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Values as verbs -- but of a higher order?


Freedom, Democracy, Justice: Isolated Nouns or Interwoven Verbs? (Part #5)

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Again, as noted above, it is readily assumed that values are nouns -- one aspect or facet of an eightfold syntactical speciation by which the parts of speech are distinguished. In English these are:

  1. Noun: a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a concrete or abstract entity
  2. Verb: a part of speech without case inflection, but inflected for tense, person and number, signifying an activity or process performed or undergone
  3. Participle: a part of speech sharing the features of the verb and the noun
  4. Interjection: a part of speech expressing emotion alone
  5. Pronoun: a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for person
  6. Preposition: a part of speech placed before other words in composition and in syntax
  7. Adverb: a part of speech without inflection, in modification of or in addition to a verb
  8. Conjunction: a part of speech binding together the discourse and filling gaps in its interpretation

The question raised here is whether values are better understood as verbs. Should the reification of values be challenged as the projection of a dynamic complex into disparate static forms -- as nouns? Curiously the biblical phrase in the introduction (above) is variously translated to offer that implication, since "word" is commonly translated from the root "verbum". Conversely, the root "verb-", in various latin languages, continues to hold the ambiguity between verb and noun, as with the French variant: Au commencement était le Verbe et le Verbe était Dieu. The equivalent phrase in Latin offers (from the Biblia Sacra Vulgata):

In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum (Ioannes 1:1)

The possibility of values as verbs has been considered by Charles F. Lauter (Values as Verbs, Lawrence Today, Fall 2000). A blogger has offered reflections from a religious perspective (Values as Verbs, not Nouns, St Luke's in the High Street, 20 January 2009). Simon Sinek (Start With Why: how great leaders inspire everyone to take action, 2009):

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity", it's "always do the right thing". It's not "innovation", it's "look at the problem from a different angle". Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea … we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.

A very extensive exploration of these issues is supplied by Anne Maret Varangu (Exploring Usage of the Word "Values": implications and opportunities for planning, 2006)  who notes that "critical valuing", as advocated by Nietzsche, was variously adapted by John Stuart Mackenzie (The problem of moral instruction, International Journal of Ethics, 1908) and John Dewey (The problem of values, The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1913) -- treating values as verbs, as with Lauter (2000).

An interesting challenge is then the nature of the verb implied by a value commonly named as a noun, as illustrated by the following table.

Comparison of values as nouns and verbs
Values as nouns Corresponding values as verbs
Initially Sustainably
democracy democratise ?
freedom liberate ?
justice prosecute? amnesty? adjudicate?

This suggests that whilst there are indeed verbs for the process of ensuring the initial ("post-revolutionary") expression of the value, it is less clear what are the verbs describing the continuing process of democracy or the continuing process of ensuring freedom -- as sustainable processes. This is especially interesting in the light of occasional arguments to the effect that it is a mistake to imagine that such values are permanently anchored in society once achieved. Rather, the argument goes, it is necessary to continue to fight for them to avoid entropic tendencies to revert to the condition in which the values were absent or inadequately manifest. A similar argument could be made with respect to the initial achievement of peace -- through verbs such as "reconcile" or "resolve" or even "pacify". What is the verb expressing the sustainable manifestation of peace thereafter -- as a value?

It is appropriate to note examples of recognition of how each of the above has already been recognized as a verb (if not legally appropriated as a slogn):

It would seem to be both extraordinary, and profoundly unwise, for a US-based organization with explicit Jewish associations to endeavour to seek exclusive legal rights for use of the insight "democracy is a verb" -- especially from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This recalls controversial issues relating to patenting of human genes, effectively extended here into "meme patenting". From this perspective, could "democracy" itself become a US trademark -- through a worldwide branding exercise? A more effective way of undermining uptake of values in the Arab world would be difficult to conceive. The use of intellectual copyright as a means of inhibiting change and remedial strategies has been discussed separately (Future Coping Strategies: beyond the constraints of proprietary metaphors, 1992).

It is intriguing that the fundamental "carrier" of value within the economic system is named as a "currency", implying properties beyond those of a "graspable" token -- associated as it is with formal promises. Indeed funds are widely recognized as flowing and there is considerable concern with their associated "liquidity" (as during the recent financial crisis). This is consistent with the argument regarding "water logic" of Edward de Bono (I Am Right, You Are Wrong: From This to the New Renaissance: From Rock Logic to Water Logic, 1990). Water is necessarily less "graspable" than land, for example.

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