Replying to LO26539 --
Dear Organlearners,
Richard Holloway <learnshops@rciti.com> writes:
>Was "botherhood" intentional, Sajeela? A freudian slip?
>
>I'm with you, though, and glad you challenged the "brotherhood"
>word. It isn't about political correctness. It is about identifying
>the language that continues to evoke privilege and to oppress
>others. So, brothers, free yourselves. And you can't be truly
>free until each one of us (sisters and brothers) are free.
Greetings dear Doc,
Is it not compelling -- 207 years have gone by since the phrase "Freedom,
Equality and Brotherhood" became famous/notorius. And today it is still as
contencious as 200 years ago.
As for the "brotherhood", I wrote in LO26483
>I would then rather suggest "humanhood" to
>include all the people despite their differences.
I ought to have mentioned that in my mother tongue Afrikaans I actually
use the word "mensheid" ("men"=human, "-heid"=-hood) rather than the word
"broederskap" ("broeder"=brother, "-skap"=-ship). The "-ship" is
etymologically related to the ancient Germanic word for create. Thus
"broederskap" refers to men bonded by their creativity. That is tripe. It
is humans (men and women, young and old, irrespective of how they can be
labeled) who are bonded by their creativity from below and love from
above. In other words, with "humanhood" I am trying to articulate a
holistic concept.
As for the "freedom", that is also for me a holistic concept. It depends
on every situation (surroundings SU) how much freedom I (the system SY)
have. For example, should I explore a region (like the Amazon) in which
nobody understands the languages which I can speak and I understand none
of the languages generally used there, my freedom will decrease
drastically. Should I explore one of the deserts in Southern Africa (where
sombody might understand my language), that will help me little because so
few people live in the desert. Here the "apparent" lack of water will
decrease my freedom drastically. (I write "apparent" because once a person
has LEARNED the unique and well protected water "sources" in the desert,
that person will have much more freedom when exploring the desert.)
As for the "equality", what do we want to do with it? Again I think that
we have to seek for a holistic concept which can do what we want to do
with "equality", but which it cannot do. Do we want to maximise with it
the freedom for every human? Under "freedom" I have tried to explain that
the opportunities to act for a system SY depends holistically on its
situtaion -- the surroundings SU. Differences in the SU will have immense
bearing on the freedom of the system SY. Under humanhood we have a similar
situtation where the differences now occur in humans, i.e. the system SY.
One person will excell living in the Amazon while another person may find
it boring or even come close to death in exactly the same SU. In other
words, differences in the SY will also have immense bearing on the freedom
of the system SY.
Is there any sense to use "equality" when DIFFERENCES IN BOTH the human as
the system SY and the situation as the surroundings SU have such an
immense influence on the the freedom (change in free energy /_\F) of the
system? I am tempted to say NOT IN YOUR LIFE. Differences can never be
equated directly with the "=" sign of mathematics. Differences can at best
only be related with the order sign ">" of mathematics.
But differences can indeed be equated indirectly. Take the numbers 5 and 2.
The only way in which we can relate them directly is
. 5 > 2
The equation
. 5 = 2
is false. But the indirect way to equate 5 to 2 is something we all know:
. 5 - 3 = 2
Do something to 5. Transform it by taking 3 away from it. Then, not the
input 5, but the output 5 - 3, will be equal to 2.
The big trouble with this "transform the input (eq 5) so that the output
can be equated to something (eq 2) other than the input" is that it far
too often becomes "forced" upon the input, thus denigrating "freedom" and
"humanhood".
Consider as very example the word "brotherhood". We know that a "brother"
and a "sister" are different in more than one aspect. Should we want the
word "brotherhood" to become obselete, one way is to force the "brothers"
with every possible mental device to stop using "brotherhood". This is the
non-spontaneous way. Its greatest drawback is that it is temporary and
hence always require the forcing with its extra entropy production to keep
it up. It at most heats up the atmosphere.
The other way is to help the "brothers" learning spontanously how
"sisters" think in general and what the word "bortherhood" in particular
does to them. This authentic learning has to come from within the
"brothers" as you have set example above.
I have used the equations above which I now will slightly pull apart
. 5 > 2
. 5 - 3 = 2
for a very important reason. The "transform the input 5 by taking 3 away to
make the output equal" which symbolises into "- 3 =" can be either
non-spontaneous so that it has to be forced or spontaneous so that it will
happen without force. Up to now there was never such a distinction in
mathematics and therefor there is no known manner how such a distinction
could be symbolised and opearted upon. In other words, the equation
. 5 - 3 = 2
is too simple to express this most important distinction (see the Dance of
LEP on LEC) between spontaneous and non-spontaneous transformations.
As for me, I try to avoid thinking in terms of "equalities of being" as far as
possible because of they cannot handle "becoming".
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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