HI Guys, BURP! (more burping below).
On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 9:55 AM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Craig, > > Thanks for weighing in. > > On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 2:13 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> [John] >> > Society is comprised of individuals COLLECTIVELY relating with >> > one another and their common environment >> >> > Craig: > > >> I think the "COLLECTIVELY" part of this statement misleadingly obscures >> the difference between cases where there is collective intention to act >> vs. where there isn't. For instance take the "housing market" in an Amish >> community: there everyone goes to Farmer Brown's barn raising, then to >> Farmer >> Smith's, and so on. That is COLLECTIVE action. Outside of the Amish, >> there's not. >> >> > John: > > Collectivism wasn't the focus of my discussion, but the commonality of > environmental input, so i'll leave aside, if you don't mind, the intentions > of collective actions and just focus on what I see as the main point, which > you do address below. > > > >> [John] >> > the morality of a society reflects the individual values shared by the >> > members AND the consensus reached will be that which reflects their >> > congruence with that common environment. >> >> > Craig: > > >> This sounds like the myth of the noble savage. There may be "values shared >> by the members", but also NOT shared by other members. And not only might >> there be no consensus, there might not even be a dominant value. >> >> > John: > > What I mean by "value" in this regard is as simple as the values of light > and dark. The experience of nightfall is shared by all, and thus the > semantic distinction between dark and light is understood by all, in their > struggles toward communication and understanding. I understand that > complex conflicts in the values of an individual, versus the values and > needs of the collective, can be at odds, but the underlying matrix of > understanding is formed by the common experience of a common environment. > That's the "playground" where the games are worked out. > > I think there's usually a pretty good consensus on whether the sun is > shining or not. If a person is that contrarian, then he's not going to last > very long within the community. > > Furthermore, there are other matters that are as easy to comprehend as > this. Life and death matters, they are termed, because, well, life is good > and death is bad. Do we really need anyone to tell us this? > > John [Mark weighing in, ..Burp] I think that there is fallacy in considering the societal level to be the sum of individual levels. As individuals we exist in the biological level (or organic, whatever). A collection of individuals synergistically form the societal level which goes by its own consciousness. This is similar to the cells making up our consciousness. As such, we are speaking of group consciousness, not individual desires all summed up and fought over in a political way. Such values are not within the domain of the individual, although he does provide basis for them, in the same way our cells provides the basis for our consciousness. Some overarching structures exist within the societal level that do not exist within the individual level, such as synergism (more than the sum of the whole). Therefore while John is defining Society, he is not defining the societal level. He does expand the definition with an "and the common environment", but the exact meaning of this is unclear, and I don't think it meant some kind of general archetype (ala Jung) inclusion. It would also seem that Craig is referring to group efforts (collectivism); this is another subject, appart from society. I feel it is important to distinguish between the levels in this way. Otherwise, everything becomes the biological (or individual consciousness) level, and is reduced to a meaningless division of levels. Now John, when you state that life is good and death is bad, you are not making a very good comparison. It would be more adequate to say that birth is good, and death is bad, since both are single events. Now, in terms of birth being good, there are many that would disagree with you on this. Birth may be relatively good, but for some it is not as good as convenience. In other words, birth is bad compared to convenience. I am of course talking about the Pro-Choice advocates. So the heirarchy would be (from highest to lowest) Convenience followed by birth followed by death, for certain people. Just for the record, I am not taking sides here, since I have never been presented with the dilemna of abortion, and do not know what my choice would be. On the other hand, if you are saying that alive is good, and not-alive is bad, this is also an unfair comparison. Principally because the comparison is made from the alive side of things, and cannot consider the not-alive side. Comparisons should be done with things that are experienced in our alive state. Now, there are some who claim to have experience the other side, and say that it is pretty good. Who knows? Maybe we are really dead right now, and waiting for birth. Anything is possible. 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