[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Michael H said to dmb:
I think the idea of "opposition" obscures that way in which (for instance) 
intellectual patterns of value use society to achieve intellectual purposes. 
The stuff you've been talking about seems to be better summed up by 
"emancipation" that brute "opposition", although it does involve opposition 
to the complete hegemony and domination exercised by (for instance) society.

dmb replies:
Well, we don't really disagree here. I've also included the idea that the 
newer level rests upon its parent in the recent explanations of this 
principle. Its not that I'm married to the term "opposition" and I'd 
exchange it for another if you insist. But maybe that would just be a 
semantic paint job because it seems incorrect to exclude the notion that the 
levels are, at least sometimes, in conflict with each other. I mean, we are 
talking about different categories of values, that pretty much means that by 
definition the levels have different aims and purposes, or... different 
values. The names; inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, are the 
labels for those categories. So I'm just saying the distinctions between 
them can be discerned by examining how and where they conflict. This is 
where the differences are on display, so to speak. The difference between 
biological quality and social quality is easy to see in the prohibitions 
against adultry, for example. This is where we find the two in conflict with 
each other. The body "thinks" its the greatest thing in the world whether 
its happening with that body's wife or not, so to speak. But that sort of 
greatness is in conflict with the social level institutions of marriage and 
family. Those values are at odds with nookie on the side and that sort of 
physical good, especially if it's Kate Beckinsale on the side.

Michael also said:
Okay, ... how about the division of labour in primitive human societies? 
...Such social organisation undoubtedly advances the survival of the 
species. One isolated human has less chance of meeting his basic biological 
needs than as part of a well-organised group. So society is a great 
biological strategy, but it has to mollify competitive biological instincts 
in order to achieve its aims. In the long run, emancipation is beneficial to 
the receding level as well as the emerging one.

dmb says:
I agree with all of that, except for the notion that society is a biological 
strategy. There is little doubt about the idea that social organization 
improves our chances for survival and generally makes it easier to satisfy 
to organism's needs. And I think its quite right to think of this as a 
liberation from the laws of the jungle. Nasty brutish and short, as 
whatshisname said. I just don't think its correct to think of the division 
of labor or the development of language and culture as a feature of 
biological processes. As I understand it, social values transcend mere 
instinct and brute force, those forces that rule herds and packs. Even at 
the rudimentary level of our primitive ancestors, I think its pretty clear 
we're talking about a very different kind of consciousness. I don't mean to 
disrespect the wolves. They are a freakin miracle, but they don't paint 
pictures of us on cave walls, you know? They don't tell their little pups 
scary stories about our big teeth. Anyway, this "mollifying" process is 
pretty much what I had in mind all along. In fact, I used that term once or 
twice already.

Normally I'd love to disagree but I just don't think there's much to go on 
here.

Darn.

dmb

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