Maria-Stella, unedited, I offer this commentary.
At 01:54 PM 7/23/00 +0100, Maria Stella wrote:
>Sorry, does anyone know how "word" is in Latin?
Verbum is the word. The ad hominem term within the scope of environmental
values is 'in a word' which means to 'sign' so as to 'entrench' in the
social imagination a 'sign' for a class of persons that are 'in a word' denique.
The terms used to 'denote' ad hominem arguments like 'preservationists' or
'enviros' or what ever have to be conceiveable in the social imagination.
Therefore the 'author' of the statement is attempting to classify persons
according to denique notions that are referential.
Writing which is said to be 'referential' are writings which merely refer
the reader to an object which may exist in the imagination. For instance the
ad hominem argument made by persons like Budiansky are meant to prepare the
naive or intimidated person into hating their own independent 'feelings'
regarding warm fuzzy animals so as to 'de-sensitize' or to make 'insensible'
his or her feelings (environmental values) so that the issues of ethical
treatment (moral considerability) rests on someones prior experience and now
radically claimed authority.
The departure from the trust in values which are said to be 'primordial'
regarding the environment, specifically sentient nature (animals) and
insentient plants results in the person having to distrust not only what
they feel is real for them, but also to distrust the persons that value
'nature' in ways that conflict with the 'construct' of the denotative term
use as a referens (L).
The practice being applied here is purely propaganda which in modern latin
is a correct term for advertising. So the word verbum is used, in a word, to
signify as well something very psychologically motivating, which is affirmed
simply in referential terms - rather than in cognitive uses of language and
thinking.
When the term is used viz preservationist the social self reflects not at
all on the actual person, but on a object-concept-idea which lives in the
social imagination. This term is used in a metaphorical sense to signify any
person that is of this 'type' which is based on a classification.
For instance in Nazi Germany, the law against Jewish people was an unfair
law for several reasons which have nothing to do with democracy. Why might
you ask if Hitler and the Nazi's were so much in hatred that they did not
completely exterminate Jews, but let some go, and some they kept working as
long as they were needed?
Well you see as it turns out, Hitler was actually using the 'construct' Jew
in the denique sense as a means to influence and support the image of the
Nazi as 'responding' to a social need, which was to remove some persons (a
class of person determined by unclear and clear criterion) from the country.
The Nazi was not simply violent to the Jewish person but was violent to all
persons (so the criterion based on science was a construct as well in the
social imagination).
One law stated that if you had any ancestor who was Jewish or half Jewish
after something like 1749 BC (I am not sure on the date), then you were
Jewish. Whether you were actually a Jew was irrelevant since there was a
scientific and genetic criterion for declaiming that person a Jew. Now I
think this is where Hitler was thinking and he came up with this criterion.
It is well rumoured that Hitler had at least one Jewish grandparent. Whether
this was verified by Hitler is not known since the rumour was that his
mother was the illegitimate child of a wealthy Jew in Austria. Hitler was so
concerned about this rumour in the family perhaps that he completely
destroyed the town of his childhood. Nothing remained of the town after the
war ended.
If a society attempts to denique or in word designate a minority (real or
not) as a signifiable construct in the social imagination for use as a
referen, then the social will regarding the criterion will solidify,
congeal, and disable the 'values' that are already entrenched in the
subjective ego, but not yet that solidly in the social ego.
In contrast to the primary values of the individual sensibility regarding
sentient nature and insentient life in nature, other values may be
constructed temporarily. These values reflect the putative benefits only of
technologies that have simply some potential, some technologies that have
demonstrated potential, etc. but not the primary values, (now called
referred to as sentiments to devalue them) which were experienced only by
the subject.
In place of the subject- feeling-inconvertible-values (say in a blade of
grass) without any single apparent meaning, the subjects feeling- values (as
opposed to objective values in things) are transposed into new instrumental
social values to be used to 'engineer' new needs and beliefs which are
coincidental with the intention and conscience of the denigrator who is
classifying and giving an essential definition to the 'preservationist' but
only in 'principle' because the denigrator has to first place the image of
the 'preservationist' adequately in the permanent imagination where it can
be archived in the unconscious, reformulated, and interpreted in the
'animal values' sense of the 'act-concept' which S. K. Langer elaborates.
The act-concept is the instinctual behaviour of the animal 'to value' an
ambient (ambit in Aristotle) through oxaresis (viz ideation, retreival,
etc.) or purposive behaviour.
