On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:09:02 -0800, Rick Froman wrote: >Mike Palij said: >>I admit that I do not understand what Rick is saying below. If one >>defines ideology in cognitive terms representing concepts and relationships >>among them as well as evaluations (e.g., White-Good/Black-Bad), I don't >>understand how one cannot identify the events or experiences >>that gave rise to these concepts and evaluations. > >RF: Remember, my issue is not with "ideology" but "choice". If events or >experiences "give rise" to concepts and evaluations, they are not chosen.
I still don't understand what Rick is talking but it is starting to dawn on me that we might have fundamentally different conceptions about what choice and decision-making are. A fairly standard definition of choice, going back to rat studies in T-mazes is that when a person or an animal is given two or more response options, they engage in one of them. A rat may turn left or right equally often if not reinforced for turning in a particular direction but as soon as it is reinforced for turning left or right (or some sequence of turning left or right), the rat will go from making each response 50% of the time to one that tries to maximize the likelihood that it will receive a reinforcement. Ideologies can be thought of as theoretical frameworks that help to organize and make sense of the world -- selecting one over the other might be a random process or the result of "nature","nurture", or the "interaction of nature and nurture". Choosing to vote for a Democrat relative to a Republican, for a communist relative to a fascist, etc., all represent the selection of one option over the other. It seems to me that Rick is not talking about selecting or preferring one option relative to others but I don't really know what it is he saying that choice is if it is not this. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=8658 or send a blank email to leave-8658-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
