Values as nouns -- challenged by polarization?

Freedom, Democracy, Justice: Isolated Nouns or Interwoven Verbs? (Part #4)

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As noted above, it is readily assumed that values are nouns. They may be embodied in various ways in symbols, slogans, memorials, flags and images.

The use of nouns as identifying values was the focus of the above-mentioned Human Values Project within the framework of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. Of particular interest was the extent to which every strategy of the international community could be understood as implying a "constructive" value in terms of which it was undertaken. Similarly every problem perceived by the international community effectively implied a "destructive" value -- undermining expression of an implicit "constructive" value. Efforts were made to interrelate large databases of problems, strategies and values in this light.

The ambiguity of values -- through their multiple connotations, evident in any thesaurus -- was extensively explored to clarify the relationships. It was notably recognized that "constructive" values could have their problematic aspects, just as "destructive" values could have fruitful consequences under certain conditions. The results of this work highlighted complex networks of relationships between words implying value -- profiled as 960 "constructive values" and 1040 "destructive values". A form of order was provided experimentally by clustering these in terms of 225 "value polarities" -- namely polarities in terms of which "constructive" and "destructive" values could be grouped together as a means of resolving a degree of ambiguity.

Exercises in mapping complex sets of interrelated human values (from the Human Values Project)
Human value dilemmas (rendering of value polarities designed by Tomáš Fülöpp )
Value relationships: "constructive" and "destructive" (screenshot of interactive svg version, without showing mouseover labelling)	Value polarities: "constructive-destructive" (screenshot of interactive svg version, with mouseover label showing for one polarity)

This connectivity in value networks then necessarily implied loops or cycles. These value loops were seen as underlying, or reinforcing, both loops interrelating perceived world problems and those loops interrelating the strategies proposed in response to them (Feedback loop analysis in the Encyclopedia Project, 2000). This initiative raised the question of the possibility of fruitfully configuring the set of value polarities within interlocking cycles (***).  These networks were later "challenged" by framing their nodes in terms of questions (***). This experiment was undertaken to explore the possibility of of insights of a higher order (??**)

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