From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 21:41:55 BST
Hi David
> Paul said:
> In general, I see a social pattern of value as a
> specific group of people, the UK Labour Party, the
> MOQ
> forum members, the Roman Catholic Church, the United
> Nations
>
> dmb says:
> As a specific group of people? Here's why I think
> that doesn't work: Take
> the UN, the ACLU, the union of conerned scientists
> or whatever example you
> like best. Think of an organization in society that
> is founded upon
> intellectual principles and is dedicated to the
> protection and preservation
> of intellectual values. Do you think we could still
> rightly say that it is a
> social level organization?
Yes I do, that's my whole argument, all organisations
are social patterns of value. The degree to which they
are directed by intellectual patterns of value does
not change that. Just as societies direct human bodies
and human bodies direct matter, you wouldn't say that
a human body is 'American' or carbon is human.
I don't. Sure, colleges
> and universities serve a
> social function and the students love to socialize,
> but it goes past the
> social level, hopefully, and is dedicated to
> intellectual values above all.
> I mean it doesn't work to define social level values
> as groups of people,
> because some groups hold intellectual values - as a
> group.
The social organisation of people of any kind for any
purpose is a social pattern of value. In this example,
the intellectual patterns of value are supported and
taught by the social patterns of value, the
institution which is a university or college.
> Scott:
> In practice, since the intellectual level is young,
> the intellectual thought
> is rare and when present, mixed in with the social
> (e.g., a thought sequence
> can start on the intellectual level but soon gets
> overwhelmed by social
> concerns.)
>
> dmb says:
> Not only that. But the intellectual level depends on
> social values for its
> very existence. So, by the author's reckoning,
> whenever there are
> intellectual values, there is also every level below
> it too.
Yes, I don't disagree with that, but the point is to
distinguish between the levels for clarity. Thinking
about society is still an intellectual pattern of
value. Societies depend on human bodies for their
existence but that does not make bodies 'social'. This
is the point I was making to Scott in a recent post:
To clarify my view of the social level, I don't see
social patterns of value as the groups of bodies, and
as such, external or objective. But if we try to
identify social patterns of value today we can see
specific organisations and institutions that are
always superimposed on biological patterns, i.e.
humans. They need them. However, social patterns can
go on completely separately from specific humans over
several lifetimes.
Identifying historical social patterns of value is
also possible and will not always be linked to
specific people. Pirsig’s discussion of the Victorian
social pattern of value is an example of this.
The levels are
> cumulative, so to speak. They're like nested spheres
> so that the higher ones
> envelope and include the lower ones as part of their
> own structure. You
> can't have organisms without matter first and you
> can have human society
> without human bodies first. Anything else is pretty
> hard to imagine.
That's my point about specific groups being a good way
to identify social patterns of value, you can't have a
society without groups of people.
cheers
Paul
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