From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Nov 12 2003 - 18:13:48 GMT
Dear Wim,
> Let's keep in mind that we agreed that social changes are slower than
> intellectual ones (and yes, also that biological changes are even slower
> and inorganical changes are slowest).
Yes, we agree
> My reference to your example of
> European immigration into the USA (as supposed quick social change) as
> 'changing participation in unchanging social patterns of value' meant no
> 'separation of social patterns from "participation"' (as you state 11
> Nov 2003 08:24:28 -0500). 'People participate in patterns of value' is
> just a general way to describe how people relate to patterns of value
> for me, not just to social patterns of value. Falling when lacking
> support, we participate in gravitation. Procreating we participate in
> maintaining our species. Writing English, I participate in that language
> as a social pattern of value. Maar ik kan ook in het nederlands
> schrijven and that doesn't mean that English as a social pattern of
> value ceases to exist. Patterns of value cease to exist when nobody
> participates, but most exist regardless of any particular individual's
> participation. So, European immigrants starting to participate in
> American social patterns of value did not automatically imply changing
> social patterns of value.
I see your point but would argue human participation is required for
social and intellectual values, but NOT for biological or inorganic.
Falling, procreating and such were happening long before humans
appeared on scene. But only after humans evolved did social and
intellectual patterns of values (as defined in the MOQ) emerge. Agree?
> Yes, social patterns can change and a new economic paradigm can be a
> factor in changing social patterns of value for the better. Inventing a
> new economic paradigm (as in my 'economics of want and greed') is
> primarily aimed at changing intellectual patterns of value of course.
> Once a new intellectual pattern of value has gained enough stability, it
> can (motivate people to) change (the small part of their) behavior (that
> is voluntary). If enough people do so, the changed behavior can become a
> pattern that is copied also by people who don't participate in the
> original (changed) intellectual pattern of value that motivated changing
> behavior. That's a long and slow process...
Agree.
> I agree that 'hominids' includes 'humans'. So I should have written: 'I
> would write [that language is] A linking pin [between the social and the
> intellectual level] and I would specify that SYMBOLIC language may have
> separated humans from other HOMINIDS. (It's social patterns of value
> like stronger group solidarity and the incest taboo that separated
> hominids from other animals between 1 and 2 million years ago.)' Do you
> agree with that? I don't know enough about homo neanderthalensis to say
> whether 'humans' includes or excludes it.
I don't know enough about the social patterns of pre-human hominids to agree
or not. Seems to me these pre-humans are mostly identified by their
biological bone structures rather than their social habits. What
concerns me about attributing this or that characteristic to early man
is the amount of speculation necessitated by lack of hard evidence.
Lots of theories floating around, but in my lifetime I've witnessed
cherished theories about early man overturned time and again by new
discoveries. Remember Piltdown Man?
> Regarding Rorty you (Platt) write:
> 'I haven't come across anything that suggests Rorty would advocate
> resistance to "intersubjective agreement" or what I call "groupthink."
> ... But, I ask you: Is not Rorty's "Truth is a matter of intersubjective
> agreement" a fundamental premise of his philosophy? Further, I hope you
> will address my question about "Who are these inter-subjects?"'
>
> My point was not that Rorty would advocate such resistance (I only guess
> that he would advocate resistance against some "group-think", e.g.
> -being considered leftist by you- rightist "group-think"). My point was
> that he doesn't defend "group-think" and that his theory can be used to
> support resistance against it. There's no point in principled resistance
> against all "group-think". Every intellectual pattern of value in which
> several people participate (e.g. the MoQ) constitutes a form of
> "group-think". No relevant intellectual pattern of value (with relevance
> to others than its initiator) can do without. I haven't read Rorty, but
> from what I read about him via others (on this list) it may well be a
> fundamental premise of his philosophy that there's no other way to
> justify a statement that something is 'true' than to quote others
> stating the same.
If it's raining outside and someone questions the truth of my assertion
that it's raining outside, I don't need to quote others to justify the
truth of whether it's raining or not. I can simply say, "See for
yourself." The problem with Rorty's view is the problem Pirsig pointed
our with logical positivism which claims if we can't talk about it it
must not exist, and if it doesn't exist it can't be true. I go along
with Pirsig's view that phenomena exist independently of talk
(intersubjective agreement) about them.
> Individual direct Quality experience being the
> fundamental absolute standard of truth for you, me and everyone, we are
> still left with the task of convincing each other of 'my truth' when
> 'our truths' appear to differ.
Not necessarily. I feel no overwhelming obligation to convince you of
'my truth.' I simply enjoy the exchange of ideas and the hope that I
may learn something I hadn't known or considered before.
> So apart from a standard of truth, we
> also need a way (or more ways) to justify truth. What other ways do you
> see apart from "intersubjective agreement"?
Direct experience of the matter in dispute. Wasn't it Galileo who tried
to convince the clergy to directly experience his truth by looking
through his telescope, but they refused?
> A problem is also, that the
> range of our individual direct Quality experience is too limited to test
> every statement that is presented to us as true. If you say that the
> American way of life is better than the Chinese way of life, I have no
> direct Quality experience to test it against (never having been in
> either country). In a lot of cases we have to rely on accounts of other
> people's direct Quality experiences, i.e. on "group-think", for we
> cannot take all experience of all other people with a certain situation
> into account. We have to select a group whose 'typical' accounts we hold
> for true.
No argument there. It's a matter of who do you trust and keeping a
weather eye open for the grinding of group axes that tend to spin the
facts to suit their goals, like political groups on both left and
right. There are even pitched battles among scientists.
