My vision of a meaning-based economy and democracy is a social vision. You may even find it inspiring and meaningful. (Wait! How is this possible? Haven't I said that meaning is in the realm of diffuse-benefits, and social visions are not? My hypothesis is that, if you seem to find my social vision meaningful, it's not because of the social vision itself. It's because of a DAP you have that the social vision can help you with—perhaps a DAP about "working towards a better world", or "responding to the current crises in a deep way". In your life, this DAP would be the things that's important to you, and my social vision is a venue for it. Something similar was going on with Andrew on Monday.)
My way of dividing up the meaningful and meaningless leads to question about Andrew. In Andrew's story, where did his meaning come from?
- On Monday, he likely derived meaning from "taking action, grappling with the biggest problem he sees in the world" — a diffuse-benefited attentional policy he already had, satisfying criteria (a) and (c).
- As he discovered the diffuse benefits of honesty itself, this may have felt meaningful, satisfying criteria (b) and (c).
- On Tuesday, it likely derived meaning from practicing his new kind of honesty, an honesty that's now diffusely-beneficial, satisfying (a) and (c).
One thing I did not include as a source of meaning is Andrew's social vision—which isn't diffusely-beneficial, nor part of his experienced good life. Andrew might say this was meaningful to him, but I think it's more likely his sense of meaning on Monday came from "taking action, grappling with the biggest problem he sees in the world". To test this, we could ask him:
- Can Andrew think of times when he was enacting his social vision of honesty, but without the sense that he was "taking action, grappling with the biggest problem he sees in the world"? How meaningful were those moments?
- Can Andrew name a time when he was "taking action, grappling with the biggest problem he sees in the world"—but in a manner unrelated any social vision? Imagine he tells us of a time when he headed out to the library, to research how to take action in a new way, all without a clear vision. Was that meaningful?
A "yes" to these questions would suggest his meaning comes from his experienced good life, not his social visions.
- Collect meaningful and meaningless times in their life. List DAPs they could and couldn't operate by. (). Compare this to other, non-DAP things that could be sources of meaning: social visions, goals, etc.Meaning Analysis
The society that I advocate for which supports meaning amongst its citizens and users would be obligated to support Andrew and his meaning nugget. Whether that supports his social vision or not, is perhaps besides the point.
We see this process in Brenda's story and in Andrew's. In general, the word admiration refers to gleaning DAPs by watching a role model, the word inspiration refers to moments like Brenda's, and we also get new policies by attending to our feelings.