> > You're implying that all values are distorted, are you? Never mind. Take
> > loyalty, which, under capitalism, is more likely to be expressed (as dd
> > joked the other day) in the form of brand loyalty than loyalty to other
> people.
> >
>
>I can't speak for Ian, but I am not implying but affirming that the
>phrase "distorted values" is incoherent, meaningless.
The "your terms are meaningless" hobbyhorse is looking a little lame, Carrol, perhaps you should give it a rest.
Note, too, that "distorted values" didn't originally trouble you:
> > But maybe the expression of anti-SUV sentiment is really an attack on a
> > symptom of the distortion of values under capitalism.
> >
>
>Yes -- but they take the form of an attack on the victims.
...
>That phrase
>implies some sort of Platonic form existing outside of space and time,
>which is "truly imitated" by some and "badly imitated" by others.
It implies that if you want it to, I guess. I don't. The word "values" itself is burdened with idealism, has been slung around like a blunt instrument, especially by the Christian Right; but there's no need to toss it, for all that.
>But
>values simply do not exist, and never have. What exist are social
>relations within which acceptable modes of behavior endlessly created
>and recreated.
I've been using "values" to mean the customs, attitudes and relationships that a collective agrees to value -- as inescapable, I imagine, as they are mutable. Btw, "values" in the plural may be recent in the English language, since I can't find it in the OED (unless I'm just going blind). My guess is that it comes from the French, "valeurs". Do you know the 1952 Magritte painting, "Valeurs Personnelles"? ( http://www.culturevulture.net/ArtandArch/Magritte.htm ) Ironic and self-amused as all get-out. I don't believe "values" has to have moralising over- or undertones. It's more likely that Anglo-Saxon culture has moralised the word. Then again, we've done that to nude bathing, too. If we start throwing out all English words with moralising notes we'll be left speechless.
> What in the world, in the abstract, could "Loyalty to
>other people" mean?
Why this need for definitions of words "in the abstract"? Especially when it's accompanied by such impatience with the implication of Platonic forms? Loyalty in the world, under really existing conditions, takes lots of forms. The ones that spring to mind reflect the belief that the effort put into a good relationship or cause is worth the hardship involved.
(While I had the OED out, I looked up their first definitions for "loyal": "true to obligations of duty, love, etc."; and "loyalty": "faithful adherence to one's promise, oath, word of honour, etc." These words may leave a bad taste in our mouths from their long association with a set of relations we don't support; but do we really want to persuade ourselves that we'll be able to do without faithful adherence to promises, obligations of duty and love, come the revo?)
Then we have so-called "brand loyalty", a peculiarly capitalist phenomenon. There's a new spin on an old concept, eh? There's a new twist. Twisted, some might call it.
>To begin with loyalty was strictly a feudal
>relationship.
If you say so, Carrol. There must be some basis for this statement, but I can't think what it'd be. The fact that feudal relations required loyalty doesn't mean that loyalty began with feudalism, nor (which you seem to say below) that all feelings of loyalty imply a feudal relationship.
>Would you want that "value" _not_ to be distorted? One of
>the barriers to decency in this world is that "loyalty" as an
>abstraction, carrying its older meanigns, has NOT been utterly
>destroyed.
Yep, we can probably all agree that decency, difficult though it may be to define, is a rare, er, thing-to-be-valued. I certainly don't like standing in the way of it.
>It is loyalty that was the political force which gave the
>U.S. government room for its genocidal policies in Vietnam. "My country,
>right or wrong." To the extent that loyalty can appear a "value" we are
>still far from democracy. Aside from providing entertainment for retired
>assistant professors of literature, I would presume that a major purpose
>of this list is to contribute to the distortion of loyalty into
>comradeship.
Would you, now. I see you're doing your little part to ensure that happens, as usual, comrade Cox -- very decent of you. Should we understand that assistant professors of literature shall tug their forelocks before their betters on this list? Heh heh. Flattered that you visited my web site. If this sculptor-techwriter (and ex-assistant prof) is speaking out more often than usual it's because (I've taken a precious week away from my contract and my studio to do some reading and thinking, and) I'm sick of fuming in silence at the self-congratulatory and erratically expressed intolerance for difference that I too often find in this community of people whom I consider my allies.
"Loyal comrades" is not a contradiction in terms, I think.
According to the rule that I derive from your little rant against "loyalty", you could make much the same argument (while changing origin and application) against "fair play". How does that advance us?
And how many other words and expressions will we have to fence out of the set of social relations we call "home" before we can feel comfortable, safe, clean? Let's not indulge an obsession with purity, look where that took the fascists. Shouldn't we rather redefine terms, where necessary?
cheers, Joanna
www.overlookhouse.com