From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 16:09:53 BST
Bo/Ian,
[Bo had said]
> "USA is solidly anchored in - what we in MOQ-speak call - intellectual
> value. Social value's most prominent pattern - religion - is brought
> under control and has become a personal "faith" not a political force.
> thank God."
[Ian replied]
> Would that that were remotely true.
[Arlo]
Amen, Ian.
The way I see it is that Bo is committing a gross oversimplification.
Foundationally, it appears, that the only "social value" is "religion". That
is, once a society throws off the shakles of theocracy it is ipso facto solidly
anchored in intellectual value.
IMHO, self-identifying with a call to nation-state patterns is as solidly
"social level" as doing so to "religion". Now, if someone self-identifies by
saying something along the lines of... "Hi, I'm Arlo. I'm an egalitaria (or
constitutionalist, or pragmatist, or quantum theorist...).", then I can see how
someone might claim that their primary self-identification is with intellectual
patterns and not social patterns. Because, none of these things are the
"property" of a social-level nation state.
The problem with this oversimplification is also that it politicizes the
hierarchy. It conflates nation-state politics with intellectual patterns that
are never affiliated or tied to nation-state politics. For example, would one
self-identify with "I'm a representational democratist", it identifies with
intellectual patterns found in many nation-states, rather than semantically
tieing that pattern to any one particular nation. This can be further examined
by realizing that the same patterns of governance are found in both Canada and
the U.S. (to take an obvious example out of many), and yet when one person
identifies as a "Canadian", and another as an "American", they are not really
saying the same thing, are they?
And, as Ian had pointed out, it neglects the reality of "American" culture, that
is firmly rooted in adherence to social-level patterns, whether they are
"religious" in nature or not. Bo, I do appreciate where you are trying to go
with this, "democracies" are more moral than "theocracies". Absolutely. But
when we allow this to be tied to the social-level nation-state, we glorify
static social level patterns, not intellectual ones. Much better to say "I'm a
democratist", then one is certainly outside social-pattern identifications.
Arlo
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