[MD] The MOQ's First Principle

[david buchanan]

DM asked:
Is not democracy about changing social structures and decision making, 
giving decision making to all rather than elites? Is this not about 
improving society, taking society from one stage to another? This may 
improve life for individuals but it is also about improving society's 
functioning.

dmb says:
This question isn't really about the difference between social and 
intellectual values. It introduces the distinction between collective 
structures and individual persons as if that determined which level of 
values was in play. Not so. Democratic societies are guided by intellectual 
values. Its quite alright that democracy is a form of government, a social 
institution run by flesh and blood people. That doesn't mean democracy is a 
social level value. Human Rights are protected by laws and courts and such, 
that doesn't prevent them from functioning to protect intellectual 
principles. Conversely, I'm sure there are millions of individuals who 
would, in confessing their beliefs and vaules, reveal themselves to be 
social level individuals - even if they live alone and have no friends. The 
point is simply that bodies and social institutions are always going to be 
involved where ever there are humans. The distinction between third and 
fourth level values is going to be discerned by the intellect. They not only 
preform totally different functions because of the evolutionary relationship 
they bear with their differing parents, but they have a different feel, a 
different quality. Or so it seems to me.

dmb had said:
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association and assembly, 
freedom of conscience and all that sort of thing is aimed at protecting the 
freedom to think and say and believe regardless of whether or not society 
likes it.

DM replied:
But these freedoms are realised via social structures and will only be 
embraced by society if they are a benefit to society, so what exactly makes 
them intellectual? Is it a matter of what values benefit from these social 
structures? Is that a useful way to define this?

dmb says:
Well, I'd agree that a society that protects freedom of speech is superior 
to one that doesn't, if that's what you're trying to say. But a society that 
only embraces the kind of speech that benefits society is not the same thing 
at all. I mean, if freedom of speech isn't about the freedom to speak 
against the government or in opposition to any of the culture's values, then 
it's meaningless. And I suppose that any tradition that can be toppled with 
mere words probably deserves to be ruined.

But the over-arching problem, I mean the reason you seem to have trouble 
with the social-intellectual distinction, is that you've confused it with 
the collective-individual distinction.


thanks

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