'm clear or just muddled the waters some more.
>
> well....bed calls. be good and live responsibly.
>
Same for me, and same for you.
Denis
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