> My answer to your question "Who are these inter-subjects?" is:
> whoever YOU choose. It is by showing this possibility of choice, that
> Rorty's theory of truth facilitates resistance against "group-think"
> that doesn't fit your individual direct Quality experience. You can of
> course choose not to rely on any account from anybody else and only take
> your own direct Quality experience for granted, but then the limitations
> of your direct Quality experience exclude you from discussion of at
> least 99,99% of all 'truths' stated by others.
No argument there. In fact, I'd venture to say most people's interest
in other than there own direct experiences is fairly limited, and
discussion of what's true and what isn't rarely crosses their minds..
> Apart from his clumsy and incomplete way of formulating it, I do agree
> with Pirsig's statement that: 'the twentieth-century intellectual faith
> in man's basic goodness as spontaneous and natural is disastrously
> naive. The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without
> coercion cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual good of
> all is a devastating fiction'.
>
> It is clumsy because any 'faith in an idea' is intellectual, any 'ideal'
> is a fiction and on the social level purposes (like 'for the mutual good
> of all') have no meaning (they are intellectual rationalizations).
I would say 'faith' is a willingness to believe falsehoods promulgated
by intersubjective agreement among certain groups, primarily religious
and political. So I would say faith is anti-intellectual. 'Ideals' are
interesting. I'm not sure what they mean but they must have some
meaning because your "Economics of Want and Greed" sets forth an ideal.
Not so?
> It is
> incomplete, because the idea that man is basically good did arise
> earlier than the 20th century. But yes, at the biological and social
> levels people do compete far too much to describe their dealings with
> each other as harmonious. (They do not only compete, however. Pirsig
> overstated his point when he wrote: 'Studies of bones left by the
> cavemen indicate that cannibalism, not cooperation, was a pre-society
> norm.' These same cavemen also left bones of mammoths that must have
> been killed in close cooperation... His next statement, 'Primitive
> tribes such as the American Indians have no record of sweetness and
> cooperation with other tribes', is simply beside the point, which is to
> what extent they cooperated WITHIN their tribe.) The ideal of a
> harmonious society is an intellectual pattern of value and as such it
> can only command a small (motivated) part of human behavior. That 'a
> harmonious society' is not a description that fits the whole of our
> social experience is obvious.
Seems your adapting the same argument I used regarding social patterns
vs. individuals--you know, the level of abstraction being used..
Cooperation would appear to be greater at the family level, less so at
the tribal level, less so the community level, less so at the state
level, less so at the national level, and certainly less so at the
international level. I know I cooperate more with my immediate
neighbors than with the larger community that threatens to run a road
through my house. I guess when we use the term 'social pattern" we
ought to specify just how many people we encompass.
> My definition of politics as 'working together on the future of a
> society as a whole' does not imply 'working harmoniously together'.
> Democrats and Republicans in the USA DO work together on the future of
> American society as long as Democrats accept (however reluctantly)
> Republican rule until the next elections (and vice versa). They share
> power (this many years for one, that many years for the other, depending
> on voters favors) and believe that (in the end) this way of balancing
> influence on the future of their society best represents the will of the
> people and thus 'the mutual good of all'. They are obviously NOT working
> together harmoniously, but competing for 'the mutual good of all'. After
> a change of power a lot of investments in the future by one party are
> undone by the other party, however, making these investments into a
> waste of energy. So 'the mutual good of all' is not really optimally
> served in this way.
Well, I'm not sure. I would hesitate to try to define precisely what is
the optimal mutual good of all. For instance, our Social Security
system, thought by many to be for the good of all, is running out of
money. But, I digress.
>Thus my ideal of politics is cooperating as harmoniously as possible
on
> the future of a society as a whole (given the limitations imposed by
> biological and social patterns of value).
"Ideal" did you say? I hope not a meaningless one. :-)
> Dutch models of politics (i.e.
> the intellectual patterns of value guiding a small part of our behavior)
> fit this ideal better than American ones (e.g. by necessitating
> coalition governments).
I wonder. Does the Dutch Constitution contain individual rights
guarantees?
> You wrote:
> 'Our Founding Fathers agreed with Pirsig's assessment of man's
> fundamental nature and so set up a government based on checks and
> balances that controlled man's natural "fights for power."'
>
> I do agree that PART of human 'nature' (including social patterns of
> value) is 'fighting for power' and that political models (i.e.
> intellectual patterns of value guiding political behavior) should
> include a system of checks and balances. That's exactly why I oppose
> American foreign policy: because it opposes such a system of checks and
> balances on a global scale (e.g. through the UN, the international court
> of justice, international agreements like the Kyoto one etc.).
You're asking the U.S. to give up its sovereignty to the likes of Libya, Sudan,
Sierra Leone, Togo and Ugandu. I don't think so. Would you give up
Dutch sovereignty to become a U.N. protectorate?.
>An
> American policy to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world' is
> a great idea. If the actual American foreign policy amounts to wielding
> unchecked and unbalanced power, the actual effect will differ
> considerably from the professed objective (more democracy and freedom
> everywhere), however. One of the effects is apparently more terrorism...
You blame terrorism on the victims?
> The idea that human nature is ONLY 'fighting for power' is a very
> dangerous idea. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Human nature is basically selfish. Acknowledging that undeniable truth
is the basis for the success of the U.S. and capitalism. Superpowers
don't just happen. But, human nature without social controls based on a
shared morality will slip inexorably toward wallowing in biological
pleasures as is all too evident in American pop culture. Superpowers
inevitably decline, and America is well on its way downward unless some
of old moral standards can be revived. So to the extent that I give the
impression that I think the U.S. has everything figured out and is
above criticism, that impression is false.
With best regards,
Platt
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