Meaning and Value

A binary issue that is very important in the analysis of consciousness is the contrast between meaning and value. In order to create a dialogue between subjectivity and objectivity, I consider that meanings are subjective and values are objective.

To understand the role of the individual within society, we need to consider two issues: why the individual relates to society, and how he relates to society. The first issue leads to the production of meanings. The individual seeks subjective meaning to his life: why should he have relationships? Meanings become the search for significant motivations or ideals in his life. The second issue leads to the conversion of meanings into values. He learns how to engage in relationships. The relationships may be harmonious or dysfunctional; either way, they create his values, and then these values become objective and incorporated into the social consensus.

Values

The process of childhood growth into adulthood produces a person who has acquired many fixed beliefs and prejudices: some voluntarily and some involuntarily. The voluntarily-accepted beliefs form social learning, whereas the involuntarily-accepted beliefs are just another name for social conditioning (the young child is conditioned to accept the beliefs of the parents and of society). These fixed beliefs enable a person to structure his character, since they create values. Values are the standards that he bases his identity on. But these values have usually been created either mechanically or subconsciously, and hence are usually enshrouded in psychological confusion and self-deception. So simultaneously this fixed structure produces some degree of determinism.[¹]. In any situation where determinism is influencing the person, that determinism puts unwanted constraints on the behaviour of the person.

In contrast, the existentialist tries to live a very different situation. He seeks a life that is free of determinism; determinism creates a life that is absurd. He accepts his limitations from the past; his character is his present starting point. And from this starting point he tries to live a life of meaning, a life of choice, a life of free will. This is the important difference between social man and existential man. Social man acts from values. Existential man seeks meanings.

In reality, each individual mixes values and meanings, though most people emphasise values whilst a few emphasise meanings.

Following Meaning

Meanings and values lie in the nature of the relationships which a person has. Meanings are individualist and thus give rise to subjective beliefs. Values are social and thus give rise to objective beliefs (beliefs that are held by society as a whole). Subjectivity always arises before objectivity. Hence meanings arise before values do.

Meanings are what a person feels about anything. Meanings become the way that life is lived, lived in all its drama. The meaning of anything is just what that thing can teach him. Meanings are just the idealistic ideas that are important to him. For example, the exploration of relationships for their meaning is the exploration of the significance of these relationships for the individual, the exploration of the quality of life that they offer. Relationships pose problems. What happens to relationships when attachments to power and dependency are overcome? What forms does harmony take? Does harmony arise at all? By following the concept of meaning the explorer will find that his relationships change as his understanding of them changes.

Meanings tend to give rise to flexible beliefs, beliefs that the person is willing to change if necessary. Hence meanings give flexibility to character and facilitate the ability to change. Values tend to become permanent since they are part of the social consensus. Hence they tend to inhibit flexibility and change. This way they give structure and an element of rigidity to a person’s character and help determine his actions and behaviour.

The individual produces new meanings, but only from his contact with society. Meaning rarely arises from a solitary individual in his isolation. This is why the individual meditator, in his solitude, almost never produces new meanings; he is not relating to anyone. The isolated meditator can only function within the pre-set values, and the confines, of his spiritual tradition.

Some of the meanings that the individual creates are useful to society. These subjective meanings are taken up and transformed into objective, social values. Only when meanings are objectified into values can they enter the arena of discourse. Meanings can transform the individual, whilst values can transform relationships.

The two extreme poles of human variability are the subjective individual and objective society. Both the individual and society are equal in importance. Only by accepting that meaning is created first by the individual and then expressed in society can the proper appreciation of the individual develop. In this manner, personal meanings that can fulfil social needs are transformed into social values.

The individual needs society. The converse is true too: society needs the individual. Without individuals producing new meanings that can be transformed into new values, society will stagnate and its values will ossify into a rigid reliance on tradition.

Contrasting Value and Meaning

The individual seeks subjective meaning to his life: why should he participate in society? His answers are translated into objective values which are taken up by society. Hence the individual produces meanings from his contact with society, and society produces values from its contact with the individual. What happens when we put meanings and values together? We get another formulation of consciousness. Consciousness is a mixture of subjectivity and objectivity.

Psychology is the examination of the person’s past, or how he came to have his basic beliefs. In comparison, existentialism is the examination of the person’s present, or what is deeply motivating him now (independently of past influences). Now I link these ideas to meanings and values.

Value becomes the way that the past is structured. Structure is produced by making the same repetitive value judgements. Such repetitive value judgements are produced by fixed beliefs. For the materialist, values outweigh meanings; the past directs the present. The person lives his life in the past tense. His psychological structure is a hierarchy of values. Whereas meaning becomes the way that the present is lived. For the existentialist, meanings outweigh values; the present resolves the past. A flexible life is desired; structure is a problem to be overcome.

A Psycho-dynamic View

The relationship between meaning and value can be explored from a psycho-dynamic viewpoint. Psycho-analysis shows that when unwanted fixed beliefs are dissolved, so the individual graduates to freedom from the tyranny of determined values. Values become optional (the product of choice), instead of being compulsory (the product of social conditioning). The psychological difference between value and meaning revolves around the manner of handling anxiety.[²].

A person usually prefers to handle anxiety in stereotypical ways, and fixed beliefs and values enable him to do this. Fixed beliefs and values arise as a defensive shield when attitudes and ideas become underpinned by anxiety. However, any negative or confused beliefs and values produce determinism; that is, a person usually acts in a present situation in a manner that was first established in the past of long ago. The more that he centres himself in these negative or confused beliefs and values so the more he finds that he is subject to determinism and fate. Psychology is the investigation and understanding of this difficulty.

For comparison, meaning is given to ideas that function in a manner that can neutralise anxiety. The person is willing to explore new ways of thinking and living that will have the effect of reducing anxiety. So meanings are always of the present, and not the past.

Values change as society changes because the old values can no longer resolve anxiety. New meanings are taken up to become new values when they enable society to come to terms with change in a more harmonious way.

These ideas help to explain the significance of language. Language contains traditional values – this is what is implied in the ideas of socialisation and social conditioning. However, these values are the objectification of the individual’s subjective meanings. In this manner, the individual is an important component of the language system. Language as a system of social facts is built upon the creative individual. However, before I can explore language, I need to examine the theory of signs, in the next chapter.

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Ian Heath
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.	Subjectivity and Objectivity In the previous article I used the two axes of existentialism and psychology for the examination and interpretation of consciousness. The use of two axes can be approached from a different angle. The basic nature of consciousness is that it is split into two compartments, those of subjectivity and objectivity. This by itself sets up a dualistic interpretation of thought, and matches the dualism of a single person versus a group of persons. So this dualism becomes my two axes, which reflect the different ways that subjectivity and objectivity affect us. A person’s beliefs, and his ways of thinking, usually have both subjective and objective aspects to them. In this situation, in order to make an adequate analysis of any issue we need to use two axes of interpretation, one axis uses subjectivity and the other one uses objectivity. The axes can use any issues that are complementary, or binary, to each other.
Sub - Headings
Values
Following Meaning
Contrasting Value and Meaning
A Psycho-Dynamic View
References