In order to be free one must be able to express themselves in freedom of thought. In our society we have those individuals who perfer to limit and stifle freedom of ideas and thoughts, when they do not concide with their 
opinions. As far as having a library, this again could be based on the limtied elite and those of lesser qualities would not be involved. There are just to many people that wish to control others minds and this to me is a dangerous approach in our society that should be thinking. People have lost the ability to use common sense in our world. We need to develop love and kindesss for others, instead of looking down at those less fortunate.

Enjoy discussing topics and have a nice day!   Charlotte

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From:   E. Taborsky[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 29, 1997 12:55 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        definitions

Just a few comments, in reaction to the comments on my posting.
Let's see if I can be any clearer (I doubt it, but I'll try; my
writing can be a bit dense, I know).

First, I feel that homo sapiens is the only species on earth whose
ability to live is primarily conceptual rather than genetic. By this
I mean that human adaptive systems are learned rather than
genetically stored. This gives an enormous amount of adaptive
flexibility to this particular species. A deer must grow a coat of
fur for protection vs the cold; the human can learn to make a coat,
to make a house, to make fire. An animal will die if its food (green
herbiage in this instance) are not available; the human can move to
another area (let's say, to a rainforest - where that deer's hooves
would never survive the moisture) - and above all, the human can
develop artifacts, technology - to change their interactions with the
envt and so create food.
It is this necessity/strength of conceptual rather than strictly
genetic adaptive interactions with the envt - that gives the human
species its tremendous expansive flexibility...to move into all
biomes all over the world. What other species does this? I am NOT
privileging or promoting the human species - just commenting on its
bioconceptual reality. Certainly, at the same time as having this
'gift' of flexible adaptation - the human species is 'cursed' by it.
Because our knowledge-base is so heavily conceptual - then, we become
trapped in the 'truths' that we develop.  So, we come up with a
life-style - and think it is the Truth, that it is the best - when it
is only one of a number of possibilities.

Because our interactions with the envt are heavily conceptual
constructions, this means that we must store our knowledge. We, as a
community, develop skills of knowing which plants are healthy, which
animals to hunt (Hunting and Gathering)..and agricultural skills (if
the terrain is suitable for such)..and etc. These skills are
certainly organized and accepted as valid within the community. They
have to be - or the society would be unable to 'reproduce' itself
both physically and conceptually.

DDeBar mentions that it is possible for a society to be
non-hierarchical, with a democratically operated library system.. I
have my doubts about that. First - I consider that in order to
preserve the knowledge base of a society, that knowledge must be
privileged and preserved. These terms are not meant to be understood
in a 'nasty' sense, but in a functional sense. Even in a small,
seemingly open and non-hierarchical society (eg, a hunting and
gathering band, with a population of about 30 people) - there will be
authority of knowledge. Not from within the population - but
abstract. The knowledge-base of the group will be given an
authoritative force by the group considering its origin as 'coming
from the gods', as coming from the Dreamtime (Aboriginal).
This will in itself, 'censor' and limit the nature of the knowledge
considered 'truthful' in the group. Knowledge that comes from a
non-abstract source (eg, a human - whether a member of the band or a
colonizer) will be considered of lesser value and validity than that
coming from the gods, from the Dreamtime. They will censor and
therefore limit their knowledge-base to maintain continuity of their
social type.  They will mock and demean an
agricultural knowledge - even if it will produce more food for them!
That is what I mean by  both 'organization' and 'storage' of
knowledge. In the case of this H&G band, their knowledge is organized
within all their daily actions, validated by their ideology,
prevented from entropic dissolution by their daily actions of
carrying it out, and by their firm commitment to that life-style.

The 'library' of knowledge will not be 'open' in the sense that it
admits and stores all knowledge. First - let's say that this
Alexandrian utopia did exist - a 'library', whether of oral or
literate data - that permitted all expressions, and that stored all
expressions. I think that this is a description of the cognitive
nature of the human mind - that we are able to think of, and explore,
any and all thoughts. So, our individual minds must be open, must
have the freedom always to come up with both unicorns and quarks. But
- the group, the communitas - is the opposite. It has a requirement
for stasis, for stability, for continuity and most certainly, for
little deviation. Therefore, our society's library will limit what it
considers as valid knowledge, and denigrate what it considers as
invalid.   It will consider the industrial technology better than the
hunting technology; it will consider an atheist better than a
theistic society. I am not making any judgments - just commenting
that a society must limit its viabilities of belief in order to
maintain continuity of its particular adaptation. Let's say that it
doesn't..then that could mean, that in a given geographic area..
people would use any and all technologies. So..we could have people
who say agriculture is best, and others industrial and others
hunting..and etc. But - the terrain can't deal with all these
different attempts to extract sustencance. If you want to have plough
agriculture..then you must have a certain population size, and
sustenance to make the required tools..and therefore, must farm a
large plot..which will get rid of the open fodder for the deer and
the wild animals...which will mean no food for the hunters ..and so
on. See what happens in the various societies around the world, when
'modern' technologies move in..and the older methods fall apart
because the land cannot sustain all types. So..a society limits its
particular adaptation. (In many cases, the 'new' technologies brought
ecological disaster - agriculture dried up the lands, leading to
deserts..Ethiopia, Somalia0.

I am therefore, setting up two forces in our lives - the open,
flexibility of the human individual, who must always be 'a rebel'
(Camus), who yet can only live within the society..and the group is
always operative within restirctions and limitations on the
flexibility of knowledge. These 'two realities' are our greatest
challenge - and burden. They are bonded to each other.

Again, all organization requires 'authority'. I don't mean the
authority of the 'single boss' - the external shout;  I mean the
authority of the inner infrastructural logic..which permits that particular form of
behaviour and not another. This inner logic can be, in genetic
format, the DNA; conceptually - it can be compared with Chomsky's
competence vs performance; with Aristotle's syllogistic logic vs
actual demonstration. The inner logic is the socialized norms within
which we live. It is Popper's Third World and no individual exists
apart from it but within its authority or constraints.


Therefore, I consider that truth exists within ourselves - most
certainly not without. I don't feel that truth exists, in a pure
Platonic Form, shining brightly out there..and we attempt to reach
it. I know that philosophically, this is one analysis of 'truth' -
that locates it as intact and external. I simply don't accept that
version (Platonic, Cartesian). Rather, I tend to the Aristotelian
analysis which locates truth 'in re', as a logic within the entity,
continuous, stable..and yet, capable of transformation (which can be
catastrophic).

And hey - what's wrong with Nietzsche's ubermensche? I don't mean the
denigration of that term as was done via his sister and the Nazi's. I
mean his original analysis - which was of a human being, who was both
free in thought, and yet - aware of the restraints on behaviour from
being a member of the group. That is - there are two forces in
dialogic interaction - the flexible openness of the human mind and
the restrictive systemic operations of the society. An ubermensche is
one who is aware of, and operates within these two seemingly
contradictory interactions.

So- have I made it worse?


Edwina Taborsky
Bishop's University          Phone:  (819)822.9600
                                      Ext. 2424
Lennoxville, Quebec          Fax:    (819)822.9661
Canada  JIM 1Z7