From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Fri Mar 28 2003 - 14:37:16 GMT
Hi Wim,
> 'Would you be happy with the idea that status and celebrity are the best
way
> to determine social values?'
>
> No, not really. In my dialect of MoQish 'social value' is 'the static
value
> of social patterns of value', i.e. their stability and versatility.
'Status'
> and 'celebrity' enter my picture only when I try to explain the stability
> and versatility of social patterns of value: how are these patterns
> maintained (latched) in competition with other social patterns of value
and
> under threat of degeneration into biological patterns of value?
> I can't understand 'status' and 'celebrity' as attributes of (social)
> patterns (of value), like 'stability' and 'versatility'. They are values
in
> a subject-object context: attributed by subjects to objects, by people to
> other people. The 'fact' that people attribute (different) 'status' and
> 'celebrity' to (different) other people (as shown in their behavior
towards
> other people) explains why they copy behavior from some other people and
not
> from others. If people would copy behavior from whomever they see, stable
> patterns of collective behavior couldn't develop. Any accidental or
willful
> deviation from a pattern would be copied just as much as the original,
thus
> destroying the pattern.
I'm not certain we disagree. My point was really that, to understand what
social values predominate, we should look to what is celebrated (ie to who
is a celebrity). Those are the people who are most copied.
> My definition of the way in which intellectual patterns of value are
> maintained (copying of motivations for action) is related to an
> 'individualistic' understanding of the fourth level: motives define
> individuals/persons. People participating in the 4th level are
characterized
> by the relative consistency of their actions (the behavior they
consciously
> 'own') and by the relative consistency of their explanations (motivations)
> for these actions.
Fine with that.
> I don't call the 4th level 'individual' however, because that would
> strengthen the misunderstanding that the 4th level has no 'social' aspects
> (in the SOMish sense of the word 'social', not referring to the 3th
level).
> It has, because motives must be recognized and shared by others to 'work',
> to be experienced as 'valid'.
I think you need to say a bit more about this before I could accept it. Why
must my motive for eg studying theology be recognized and shared by others?
Which others? The ones that share that interest? The ones who can teach me?
And I am dubious about other people's reactions validating an experience -
that seems purely social level to me.
> Individuals distinguish themselves from each other by a different choice
(of
> several items) from the available motivations for action (and thus by
> different patterns of action, if they are consistent). Individuals that
> choose unavailable ways of motivating their actions are insane and destroy
> themselves. They then either 'recreate' a new 'individual' or -if they get
> something out of it- they stay insane for some time.
I think that it is strange to talk about choosing motivations, possibly
self-contradictory. On what basis is a choice made if not on the basis of
motivations? You seem to get stuck into circular reasoning if you talk about
choosing motivations (or an infinite regress).
> Would you call 'the Modernist drama of salvation by scientific reasoning'
a
> myth?? I thought it was (less tendentiously worded) a high-quality
> intellectual pattern of value...
Some of us think that myths ARE 'high-quality intellectual patterns of
value' :o)
> In my experience with my children we show them behavior, we make them copy
> behavior, we ask them to motivate their behavior and we teach them how to
do
> so by motivating own behavior. They learn to think because at first it is
> not obvious at all to them why some anwers to 'why do you do that?' are
> acceptable to us and others aren't. They have to think to 'get' the
pattern
> in the way we motivate our behavior. Telling them stories (or at the age
my
> children are now at -9 and 10- making them read stories) broadens their
> experience of behaviors and possible ways of motivating behavior. There is
> no need to choose 'mythical' stories, not even 'mythical' depictions of
the
> achievements of science.
I think I understand 'myth' more broadly than you do here. It relates to the
shrub/tree point, and the ability to go outside the 'mythos'. I don't think
it's possible, so I'm using 'myth' to describe the basic presuppositions
within which the intellect functions.
Cheers
Sam
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