Okay. We can see that the 'construct' preservation is the signifier but it
has not solidified yet in the social imagination (taking a break here) since
we have an argument going on here. We have the denigrater for various
reasons arguing against the actions of the 'preservationists' on various
grounds. We have to reveiw the host of various grounds which are often found
to be supported by other 'constructs' such as 'communist' for instance. What
the signifed is supposed to represent is a member actually of a more
encompassing class of persons who some sub-group (society = 2 or more
persons) wishes to denigrate totally. We can find allusions to feminists,
human rights advocates, etc, in the talk of the person who insists on using
the term 'preservationist'. In fact there has been some discussion on the
net regarding 'preservationists' in BC here. The discussions referred to
'appeasement' and the analogy was of course to the policy of appeasement
prior to the start of WW2 when Hitler was being appeased to prevent war. So
Churchill attempted to appease Hitler, and then when Hitler attacked Poland,
Hitler wa said to have been 'astonished' by the actions of Britain to
declare war on Germany. No more appeasing Hitler. So why was Hitler so
shocked. Because he believed in his construct which by now was totally
entrenched in the German imagination for the most part , that Hitler and the
Nazi's were doing good for the western world by attempting to 'solve' the
Jewish 'problem' that has plaqued the world for centuries (the construct was
not oppsed because Hitler suppressed citizen free speech and freedom of
conscience). No doubt there about that. Hitler and the Nazi's were also very
much trying to rid the world of communists too (Bolsheviks) so he was -say
the least - shocked because he thought that Britain was in allegiance to his
motivational consensus to get rid of once and for all, the problem.
So the forestry discussion referred to the policy and principle of
appeasement in WW2, but they - the good guys- are not the
'preservationists' but the Forest industry who is practicing the policy of
appeasement with the fascist hoards of 'preservationists' and
'environmentalists' by protecting small areas of forests through consensus
and principled negotiations. The forest industry spokespersons argue that
the preservationist do not want to stop at 6 % of the forests protected in
BC, but the ultimately want 40-60 % and all of the old growth protected.
This what they exclaim to the public and draw on some references to
protection of old growth made in press releases prepared by ENGOs, etc.,
even governments, and first nations. They fail of course to tell the whole
truth which is that some representative forest ecosystem have only about 1-2
% of the their area in an old growth state. One example of the 'construction
of social values' through social engineering is of course that the forest
industry is not doing the 'constructing' but that it is government who is
building universities in towns, expanding medical services, etc., that is
doing the 'social engineering' which happens to be anathema to their view on
social life here in the province. Interesting. Well the government is US and
them, so the fact is really that the industry is engaged in 'social
engineering' by trying to say that government is 'engineering social
values'. Which is to say the least absurd. Government if it is democratic is
the people, so the industry is saying in effect the the government has an
agenda motivated by special interests associated with the 'preservationists'
who use the media, principled negotiations to achieve the aims and goals.
Anyway the practice of the 'construct' the denique is working in some
communities and as a result some towns are warning 'environmentalists' not
to expect services in their communities because they now have a bylaw which
allows owners of businesses not to serve 'environmentalists'. So if an
organization like a drama production groups donates some money to a
'environmental' group primarily active in preservation of a forest, they are
defacto unqualified to obtain a permit from the community civil
adminstraters. Of course there is no definition of an environmentalist, but
they can be discriminated if the have donated money the Western Wilderness
Committee. The town council rep. said on CBC radio that the reason for the
bylaw was to prevent the ultimate goal and purpose of the environmental
groups to halt logging on 40 to 60 % of the forest, forgetting of course
that one goal is to actually protect only 40-60 % of the old growth, or in
some valleys all old growth. The construct is the enable action against the
individuals represented by a few identifiable groups. They could in fact
obtain information about any one who donates money to the ENGOs, but that is
illegal without permission. No agency should be permitted to obtain personal
information without that persons consent. But how do you enable a bylaw
without any criterion other than a social construct like 'preservationist'?
which in context is specifically derogatory and undemocratic in principle
and in practice?
chao,
john foster
>I want to make a new term, (at least for me!), that corresponds with
>'ad hominem', To use for the case of what you call (if i understand well)
>'derogatory' words (i think to these belong: 'holism', 'feminism',
>'preservationism', 'conspiracy' - as i have said before). They are words
>that are used to label people under an (ambiguously) 'known' umbrella.
>
>Maria-Stella
>
>
>
The essence is thus the internal determination of to be, that which, when we
conceive to be, we are also forced to conceive: its intrinsic
presupposition. In this its truth consists; essence is radical truth.
The essence of the oak is the "reason" through which this process
"seed-tree-fruit" is a process intrinsically "oaking". And this character of
process which is the essence, Hegel will tell us, is something which we see
ourselves forced to conceive in order that there may be becoming; and
"forced to conceive" is precisely a character of thinking.
On Essence, Zubiri www.zubiri.org
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