John to Andre:
Intellectual ideas struggle to gain social success but intellectual values do
not compete with social values.
Andre:
The Law is into a popularity contest? It appears to me that the more you try to
explain your position the messier it gets John.
dmb says:
I know, it's weird the way John keeps coming up with one bizarre distortion
after another in order to defend an idea (no conflict between levels) that
directly contradicts the textual evidence.
Please notice that his main tactic is to avoid the concrete historical examples
and instead pretend that static patterns are some kind of abstract entity apart
from actual people and apart from the actual world of events.
And he will not let go of the ridiculous idea that intellectual values are
private property existing only in a particular individual's head until they are
put into circulation, at which point it automatically becomes a social level
pattern. John is super-glued this idea even though it makes no sense because
the scientific process itself depends on collective efforts, public access,
peer review, etc. and the all of the academic journals are engaged in an
ongoing, wide scale discourse. These intellectual pursuits remain intellectual,
of course, even when they exist as part of our collective culture, as part of
our society. Like morality, these things would have no meaning to a lone
individual. I honestly don't know what could pry loose this superglued nonsense
from John's hands. Your patience is admirable and very generous, Andre, but I
strongly suspect that he doesn't really care about the truth of the matter.
"Social quality measurements....are such things as conformity to social custom,
popularity, ego satisfaction, and 'reputation'." [MOQ Textbook]
"Fame and fortune are huge Dynamic parameters that give society its shape and
meaning." [Lila, Ch.20]
"...Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, nevertheless, became the center of a
lesser storm between social and intellectual forces. The New Deal was many
things, but at the center of it all was the belief that intellectual planning
by the government was necessary for society to regain its health. The New Deal
was described as a program for farmers, laborers and poor people everywhere,
but it was also a new deal for the intellectuals of American. Suddenly, for the
first time, they were at the center of the planning process - ...Now
intellectuals were in a position to give orders to America's finest and oldest
and wealthiest social groups. 'That Man,' as the old aristocrats sometime
called Roosevelt, was turning the whole USA over to foriegn radicals,
'eggheads', 'Commies', and the like. He was a traitor to his class. Suddenly,
before the old Victorian eyes, a whole new socal caste, a caste of intellectual
Brahmins, was being created ABOVE their own military and economic castes.
These new Brahmins felt they could look down on them and, through political
control of the Democratic party, push them around. Social snobbery was being
replaced with intellectual snobbery." [Lila, Ch 22]
"Until WW1 the Victorian social codes dominated. From WW1 untiil WW2 the
intellectuals dominated unchallenged. (The New Deal) From WW2 until the 70s the
intellectuals continued to dominate, but with increasing challenge - call it
the Hippie revolution - which failed. And from the early 70s on there has been
a slow confused mindless drift back to a kind of pseudo-Victorian moral posture
accomanied by an unprecedented and unexplained growth in crime." [Lila, Ch 24]
"The conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues of free enterprise are
normally just supporting their own self-interest. They are just doing the usual
cover-up for the rich in their age-old exploitation of the poor." [Lila, Ch 17]
"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a
higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a
society based on mindless traditions."
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