Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: The Good of Order; Ordnungsgut; Zusammenarbeit, Voraussetzungen (Habitus, Institutionen, Material, Status)

Kurzinhalt: Now what are the general characteristics of a human good of order? It includes a number of things. We will discuss four: ...

Textausschnitt: 3.1.2 The Good of Order

20/2 The good of order is the setup. The family, for instance, is not a particular good, but a flow of particular goods for father and mother and children. Another instance of the good of order is technology-economy-polity. The most obvious aspect here is the economy. There can be a depression, and it is not for lack of raw materials, nor for lack of factories and railways, nor for lack of capital - money is going begging. Nor is it for lack of people willing to work or for lack of people willing to invest. It is just that the whole setup has simply gone awry; it just will not work. That is a case of the evil in the depression. You can see the absence of the good of order. (34; Fs)

21/2 Again, an educational system is a good of order. An educational system is not the education of this child or this young man or this young lady. It is a flow of educations. It determines what flows and the direction in which it will flow. The church, too, is a good of order. It gets people to heaven - not just one, but a flow of people into heaven. The world of art, letters, sciences, philosophy - the world of learning - is a setup, a good of order. (34; Fs)

22/2 Now what are the general characteristics of a human good of order? It includes a number of things. We will discuss four: a regular recurrence of particular goods, coordinated human operations, a set of conditions of these operations, and personal status.1 (34; Fs) (notabene)

23/2 The most conspicuous aspect of a good of order is a regular recurrence of particular goods. If X is a good thing and occurs, it will recur when there is a good of order. If breakfast is a good thing, and if there is a good of order, you will have breakfast every morning. A theoretical analysis of the notion of recurrence can be found in Insight.2 The good of order is not a matter of mechanist planning. Planning has to work in every single detail or everything goes awry. But the good of order is a matter of sets of alternative schemes of recurrence.3 It is something like the way the water circulates on the surface of the earth: it goes up from the sea in water vapor and forms clouds that are carried over the land; the water then falls down in rain, which flows into brooks and streams and rivers, and finally returns to the sea. The circulation of water does not work like a machine, according to some set of rules. Rather, all along it works according to sets of probabilities. Thus, there are spots that are deserts, and others that have too much rain, and still others that have too much humidity. The regular recurrence of particular goods is a fundamental aspect of the good of order. When there is a regular recurrence of particular goods, there is a good of order behind it. (34f; Fs)

24/2 Next, that regular recurrence occurs through coordinated human operations. There is a recurrence of particular goods because men operate, and operate in some sort of coordinated fashion, with a certain interdependence. So the second element in the good of order consists in coordinated human operations. (35; Fs)

25/2 Thirdly, you can have the coordination and the operations only if certain conditions are fulfilled. We will distinguish three parts in this third element. First, there are the habits in the subject. What do I mean by a habit? A person has a habit of mind when he does not have to learn, when he already knows, when he can operate on his own, when you do not have to take the time to teach him. A person has a habit of will when you do not have to persuade him - 'Barkis is willin'.'4 A person has a habit of dexterity, of manual skills, when he does not have to learn how to do something. If he had to learn how to drive a car, there would be no use asking him to drive you downtown; you ask a person who already has the skill. Thus we can distinguish three kinds of habits: cognitional habits, volitional habits, and skills; not having to learn, not having to be persuaded, not having to acquire the skill. Habits are a condition of coordinated human operations. If every time something had to be done people had to take a year off to learn, or to be persuaded, or to acquire the skills, nothing would ever be done. (35; Fs)

26/2 The second condition of effective coordination lies in institutions. Institutions are like habits, but in the objective order. Everyone in the United States comes to an agreement about a way of doing things when the governruent passes a law. An institution is a mechanism set up for making decisions. There are many such mechanisms - not only governmental, but social institutions in general. Such institutions are objective conditions that result from human apprehensions and choices and facilitate the flow of coordinated operations. But you can count on the other fellow doing it: through these institutions individuals are socialized. For example, if every time you went out for a drive you were not sure whether there might be some lad driving around with the purpose of running into people, it would be a more hazardous enterprise; but because of socialization, we can count on no one but a madman doing that. (35f; Fs)

27/2 The third condition of coordinated operation is material equipment, the material means of facilitating cooperation.5 For example, a university without any buildings does not have the material equipment that is one element in an educational system. (36; Fs)

28/2 The final element in the good of order is personal status. When you have coordinated operations resulting in a flow of particular goods, there arise personal relations that are congruent with the structure of the good of order. Such personal relations give rise to status. Thus, the family is a good of order; a mother fulfils certain functions within the family; she plays a determinate role in the good of order that is the family, and by playing that role, fulfilling that part, she enters into certain relations with the other members of the family. Being in those relations with other members of the family is having a status in the family, a status that arises from the personal relations that result from coordinated human operations. Similar conditions obtain for pupil and teacher, doctor and client, and so on right along the line.6 The human good gives rise to determinate structures of interpersonal relations that result in status. (36; Fs)

29/2 So the good of order involves four aspects: a regular recurrence of particular goods, coordinated human operations, the triple condition of these coordinated human operations - habits, institutions, and material equipment - and finally, the personal status which results from the relations constituted by the cooperation. (36; Fs) (notabene)