From: SWZwick@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 07 2004 - 09:56:25 BST
I'm not sure if this thread has run its course or not, but I was inundated
for the past week and can only now respond:
In response to my contention that the need for a common enemy and an orderly
world are biological values, wim.nusselder@antenna.nl wrote:
> The need for a "Feindbild" belongs to the social level (it keeps societies
> together) and not to the biological level (it doesn't keep species or
> ecosystems together).
> The need for a view of the world as ordered and predictable belongs to the
> intellectual level (it keeps systems of ideas together). It is a lower
> quality intellectual pattern of value than a worldview that allows for
> chaos/freedom and complexity.
My question is whether we should be categorizing these values (or functions
or whatever) based on where they originate or on where they reveal themselves.
There seems to be a lot of evidence that these functions are hard-wired into
our brains, a relic of our pre-tribal history as pack animals. Interestingly,
this theory sort of conforms to Chomsky's own views on linguistics. But as
for what this has to do with the MOQ, if this theory is corrrect, then these
values are biological in origin, but act in support of societal values. As to
whether they are static or chaotic in nature, that depends on your perspective.
From within the pack, they can be seen as static, because they hold the pack
together, but from a societal perspective they can be seen as chaotic,
becuase they lead to fragmentation of society when not properly directed.
Taken in this light, a society that harnesses this neurological function to
hold itself together can be seen as good, so long as the resulting cohesion and
focus don't override the intellectual level.
One common critique of Ronald Reagan is that he over-simplified the world,
but supporters say that he did so to harness biological and societal values
behind an intellectual idea that he believed in. I wonder if part of Chomsky's
appeal isn't simply that he uses a more "intellectual" approach than Reagan, in
the sense that he resorts to facts and figures, while Reagan kept things
strictly "big picture". He therefore appeals to people turned off by Reaganistic
simplifications. To me, Reagan was largely on the right side as far as
communism goes, but I don't think he really understood the economic theories of
Milton Friedman as anything more than un-communism. I concede Reagan's positive
legacy, but to me his greatest negative legacy is a dummying down of public
discourse, rather than any specific policy he espoused.
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