[ExI] christmas songs 2

[PJ Manney]

On Dec 11, 2007 11:47 AM,  <x at extropica.org> wrote:
> Huh.  I thought the story was about the fallacy of confusing
> instrumental values with terminal values, and that Money and Love were
> just stand-ins for those in the audience who tend to think in more
> concrete terms.

Ho, ho, ho.

Don't instrumental values help achieve terminal ones?  More
importantly, we need those stand-ins.  That's what storytelling is
about.  Using those concrete emotions and behaviors to make it real,
specific and personal, not general, philosophic and impersonal, even
though the general is "terminal".  Otherwise, you don't create
empathy.  Dickens wouldn't reach anyone (except maybe you!) if he had
written about the golden rule from the point of view of evolutionary
altruism.

PJ