Passive and active values, and personality

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Most people take things for granted, a lot of things. This is probably usually because it takes less effort to treat something as a given/assumed than to continually evaluate and “will” it, but over time this leads to passive valuing being the dominant psychological mode. And when you take something for granted you de-power it to some extent; you weaken its ability to exist as it is, in that way that you value it.

To actively value something would rather be to engage with it frequently, to not take it for granted; this requires that we assert our values and will our values rather than merely act on them. A greater consciousness is needed, which is why it takes more energy than does passive valuing.

It cannot be over-estimated the extent to which philosophy is the salvation of mankind. Well yes, it can be over-estimated but only by evoking unnecessary or early-stage errors “late in the game”; none of that has anything to do with philosophy itself, not really. But philosophy can heal this problem of passive valuing, and more philosophically-minded people, often without any formal training or exposure to philosophy itself, always have more active valuing. This is based on my own observations over a long time, and also based on rational observation of the logical issues themselves. I can see no exceptions for this rule.

“Active valuing” might just be called “philosophy”, and vice-versa.

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Personality enters into this because personality represents a strength for reality in the midst of reality’s many sufferings and errors. Personality is one manifestation/aspect of active valuing, and the relative lack of personality is an manifestation/aspect of passive valuing. Check it out, you can see this in the people around you, those people in your life. Watch and see how they are with things. This is very easy to grasp.

In the case of the seeming “withdrawn/introverted” personality type, which at first appears as a weakness or passivity, take a closer look; you might find what Nietzsche was speaking about when he wrote, “You have a heart, but you are afraid to show it; you are ashamed of your flood, while others are ashamed of their ebb”. Also, every personality is some mixture of weaknesses and strengths, particular relations and causality patterns/heuristics. The issue isn’t a black and white strength or no strength, the issue is more dimensional than that, it involves a ratio of strengths to weaknesses and a qualitative kinds of comparative regions-terrains between these, carved out of the psychic reality to produce an ‘assemblage of ends’, to speak with Deleuze and Guattari.

2

Not to imply I undervalue the use of will, but why would one have to will what is? By will, in this context, do you perhaps mean affirm?

3

By “will” (and I hesitate to use that term, I do not like it as a concept, but it seems to be something that is able to reach people here and elsewhere, albeit with its own propensity toward error) I mean to engage with something, to have one’s actions and ideas/feelings stem from a greater awareness of what we value and what we act or ideate/feel toward, the objects of our attentions and affections.

The difference is one of habituation and energy/effort expenditure: on the lower end you have those people who value things and engage them but without being aware of the nature of those things or how permanent or fleeting they may be, or how those values might fit into a wider concourse of their values or fit into the larger world; on the upper end you have those people who value things and engage them with increased awareness of the nature of those things, an understanding of that thing’s conditions and how these values might continue to be sustained in the future, or how they might be being threatened, and a good sense of how these values fit in with that person’s other values and within the world at large.

We all act on our values, but there is great disconnect, weakness and tragedy introduced when we act on values primarily out of habit rather than out of a knowledge of that value’s nature and conditions and of our own relations to these.

4

So it seems that for the most part, in that context, you did use the word ‘will’ synonymously with ‘affirm’.

Without will you wouldn’t have any reason to be concerned with how that which is can be sustained.

I understand the value in a greater consciousness/awareness, but people also have differing degrees and directions for their will. - Once one has obtained a greater consciousness, and at least a moderate will, he then must decide if he wishes to will progress, decay or stability.

5

You can use whatever term you think applies more accurately. My intention was to explain the essence of what I am saying, rather than to focus on which term is better than another.

Nothing is given, no existence is effortless in this world. To value something implies at least a baseline concern with the maintenance of that value, even if only implicitly (passively).

You have it right until that last sentence. There is no “decide if he wishes to will progress, decay or stability”. Consciousness itself combines all of these directions of valuation together, and value itself is what underlies them all: decay, progress, stability are facets of valuing-processes set in time and within extant milieu and conditions. Some things are diminished so other things can flourish. That is inevitable in a world with finite resources, for beings with finite capacities and powers.

