There's a question that often gets asked, and luckily for me, someone asked me the other night at our local KW meetup. Unluckily, I didn't have an answer...yet.
The question goes like this: "Who decides what's appropriate?" It's a question that perennially stymies green. If we all have our own perspectives, and where we stand affects what we see, then how can we say anyone's decision is better than the next guy's? Don't we have to simply accept everyone's opinion as valid? Shouldn't everyone decide for themselves? Who are we to impose our view on everyone else?
Let me give some further context for the question. I had just finished saying that we have a choice between sticking with the ways of thinking that were appropriate to the conditions of the past, or forging ahead to a way of thinking that is appropriate to our present life conditions. I'd been making the argument that as the world became more interconnected, we were exposed to more and more points of view. At first, relativistic pluralism seemed reasonable, but as the world became more and more highly networked and we began having to choose which perspectives to listen to, pluralism became inadequate. New thinking is now required.
And then the question got asked. "Who decides what's appropriate?"
My answer: the people on the leading edge. Why? Because they are typically the people who take initiative in handling the problems created by the success of the previous meme. To be clear, I'm not saying these people should decide. I am saying that they are the people who do decide. Yes, in some circumstances, a backward slide occurs and previous memes are called into service to handle complex new problems. But when that fails, as it always does, the more complicated new life conditions give birth to a more complex new meme, with new ways of thinking and new strategies that are adaptive to the conditions.
Whoever is on that leading edge decides what's appropriate. Not because they are recognized for their merit and elected as a leader, although that may happen too. They call the shots because they can do new things that no one else can do. Literally no one else can make the decisions they can make, because no one else sees the world the way these new thinkers do. The people on the leading edge decide what's appropriate for themselves, and then, if they're courageous enough, try to bring it into the world, whether the world likes it or not.
It's a dangerous position to be in, as history has shown us. Over and over again.
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Friday, March 6, 2009
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Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, Karl
ReplyDeleteInteresting question: Who decides what's appropriate?
ReplyDeleteAppropriate for whom and in what circumstance?
Surely if you're talking about spiral and memes, the answer to that question is (somewhat) simple:
Red -> I decide what's best for me, and everyone else can kiss my a**
Blue -> Some Deity decides, and I'll do that if I know what's good for me!
Orange -> I decide what's best for me and people like me. As long as we give the illusion that we're not taking advantage of all the suckers out there, we'll get where we need to go.
Green -> Nobody, but boy, do we enjoy debating it!
Yellow -> I decide what's best on a case by case basis, using all of the available input. There is no "appropriate" or "inappropriate", just what appears to work now, and what does not.
Turquoise -> There is no absolute "appropriate" and "inappropriate". Individuals will naturally gravitate to the behavioural doctrine that makes sense to them. You're free to be different to everyone else around you, because without differences, we cannot understand one another in any context.
You also mention that you believe that we have a choice between sticking with a pattern of thinking that worked in the past or, to use your words "forging ahead to a way of thinking that is appropriate for our present life conditions".
I'd argue that there is no choice at all. Your pattern of thinking is ALWAYS appropriate to your present life conditions. You don't consciously decide to think differently about something. You might change the questions you ask, but not how you're asking them, or what you're asking them in relation to.
It's the ANSWERS you create for the questions that will allow you to break through the boundaries of different "colors".
So the question of appropriateness is actually (somewhat ironically) illustrative of the issue itself. It's a very green way to look at it.
Thinking in a green way, it's probable that the answer to the question "who on earth should decide what's appropriate" is indeterminate.
Surely someone couldn't decide what's appropriate for themselves, right? We'd have to make sure that everyone agreed on the answer to that question before
we could even CONSIDER that they'd got the answer right.
I too believe the question reflects a largely green way of looking at things. As you point out, each of the other memes thinks they know what's appropriate, and, in the case of 1st tier, thinks they know what's appropriate for everybody. (Secretly, green does too, but it shies away from saying it.)
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm pointing out is that the people who actually shift the social discourse about appropriateness are the people leading the way -- the people whose individual life conditions force them to develop beyond the collective center of gravity. These are the people who have the tools to handle the collective life conditions in new ways, and, provided they have the guts, are the people who use those tools to change things.
Regardless of what everyone else thinks is appropriate, these people decide for themselves and everyone else, and then seek to make it that way. It's rarely a popular course of action.