Meaningful Social Actions
How do you understand meaningful social actions?
Based on our discussions so far (from Social Reality to Institutional Knowledge to Reflexivity to Self is not Substantial), it seems to me that there must be the more meaningful social actions than the so-called conventional social actions that can be seen everywhere in the world and mostly ideologically, ethno-religiously or materialistically involved. As we have seen, usually people tend to see the society as what is given and placed in front of them. Social actions always contain the certain intentions to change the society based on what the people believe to be better. Such intention is meaningful and must be one of the important steps to prepare the basis of civil society.
In civil society everyone has a sort of public awareness that he or she has to be the member of the society; and that the conditions of the society are depending on the participation and the commitment of each member. But in this process what we have to notice is that the society we recognize and experience, or more strictly in this context, so-called our "social reality" consists of the institutional facts, which are made of our institutional knowledge. And more importantly we have taken for granted the fact that such institutional knowledge has been imbedded in our mind unconsciously.
As we have seen, the value of the paper money or the monetary reality is heavily supported by the quite particular institutional knowledge, but we have taken for granted it or even totally forgotten it. There are a lot of social values that are based on the institutional knowledge and yet we tend to think these are naturally given attributes and non-agentive functions. Put it bluntly, what is right and valuable in a particular social reality may be bad and even harmful in another social reality. If we are aware of the institutional knowledge to some extend, then at least we can predict such difference when we put ourselves in the different social reality. Of course, the social reality is dynamic and ever changing just as the context is ever created depending on how the participants of the groups communicate one another. Thus, if we know both tendencies, then at least we can see our value is not absolute but it is context-based, and at the same time we can also see our value and someone else's value can be reconciled when both sides can create the emergence of the new context through the sincere, constructive interactions since it is dynamic and changeable.
If the social actions do not have such thoughtful understanding, then the social actions just create the social conflicts even though their subjective intention is good. Having good intentions is not enough to make our social actions really meaningful. What we need to do is to be aware of how our good (or unconsciously problematic) intention has been derived from our institutional knowledge. Such self-awareness can be never achieved without having the careful reflexivity.
For example, you believe in the particular religion and you are familiar with all the doctrines and theologies of the religion and can have the strong passion on how this religion (or it is the absolute truth for you) can save the world. These kinds of religious knowledge can be kept in your mind and you can be a good believer of the religion and you start some sort of missionary works or social actions to save the world and love the people in the world. In using the term of our present discussion, then, what you have done is the self-reflection only in these religious social actions. You have not yet done the self-reflection on the self-reflection, which, as we have seen, the self-reflexivity. This is why; even if your intention is good and you really love people around you, when you force those others who are not the member of your social reality to change their religions without any reflexive thoughtfulness, contrary to your intentions and kind efforts, you may have created the conflicts. Actually that is what is happening allover the world nowadays.
It is not merely the matter of religion. It is the matter of all kinds of social reality. Thus, what we really needs is not to have another social reality, but to understand the meaning of social reality philosophically. It is one of the important roles that philosophy can contribute to the world. And this is the attempt to put ourselves on the right path to the further evolutional dynamics to "become a human being."
Based on our discussions so far (from Social Reality to Institutional Knowledge to Reflexivity to Self is not Substantial), it seems to me that there must be the more meaningful social actions than the so-called conventional social actions that can be seen everywhere in the world and mostly ideologically, ethno-religiously or materialistically involved. As we have seen, usually people tend to see the society as what is given and placed in front of them. Social actions always contain the certain intentions to change the society based on what the people believe to be better. Such intention is meaningful and must be one of the important steps to prepare the basis of civil society.
In civil society everyone has a sort of public awareness that he or she has to be the member of the society; and that the conditions of the society are depending on the participation and the commitment of each member. But in this process what we have to notice is that the society we recognize and experience, or more strictly in this context, so-called our "social reality" consists of the institutional facts, which are made of our institutional knowledge. And more importantly we have taken for granted the fact that such institutional knowledge has been imbedded in our mind unconsciously.
As we have seen, the value of the paper money or the monetary reality is heavily supported by the quite particular institutional knowledge, but we have taken for granted it or even totally forgotten it. There are a lot of social values that are based on the institutional knowledge and yet we tend to think these are naturally given attributes and non-agentive functions. Put it bluntly, what is right and valuable in a particular social reality may be bad and even harmful in another social reality. If we are aware of the institutional knowledge to some extend, then at least we can predict such difference when we put ourselves in the different social reality. Of course, the social reality is dynamic and ever changing just as the context is ever created depending on how the participants of the groups communicate one another. Thus, if we know both tendencies, then at least we can see our value is not absolute but it is context-based, and at the same time we can also see our value and someone else's value can be reconciled when both sides can create the emergence of the new context through the sincere, constructive interactions since it is dynamic and changeable.
If the social actions do not have such thoughtful understanding, then the social actions just create the social conflicts even though their subjective intention is good. Having good intentions is not enough to make our social actions really meaningful. What we need to do is to be aware of how our good (or unconsciously problematic) intention has been derived from our institutional knowledge. Such self-awareness can be never achieved without having the careful reflexivity.
For example, you believe in the particular religion and you are familiar with all the doctrines and theologies of the religion and can have the strong passion on how this religion (or it is the absolute truth for you) can save the world. These kinds of religious knowledge can be kept in your mind and you can be a good believer of the religion and you start some sort of missionary works or social actions to save the world and love the people in the world. In using the term of our present discussion, then, what you have done is the self-reflection only in these religious social actions. You have not yet done the self-reflection on the self-reflection, which, as we have seen, the self-reflexivity. This is why; even if your intention is good and you really love people around you, when you force those others who are not the member of your social reality to change their religions without any reflexive thoughtfulness, contrary to your intentions and kind efforts, you may have created the conflicts. Actually that is what is happening allover the world nowadays.
It is not merely the matter of religion. It is the matter of all kinds of social reality. Thus, what we really needs is not to have another social reality, but to understand the meaning of social reality philosophically. It is one of the important roles that philosophy can contribute to the world. And this is the attempt to put ourselves on the right path to the further evolutional dynamics to "become a human being."
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