[MD] irony and Socrates

[John Carl]

>
> On Thursday, 10/22/09 11:13 AM John Carl wrote:
>
> First, you seem to overlook that the child is absorbing fundamental
>> values from the mother - this is a one-way process.  The social values
>> of caring, love and bonding are built-in to the mom, and taught to the
>> child.  They're built in to the mom by HER mammalian birth and
>> bonding and passed along.
>>
>
to which,

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 7:31 PM, Ham  replied:

You seem to be confusing values with habit formation, such as
> inter-dependency, and social mores which are authoritative.  The child does
> not "absorb" values.  Value is sensed, innately, prior to individual
> experience and social relations.


What a load of obfuscation!  If you think "inter-dependency" is what defines
the relation between mother and child, then I feel sorry for  your childhood
experiences.

What?  You were raised in a Skinner box perhaps?

And how can you defend the idea that value is innate?  Value can't be innate
because its ALWAYS about something.  Value arises WITH experience.  Prior to
experience there is nothing. Prior to social relations, the individual
doesn't exist.  It takes the social interactions of a man and a woman to
make an individual, and after that occurrence, it takes a great deal of
social interaction to support an individual's life.  The road to autonomy
subsequently is life-long and few achieve it or even want it.


> This sensibility is the essence of self-awareness and the root source of
> experiential reality.  What is "taught to the child" are rules of behavior
> which include the knowledge of what is "good" and worthy as opposed to what
> is harmful and should be avoided.  This is "social conditioning" that
> reflects the values of the custodian rather than the child.  That the child
> depends on the mother for its safety, nourishment and affection is a
> suirvival instinct common to all species. But maternal love and the bonding
> of parent to child are not what I call proprietary value.



"Proprietary" value sounds just like  "defined" Quality to me.

Whatever biological, social and intellectual development that an individual
achieves in his life, it all starts with mammalian bonding wherein the child
learns about otherness and nurturing and rejection through these basic
emotional building blocks and then builds a life out of them.


John]


>  You can't have individual social values.  Nor can you have individual
>> intellectual values.  Values must be communally recognized and shared in
>> order for them to exist at all.  Just like a particle is only a particle
>> relative to the rest of the universe; if a particle exists in isolation,
>> then it IS the universe.
>>
>
>
Ham]


> All values are individually realized, whether they are instilled by another
> person or self-constructed.  Why do you say that the individual cannot have
> intellectual values?


Think about it.  What is this  objectivized "individual" but a creation of
intellectual value?  Therefore I can say the individual doesn't "have"
intellectual values; rather intellectual values create the concept of
"individual".



> Are individual freedom, acquiring knowledge, and a sense of justice not
> intellectual values?   Must they be "communally recognized" to qualify as
> one's personal values?


The values you state arise out of the dynamic tension between self and
society.  They vary from culture to culture and they are SOCIAL patterns,
not intellectual.  In order for an individual to obtain these values, they
must be created in context with the community.  The community might not
recognize what it creates (this self-awareness is part of the intellectual
evolving that is rare) but it is the only possible matrix for those values
to arise.

You can't have freedom from social pressure if you're all by yourself.

Duh.


If you deny any value to society, then society will return the favor.  And
you'll be left wondering why your Essentialism isn't acceptable to anyone
else.



> Whether life would be meaningless without them is a question for
> anthropology or sociology.   My personal view is the Value, not "relations",
> is what gives life meaning and drives mankind.
>
>
Your personal view is the exact same as no view at all if there is no social
recognition of you and your thoughts.  It is this social give and take which
gives life meaning and drives mankind.

Literally!  For meaning itself is an agreement upon terms that must come
from something outside any isolated individual.


>>
> As you know, I don't speak in levels or acknowledge value as "patterns",
> John.  But I think we put too much emphasis on Society as a "collective
> pool" of both intellect and value.


A collection is a mere number of things.  Society is more than a collective,
just as a human organism is more than an assembly of cells.  Part of
Pirsig's insight into the theories of levels is that these levels contain
distinct rules... wait.  What AM  I DOING????  I'm trying to explain Pirsig
to Ham!  What folly!  What stupidity on my part!  I apologize.  You already
know all this.  I'm buying into the Terminal Obfuscational Terminology
Syndrome which is designed to lead nowhere and confuse the faithful.  Shame
on me.

Sorry all.



> Value realization begins and ends with the individual, and intellection is
> a function of the individual's thought process.
>
> Objectively yours,
>
> Ham
>

"Objectively", Ham, you don't even exist.

Relationally yours,

John