[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Ian said to dmb:
I get the open hand-shake example. It's well document as a social custom, 
with origins as you suggest. My request for elaboration is for how you get 
from this social over biological example (which I buy already) to anything 
equivalent for intellect over social, and when you do, where the "control" 
asepct comes from.

dmb says:
Are you telling me that you don't understand how the bill of rights puts the 
breaks on social authority? Are you telling me you don't understand how 
democracy differs from monarchy? How equality and rationality differ from 
traditional political hierarchies. You don't see how these principles 
protect the freedom of intellect from social control? You don't see how the 
knowledge produced by political science, sociology, psychology, anthroplogy 
and other intellectual pursuits can be used to guide society?

Are you saying that you would expect the intellectual level has her own set 
of cops and armies to enforce its values by force? That's just silly. (Where 
in the world do you get this stuff?) Intellect, if it acted like that, 
wouldn't even be intellect. Violence is supposed to be the law of the jungle 
or, when its not, its used to control the law of the jungle cause that what 
the jungle understands. Society understands rules and laws and so we have 
the bill of rights and the constitution, which is supposed to control what 
cops and armies, as agents of the social level, can and cannot do.

Ian said:
My suggestion is that any control aspect remains essentially "social". I'll 
leave the rest until you come back on that.

dmb says:
Traditionally, cops and armies enforce social values. Intellect doesn't use 
the same method. There are military police, layers of police and somebody is 
watching the detectives, but an intellectually guided society is one in 
which the agents of social control are guided. Law enforcement, the 
politicians and the all that are restricted by principles. These principles, 
such as we find in the constitution etc, restrict even what sort of laws can 
be passed within a democracy. They guide the society by putting limits on 
the agents of social authority. Maybe it seems like some kind of weird 
miracle, but in this country, every day, somebody is arrested and jailed 
without having their rights violated. I mean, intellectual principles are 
what keep us from being unjustly imprisoned or getting tortured. Um, I mean, 
they used to until recently.

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