[John]
Well I think we're definitely talking about different things. Your
laying out the mechanisms by which social values are transferred or
implemented,
and I'm looking at the basic value sets themselves.
[Arlo]
Well, not exactly. "Stucturation" considers the context through which
patterns both replicate and evolve. Your initial post was aimed at
criticizing coercion/homogenization through a willful power
structure. What I say is a much more accurate picture is that
"homogenization" is not the goal of some totalitarian guvmint or
other power-structure, but that assimilation of shared history across
the board ensures patterned homogenization. But, this is not an
"evil" that can be "overcome", for without "structuration" there can
be no "agency". The structuration language a child appropriates both
constrains her/his thoughts but also enables that child to act with
social and intellectual agency.
Because while it is true that "20th century French culture exists,
therefore Descartes thinks, therefore he is", we see that the agency
enabled by appropriating language would not be possible otherwise,
even as that language shapes the structure or form of Descartes thoughts.
[John]
When a society values reason above all, it will transmit the values
of reason, when it values war, it teaches war.
[Arlo]
This is more a superficial snapshot that wrongly thinks such things
can be decided and taught on whim. It might be more helpful to
consider key cultural valuations, such as "money", and see the deep
ramifications of such a value. I mention this because Gav and y'all
are talking about this in another thread. I think the thing to
consider in your above statement is that "WE" are "SOCIETY".
Now, granted, any society based on hierarchical power will induce
power-reification from those at the top. In a money-culture, those
with money/power will often work to propagate the values that ensure
their continued power. I should note that this was a central concern
of Marx, who looked at the wedding of religion and capital power as a
means of keeping the working poor faithful to maintain the power of
their economic masters. This also reminds me of the great Rowdy Rody
Piper film "They Live".
[John]
When it values itself, it teaches and transmits it's known static
patterns based on what has pragmatically worked in the past.
[Arlo]
Well, again, I think self-replication is built into the system, from
DNA to the assimilation of collective consciousness of all
communicating mankind.
In "Hero with a Thousand Faces", Campbell mirrors a sentiment
expressed by Pirsig that "evolution" enters the system from the
outside, that it is through the collision of static patterns that
new, better patterns emerge. For Pirsig, it was the Brujo's
assimilation of European values. Or "Jean Jacques Rousseau, who is
sometimes given credit for [the doctrine "all men are created
equal"], certainly didn't get it from the history of Europe or Asia
or Africa. He got it from the impact of the New World upon Europe and
from contemplation of one particular kind of individual who lived in
the New World, the person he called the "Noble Savage."
Campell quotes Arnold Toynbee, "schism in the soul, schism in the
body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of return to the good
old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal
projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic,
hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements.
Only birth can conquer death- the birth, not of the old thing again,
but of something new. Within the soul, within the body social, there
must be- if we are to experience long survival- a continuous
"recurrence of birth" to nullify the unremitting recurrences of
death. For it is by means of our own victories, if we are not
regenerated, that the work of Nemesis is wrought: doom breaks from
the shell of our very virtue. Peace, then, is a snare; war is a
snare; change is a snare; permanence a snare."
[John]
I tried to describe the problem to Platt...
[Arlo]
Well Platt is stuck with his focus on the "last static latch" (as
Pirsig points out, "The end of the twentieth century in America seems
to be an intellectual, social, and economic rust-belt, a whole
society that has given up on Dynamic improvement and is slowly trying
to slip back to Victorianism, the last static ratchet-latch").
I've said before, and I'll say it again, I think its meaningful to go
back and look at the hippies, what they did, what Dynamic
regeneration they brought, before the movement went off-course.
Pirsig marked that time as what should have been an evolutionary
leap, a jump that did not occur. Of course we can't resurrect the
same hippy movement now, such a thing would not be Dynamic or fresh.
But we can and should go back and see where we have gone wrong since.
[John]
Well I definitely think the key is being open to the dynamic and wary
of the static. Any social system which represses free thinking and
intellectual experimentation causes all our moral compassess to swing
wildly away.
[Arlo]
I think we agree for the most part, even if there are nuances I'd
pick at here. "Thinking" is never "free" in some asocial, acultural,
objectivist utopia. You think through the shared symbols and shared
historical dialogue of enculturation. As such, your thoughts will
always be "structured" in certain ways. "We are suspended in
language, our intellectual description of nature is always culturally
derived" (as Pirsig quotes Bohr). But I think what you are saying
here is the act by those in power to silence or eradicate voices that
challenge their established power. I do note, however, that while an
open dialogue must allow for voices of dissent, this must be built on
a foundation where the voices of dissent aren't themselves attempting
to destroy the dialogue.
[John]
Perhaps the most revolutionary insight is the evolutionary - that
where we are is not where we need to aim for. Change is not just an
inevitable consequence of a random universe, it's a necessary
ingredient for holistic life. Growth and improvement is
change. Those come only from DQ, not sq.
[Arlo]
Well said. Agree.
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