Values are trade-offs, yes. They come into conflict often. The result, “what happens” is the mutual observation of one value in another, one dominant, one submissive. With regard to active and passive valuing: in the case of active valuing this looks like the dominant/submissive relation where dominant values are fixed conscious objects and the subjectivity-structure itself is heavily invested, and submissive values flow naturally as a consequence of this; in the case of passive valuing it looks the dominant values are derived from the submissive values, as mere incidental and situationally-bound contingencies designed to sustain a passive process (low-threshold energy expenditure) given certain momentary conditions and needs.

6

Passivity reverses the relation between dominant and submissive, between primary and secondary. When strengths begin to usher forth from under the veil of weaknesses, you can be sure that passivity is present.

And activity and passivity too also cycle, ebb and flow as a natural course. The issue is not with some kind of permanence of activity without passivity, but rather with the ratio of the one to the other, and with the frequency and wavelength of that cycling.

7

Thus, we might define “perspective” as “one value observing another”.

8

Maybe you can help me better understand by clearing up the many dichotomies that come to mind.

There’s the passive/active dichotomy, which can be determined as a trait due to degrees of courage and/or will.

There’s the ebb and flow dichotomy, which I presume is near identical to the above dichotomy.

There’s the dichotomy of one who obtains a greater consciousness through knowing himself and the world and one who doesn’t so much; which can be determined as a trait due to degrees of courage and/or intellect.

And we have the dichotomy of one who wills progress versus one who wills decay. Which can be determined as a trait due to matters which it may be simpler to not get into right now.

9

Often the difference involves iterations of sufferings experienced in the past and present, as well as a lack of philosophy, which is to say a lack of capacity to deal with, alleviate or make use of those sufferings.

“Courage and/or will” are difficult terms to define, I would like to employ these (especially courage) but I don’t think I can do that until the more basic matters are cleared up first.

What I meant by this one is that the relationship between passivity and activity is a dynamic thing. In some moments we have more of one than the other, then in other moments this reverses. Probably a large part of the cause is our environmental conditions and our responsiveness to those conditions. There is also probably some genetic components as well as absorbed psychological-heuristics tendencies, such as over time lead to the development of “illnesses” such as anxiety or depression.

But more than that, the relation of passive and active to each other will cycle either more or less frequently, and more or less widely. Some people might experience an up-cycling of active valuing on a daily basis or many times in a day, whereas others might remain in this active valuing for weeks or months, or longer perhaps. Likewise with passive valuing. And how “high and deep” the cyclical changes go would be indicative of the “wavelength” of the cycle; if one experiences huge swings in activity and passivity or rather experiences only minor such changes.

I think it should be possible to typify various personality and psychological types of people based partially on this approach, as well as to model something of the natural development of thinking and life-growth generally, but I haven’t gotten far enough to attempt that yet.

Again I think this comes down to pain and also self-interest. If there is a reason to be more invested in truth and in one’s values actively, then that will occur. If there is not such a reason, then it will not occur. Nothing happens without a motive-cause/s determining it so.

For greater or lesser consciousness, I wouldn’t know how to define the complex organization of causes that leads to that kind of distinction between one person and another. But we can be sure that as many factors as we can think of are probably involved, and many more that we are not yet aware of. And it might even look “simple” from a sufficiently removed vantage, i.e. we might be able to say “due to degrees of courage and/or intellect” without being entirely incorrect.

To will decay would be to down-cycle in active valuing or to value within sufficiently intolerable suffering or weakness. Value turned against itself becomes toxic, and this reversal only ever happens because the alternatives are perceived to be even more painful.

10

I would put it in terms of neutral values. Values are indifferent, and it is the engagement ,adoption, acknowledgement of them which cause seeming passivity or activity relative to their realization.

11

As Stuart has said, I think affirm is a good word - perhaps "re-affirm is a better one.
You said to “continually” evalute and “will” it, which in this instance “will it” might mean to cause it to become more real in a person’s eyes, bring it into greater existence and consciousness.

Why do you not like “will” as a concept?