At 10:07 PM 9/28/2006, Pat Gunning wrote:
>----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
>To answer John Medaille's question about what
>definition of spontaneity is being used,
>"spontaneous" as I understand it refers to an
>order (a normative system in a sociological
>sense) that is unplanned, either by any single
>participant in the order or by a group acting in
>concert. Regarding the common law, one can argue
>that the development of A normative system in
>accord with the King's wishes was indeed
>planned. However, the PARTICULAR normative
>system that emerged over hundreds of years was not planned.
It occurs to me that this definition drains
spontaneity of any real meaning, and is being
mis-applied in any case. Every system, using this
definition, is spontaneous, thus making the term
useless. The King planned to set up a system of
law courts and he did. If you mean that he did
not contemplate every particular decision, that
wasn't part of the plan, because if he already
had the decisions, he wouldn't have needed the
courts. As someone already mentioned, you might
as well call the 747 unplanned, because no
planner can predict the actual outcome.
Administrative and market systems can in
principle be planned with an arbitrarily high
degree of precision; outcomes cannot be, because
they are about the future, that which is not. The
outcomes of a plan may approximate the intentions
of a planner, depending on the kind of intentions
he had. But the failure to realize the intentions
of a planner does not make an outcome
"spontaneous," because the term refers to the
sources of action, not the outcomes of action.
An plan about the future that is too narrowly
defined is likely to defeat the planner, but that
doesn't mean that the actual result is
spontaneous; the result still follows cause and
effect. Any actual order is the result of the
systems that created it and the actual conditions
that the system encounters. The system may be
well or poorly planned, in the sense of being
attuned to the kind of circumstances it is likely
to encounter. But no one can predict with
precision what it will actually encounter. The
problem of the planner is that he must deal with
two things: The present and the future. But the
present gives us more data than any person or
group can absorb, while the future gives us
nothing at all. A planner may think the results
of his plan are "spontaneous" because they ran
counter to his intentions; but he may merely have
been a poor planner or a poor prophet. The
planner will influence the future, but he cannot
control it. And this is true of every act. Every
action contains within it, foreseeable and
unforeseeable consequences, and all actions are consequential.
The real problem is that the term is simply being
mis-applied: spontaneity refers to the source of
an action, not its result. An action may be
"spontaneous," its result is never is, but
follows the course of cause and effect. The
result may appear spontaneous, but that is only
because the actors know too little about causes
and their effects. Such "spontaneity" is an appearance only, not a reality.
The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the term as follows:
spontaneous /spn'tens/
adjective. performed or occurring as a result of
a sudden impulse or inclination and without
premeditation or external stimulus: the audience
broke into spontaneous applause | a spontaneous display of affection.
-having an open, natural, and uninhibited manner.
-Biology (of movement or activity in an organism)
instinctive or involuntary: the spontaneous
mechanical activity of circular smooth muscle.
-archaic (of a plant) growing naturally and without being tended or cultivated.
Note that all of the definitions refer to sources of action.
John C. Medaille
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