recently I watched a brilliant Brit film, "Priest" - in this film, the
struggling priest declares, with regards to a person's faith, that "we must
take care of ourselves" and his mentor replies,
"we must take care of each other." this would be the ethic, as you say, of
yr second (social) paradigm.
the problem in part is the enormous economic structure which depends on
the ideology of "individualism". self-as-property, indeed. children are
property. babies are property, so a social ideology would entail a
redefinition of family, to a degree, wouldn't it?
diane
>Two profoundly different paradigms: One, we start out as
>individuals and BECOME social beings; the other, we start
>out as social beings and BECOME individuals. In the first,
>individuality is a kind of sacred ground that must be protected
>as we move toward sociality. In the second, sociality is the
>sacred ground that must be protected as we move toward
>individuation. The end point can be imagined either as
>attainable, or, in what I take to be the more sophisticated
>understanding, unattainable. In the first case, we are always
>inevitably caught up in an existential predicament, ever
>autonomous souls aspiring to an impossible communion.
>Ethics - that is, taking responsibility for self-in-world -
>in the first case suggests to me prioritizing self over
>world(of others). In the second case, however, we are caught up in our
>bondedness to others, never quite achieving the autonomy that western
>capitalist culture promises but can not possibly deliver. Ethics
>in the second case suggests prioritizing relatedness/ engagement
>with others over the protection of ego.
>
>So -- waddaya think?
>
>judy
>
>
>
>
>Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
>Graduate School of Education
>Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
>10 Seminary Place
>New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
snailmail: 3519 Hull Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8