Ed wrote: > Selma, I guess its a question of how those values might be incorporated. If > they were part of an imposed morality, ideology or theology, I don't think > I'd buy them. If they arose by group consensus over a long period of living > and working together, that would be another matter. That's probably what > happened in the case of the Tikopians and other small hunting gathering > groups, and perhaps many of the societies Ruth Benedict dealt with.
Selma: Of course they would have to be incorporated through the willing working through of laws and institutions created with the same positive feelings that are being promoted by those values. It would not be possible to have loving and productive values incorporated by force and violence; the two kinds of values are mutually exclusive. Ed, if enough people believe it is important, for example, to create situations in the school room that allow children to develop the sense of joy in work that is described by Ms Lee, why could that not become part of the curriculum of schools of education and eventually become incorporated in the schoolroom and ultimately institutionalized. Of course that kind of thing could not happen in isolation; there would also have to be changes in the socialization process, in the way government operates, in the economic sector, certainly, in the religious institutions, in the media, in the culture of sports, etc. etc. I'm not trying to say it would be easy; it is not at all likely it will even begin to happen in the lifetime of my children. But, who knows, if enough of us figure out that it is a very important thing to think about; if enough people get sick and tired of the misery imposed by the values that dominate now, if....if....if..... IF we don't try to figure out how to have a better world, there is NO CHANCE it could ever happen. It may not happen anyway; but if we don't work at it we guarantee our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not see it either. The problem I have with most of the conversations about the future of society is that, as I have said before, they have no direction. Whatever suggestions people may make for change are made in some kind of vacuum; that is, there is no value context for the changes suggested. There is just short-term thinking that this or that may be an improvement on what we have but we have no- maybe it's vision (you know, the 'vision thing' that the Bush family has such a problem with). Selma > Ed > Selma had written: > > > > Of course we would not be able to do it exactly the way the Tikopians did; > > that's not the point at all. The point is that if it is possible for human > > beings to have an environment that allows and encourages values and > > relationships that are *better* than what we have, then we should work to > > find a way to incorporate those values and create that kind of an > > environment in a way that will work for us. > > > > Ruth Benedict developed a continuum of societies with nonsynergistic > > societies at one end of the pole and synergistic societies at the other > end. > > She based it on 700 societies. Synergistic societies are societies in > which > > when an individual does something that benefits her/him, that behavior > also > > benefits the group; likewise, when the group or community does something > > that benefits them, that behavior also benefits the individual. > > > > If we do not believe that we can incorporate better values, of course > there > > is not chance we ever will. But before we can think about how to > incorporate > > them in our lives, we must know what they are. > > > > Selma > > > > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
