Ed Goertzen wrote:
>
> Brian McAndrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Wrote
> and
> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Replied
>
> I appreciate the exchange below. It seems to me that the teaching of
> culture is the inculcation of what we used to call morality. The unwritten
> rules and laws of behaviour (mental and physical) that are communicated
> more by practice than by curriculum. Since the rules were inculcated by
> osmisis, so to speak, they served until experience either validated or
> invalidated them.
Alas, this is not what I meant to communicate (nor, I think, what Hall and
Resnais meant, either): Because these forms of behavior (where beliefs are
understood as one kind of behavior...) are "inculcated by osmosis", they
are largely immune from being invalidated by experience, in
part, because they prescribe the kinds of experiences the person can have.
This is why they are so dangerous: We don't know that what we think is our
freely chosen behavior is really channeled by these unrecognized rules.
Of course, in varying measures, we *can* become aware of these rules
and to ever greater extent free outselves from (i.e., extricate ourselves
from) them. The results are generally "eye opening" from the
individual's perspective, and extremely threatening from "society's"
perspective.
I would again cite the difference between believing
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!", and believing: "There seem to
have been persons who believed "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" -- I
wonder why they held that particular belief -- and, what do I see? there even
seem to be persons in my own social world who at least say they believe
it. Let's see what we can find out by studying the historical and
logical consequences of
believing: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'!"
The Generals have a much harder time mounting "human wave" assaults
with the one kind of person than with the other kind....
>
> The watershed occured in my opinion during the 60's when both the
> authoritative and the authoritarian were rejected. The veracity of moral
> laws was rejected unless they could be validated.
Perhaps (and here I may sound like I am contradicting myself!) not
enough effort was made to see what behavioral norms could be
validated. Today, we have "postmodernism", not an ethics of
Universality (Husserl, et al.). We have widespread acceptance of horrible
customs both in other "cultures" and in our own [wage labor, ritual
genital mutilation of children, etc.].
>
> That was a reversal of traditional process when moral law was accepted
> unless it could be invalidated.
I disagree: It was a *reaction* to the traditional process when
moral law was accepted, *period* -- and those who did not or
would not conform were intimidated into submission, or ostracized
or crushed.
But we have still not seen the day when wage laborers, students,
and other subordinated categories simply no longer have to
endure being less than fully human, i.e., less than co-legislators of
their social world (like the bosses and school administrators, et al.).
As Marx said: "communism" will be when the government of persons
is replaced by the administration of things. The classical
Greeks knew that to be governed, and to be fully human are incompatible.
>
> With society's love affair with the TV, the proving ground has ben removed.
> The resultant loss of social "self government" has created a vacume that is
> being filled by the writing into statute law what more property belongs in
> the realm of moral law, where the practice of it is modified to suit its
> time and place.
[snip]
A stray thought which just came to me: What a difference a single
letter makes in an acronym: the TVA was, I believe, in its time,
a symbol of real hope for many Americans.
> end
[snip]
Not yet!
Best wishes to all!
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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