Apologies for not snipping more of the below. I try to only include the
relevant bits. But Steve is particularly good at tight weaves.
I'll (inappropriately, I'm sure) name Dave's conception of individualism as
"networked extensive individualism" (NEI). Networked to address what I infer
from the word "absolute". And the graph is either undirected or the edges are
bidirectional. Extensive because there's some sense that the attributes of the
nodes extend out along the edges to other nodes. If we allow for different
types of edges, then each sub-graph (following only the edges associated with 1
attribute) might have a larger or smaller extent/size. Again, "absolute" would
play, here.
So, if that sort of name is OK, then I have to ask why use the word
"individual" at all? It sounds very much more like "fabric" or "population"
... perhaps even "gooey colloid". What does the individual comprise that is
not out in the larger network?
My *guess* is that my intuition tells me there's a natural asymmetry between
actions and considerations (a more neutral way of saying "rights" and
"responsibilities"). An individual can be a towering intellect or a complete
moron and both might be capable of making a great cup of tea. So, when we
package up, as a kind of shorthand a sub-graph into an "individual", we're
trying to create some sort of equivalence between action and consideration. If
you act without thinking things through, then we blame you. If your actions
(even accidentally as I think Scott Adams' prediction Trump would win was an
accident) imply to us that you're some mysterious, deep oracle (e.g. Richard
Feynman), then credit you.
But this is a false equivalence. A specific form of this is the Great Man
theory, where people like Einstein or whoever are "10-100 times more effective
than average". If we *parse* "effective" well, then it's true. But we're in
danger of assuming that efficacy in action is somehow directly related to "deep
thought" or "intelligence" or whatever.
I hope that makes sense.
On 1/10/19 4:19 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> On 1/10/19 2:26 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Second, Individualism. The list recently struggled with the idea of labeling
>> (categorizing) people and my response to your question and observations
>> about individualism will echo some of the labeling conversation.
>>
>> I will resist being labeled an "individualist" because every
>> characterization I have seen on this list is grounded, in one way or
>> another, on "individual rights." I do not believe that indivdiual's have
>> "rights," even the inalienable ones, that are not derived entirely from
>> "individual responsibility."
> I think I share some analog to your rights/responsibility duality. But I also
> think they are part of a social construct/contract. "Rights" and
> "Responsibilities" only make sense to me in the context of some group. I
> think in most cultures *many* of the rights and responsibilities of the
> "individual" are so implicit in the culture that we don't think much about
> them until we get around to conjuring up a constitutional governance document
> or facing a judge in a courtroom.
>>
>> I am ultimately and absolutely responsible for, not only myself, but,
>> labeling again, all sentient life. While this seems absurd on its face, it
>> is directly analogous to the Bodhisattva. (A goal, not an achievement!)
> Why draw the boundary around sentient life? Why not include *all
> consciousness* or *all life* and then extend that to *all patterns of matter
> and energy*? I'm not asking this challengingly... I'm suggesting that in
> the same way expanding past "me" to "my family" to "my tribe" to "my nation"
> to "my race" to "my species" to "my genus" or "family" or "order" or even
> "kingdom" makes some real sense.
>> Corollaries follow: 1) absolute responsibility also means absolute
>> accountability, including if a mistake is made ("do the crime, do the time");
> I think the question of "accountability" vs vaguely related concepts like
> "retribution", "revenge", "rehabilitation", "recovery", even "return to
> grace" is important but probably worth deferring here.
>> 2) a critical dimension of responsibility is acquiring the kind of
>> 'omniscience' that assures non-attachment;
> These are somewhat the opposite of "Willful Ignorance", methinks?
>> 3) every act (behavior) I exhibit is both informed and intentional;
>
> In some limit, yes. But along a spectrum it would seem. Until one has
> achieved said "Omniscient Non-attached Enlightenment" there is room for
> weakly informed and therefore mis-applied intentions. The truck-driver
> hurtling toward the minivan loaded with a model family (including a couple of
> cute dogs) may well have been swerving to avoid a deer when his poor
> information lead him to believe that he could do so without crossing lanes,
> jumping a barrier, and flying headlong into said family (in this version, the
> truck-driver is neither a sex offender nor substance abuser and the brakes
> may or may not work but in either case aren't being effective enough to avoid
> the inevitable fiery collision).
>
> And then we have the concept of "willful ignorance". Are you perhaps
> suggesting that every act/behaviour has a component of willful ignorance?
>
>
>> and 4) the necessary assumption that everyone else is an "individualist" of
>> this same stripe.
> We can assume that every one else is the same animal, whether they know it or
> not. Harping on my willful ignorance, we could accuse those who don't know
> it of extreme ignorance with or without extreme willfulness.
>> In the above I am an admitted fundamentalist fanatic. However, the culture I
>> grew up in, both secular and religious, strongly echoes these ideas. Growing
>> up, I was exposed, pretty much constantly, to the "Paradise Built in Hell"
>> kind of individual, group, and social behavior. (Obviously, that was not the
>> only thing to which I was exposed.)
>
> I think I was as well, though some reflection exposes various pockets of
> hypocrisy that I was unprepared to recognize at the time. I think something
> actually *changed* during my generation, where *willful ignorance* (still
> harping) replaced engaged responsibility.
>
> This is a lot of what I am curious about... what that equation is, how it is
> balanced and how we got from there to here (or even whether here and there
> are anything but the same thing?).
>
>> A Geography professor at Macalester College sparked a lifelong interest in
>> Utopian communities. In addition to the physical environment,I was
>> interested in the 'mental' environment of values, principles of social
>> organization, etc.. I have found a lot of other 'echoes' of my concept of
>> individualism in those that managed to survive multiple generations (a
>> rarity).
>
> Intentional Communities (almost by definition Utopian?) have been around for
> a very long time and often fail within a generation, sometimes under the
> weight of their own extremism, sometimes under the weight of "backlash" from
> trying to overconstrain human instinctual drives (e.g. all the things that
> the 10 Commandments feels compelled to be explicit about).
>
> Complexicists might prefer Utopian societies exhibit Utopian qualities
> through emergent properties. Jenny Quillien's writeup on her trip to Bhutan
> exposed a partial example of this (perhaps).
>
>>
>> Hope this was on point to what you asked about.
>
> I think more to the point is to stimulate some off-axis discussion which
> perhaps provides a little parallax relief from the familiar left/right
> debates (rants) that we (not just this group, but society at large) seem to
> lock into. I sense that your own experiences and unique path through life
> leads you to a similarly unique perspective. The topic of categorization
> recently seems mostly to be an issue I think Glen calls "over-quantization"
> or perhaps it is "premature-quantization"? This is also why I harp on
> breaking the RNC/DNC stranglehold on election (including debate) processes...
> I want to be making my own choices in a much higher-dimensional space... even
> if I might be resigned to the hazards of representative gov't (as opposed to
> the hazards of a direct democracy).
--
∄ uǝʃƃ
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