Can you purify via this synthesis? If so, how so ... by chucking? You got any examples?
You have already said that you like Haidt. I think that the six foundations are a good synthesis, one example. I wouldn't use the word, purify. More like providing utility through de-cluttering and clarification. The foundations are easy to understand and work with.
So garbage is a sort of pollutant to the alpha thing.
I think that the Bible is a good example of clutter. (I won't call it garbage.) There are thousands upon thousands of loose bits in there, some of them contradictory, none of them arranged hierarchically. It's a collection of the alpha emanations of its various authors. The greatest utility I see in that arrangement is for those who want to do something to search out a particular bit, either consciously or unconsciously, to rationalize and enable the already chosen path. Which is not how moral choice is supposed to work.
As for those primal emanations, I don't know how valid they are in their natural state. I've written before about one of mine, the radish incident. When I was in the fifth grade we moved from an apartment to a house where I was given my own section of the garden as a learning experience. I got two packages of seeds, to the best of my recollection, radishes and zinnias, and planted them following the instructions on the packets. A while later the instructions said to thin the seedlings to some number of inches apart. I balked. Every instinct in me said that uprooting and discarding seedlings was horribly wrong. There they were with their little green faces to the sun wanting to live and fulfill their destinies and I would be killing them. I had a terrible time with that. Eventually I told myself not to be stupid and to grow up and do what needed to be done but I never really got over it. I didn't plant seeds again until a decade later when I planted gourds. I'm fond of interesting colors and shapes in nature. I have collections of shells and rocks and sand. So, when I planted the gourd seeds, I planted them far enough apart so that I wouldn't have to uproot any seedlings. I haven't grown anything from seed since.
I present that anecdote as an example of alpha emanations that may or may not be valid. Just because it feels wrong doesn't mean that it is wrong. Not until the thoughtful brain has had a crack at it and concurred. |
