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Re: [ox-en] "Selbstentfaltung", "self-unfolding" or what?



Hi Stefan,

I wrote this rather rambling reply to your last email, then decided
there was no point in sending it, and now decided I shouldn't just
leave your mail with no reply. But I don't want to write more about
this topic (at least not if it's only about the words) so if Marco or
Florian disagree , they'd better say so :-)


On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Stefan Meretz wrote:

I am not sure if I understand right: Isn't the contast of personal vs. 
social the same story as egoistic vs. altruistic - in the sense I 
addressed with egoistic-altrustic "objective form of thinking"? 

I don't think it's the same:
1. egoistic/altruistic has moral overtones (where altruistic is 'good').
I don't think personal/social has any moral overtones.
2. For me, 'altruistic' implies doing something FOR other people;
'social' implies doing something WITH other people.
3. For me, 'egoistic' implies depriving others of something; 'personal'
just refers to something I do myself.
I think this is why most free software people, whether or not they
agree with any of the ideas of Oekonux, dislike the term 'altruism'
applied to free software. People don't generally write software to do
good for other people, or as a kind of charity. The debate about egotism v
altruism is a moral one, while whether it is social or personal or both 
seems to me more of a factual question.  

Anyway, whether you choose egoistic/altruistic or personal/social, your
last mail argued that the pair of concepts was something inherent to
capitalism, and so to describe anything such as free software which is not
bound by the rules of capitalism, we would need new words.
 
Well, I would guess that both pairs of words are much older than 
capitalism.
But even if modern society has assimilated the terms and they have become
'Objektive Gedankenformen', these 'objective thoughtforms' apply to people
as economic beings only. There are many areas of our lives where they are
irrelevant. For example, today I helped cook a meal with some friends and
made part of a bookcase. These kind of activities might be useful but
produce no commodities, no exchange value. And if I cook a meal with
someone egotism/altruism has no more to do with it than it does with
free software. Now, the problem comes if I need to explain this to 
someone. 

questioner: 'did you cook the meal because you were hungry or to help
your friend?'.    

me: (version 1) Both, but mainly I just enjoy cooking.
 
That seems a simple and obvious enough answer. But it seems to be not 
enough in relation to free software, maybe for the reason that people
want a more theoretical/abstract answer for something as big as free
software. So we have 'unfolding'. The answer:

me:   (version 2): as part of my self-unfolding, which let my friends
	unfold with me.

is obviously silly in a personal context (I mean, it may be true but
it's unintelligible). In a more theoretical context, where the meaning
of 'self-unfolding' has been defined, fine. But it does create an
apparent deep distinction between 'normal' activities and writing
programs, which I don't think is really there.  
 
I think this is why I still feel a little uneasy about the term; it's
not that I have a coherent argument against it, just a gut feeling
that the more people think this is the normal way to do things,
that things currently classified as 'work' are the odd ones that need
special terms, the better ('you mean you self-alienate yourself for money? 
how odd').
 
A human being is societal by nature!
Saying 'A is B' doesn't make A identical to B, it just says that both
are bound together... (i.e. personal and social) :-) 
How closely they are bound together could depend on:
- what someone is doing (eg. sleeping or talking)
- what kind of society they are in (eg. tribal or capitalism)
- what kind of personality they have (eg. withdrawn or outgoing)
etc... No? I think the pair personal/social does have meaning,
even outside this particular society. 


??? Where is the problem ???

Simply that myself, Florian Sampson, and Marco Ermini said that we
preferred the base term 'unfolding', with 'personal unfolding' as 
a restriction of 'unfolding' to one person, rather than the term
'self-unfolding' as the base term, with a long explanation of why
the 'self' does not have it's everyday meaning when you talk about
more than one person...
And I understood from your last email that you were arguing strongly that
we (assuming I understood Florian and Marco correctly) were wrong, and
that this was important.
If you're happy that 'personal unfolding' is just a synonym for 
'self-unfolding', that's fine (and even if not I promise not to write
any more emails on the topic!)

Graham

Ciao,
Stefan










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