The Nature of Meaning in the Social Imagination...

Its not 'nature' as in plants and animals but rather the nature of something that we are about to explore. Its the knowledge of how the thing in question acts, reacts, enfolds, unfolds. It's behavior, the way it behaves.

As you well know, the position taken on this blog is that all reality exists in the social imagination. Given that, we must conclude that the nature of something exists there explicitly.  We can and do have a knowledge of how a thing acts, reacts, enfolds and unfolds but if we just accept that a certain thing does this or that alone we have yet no real knowledge of it unless we apply what a thing's action means to us. 

For instance, let us look at colors. We have been told by marketers that colors play an important role in advertising. Why? Because, colors as things have meaning that is both subjective and objectively held by different people and or societies in every culture worldwide. Its not just blue that makes a bottle of shampoo attractive but what blue means to us. The same can be said about the colors purple, red, green or yellow.

A dog is a dog until its a pet. Food is an object of desire until its a celebrated meal. The sun is a star until it sets or rises and then it means so much more to us in the place where we are. And that goes for all and or most things that are objects of desire, usefulness and or just elicitors of emotions. A knife for example can cut up a watermelon or be a weapon that takes the life blood. 

Meaning is so much more than meets the eye. This is my point and certainly when something means something to us we understand that meaning is deeper than skin deep. It cannot be extracted once embedded in the psyche because it has been implanted by social interaction, social context, it is in us and around us ... we are in it and can not be removed from it lest we stumble into a glitch or even a void of sudden and shocking (to our very being)....meaninglessness. You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.   

And, now you should see what I mean. Just because we here in America understand and practice open 'democratic' society with certain and necessary civil liberties in place for all along with a free market  doesn't mean that every newbie that enters will get it right away. 

They will have to reeducate themselves, they will have to willingly prune what they bring with them, leave that old baggage of meaning behind for new. Its not easy but by the 3rd generation it happens. 
Nor can they visit here and go back and try to immediately implement what we have in the place where they are or wherever they come from. 

Whenever we try to change the meaning in our lives, there are usually radical measures that are employed.... ask or read the writings of Saul Alinsky. I do not advocate such measures nor do I agree with them or the beast behind them. The nature of meaning in the social imagination is a delicate and perish thing for those that experience it in the place where they are and it is theirs to have and hold onto... unless, they themselves decide to leave what something means to them for what something means to someone else. 

And, folks that does not happen often and it is not always successful. It is painful and yet it may also be joyful; and that depends on the one who made the decision to change the meaning in their own life for another's.