Hello again. Sorry I've been slow in responding. This is the same
Jennifer Kelly as the first post in this thread,
Thank you, everyone who responded! Here are my thoughts on what you
said:
Roger wrote,
"Some members think that the intellectual level is best considered as a
part of the social level, for reasoning that is not dissimilar to
yours."
I'm jumping in with this group. Right now I'm thinking that maybe the
best way to look at the levels is as a Y, rather than a column. From
inorganic to biological to a *split,* with society and intellect being
two nearly distinct paths, possibly rejoining somewhere higher up...I
see that all this is doing is complicating things. The whole thing
makes me wonder about whether following in the steps of Aristotle and
his love of categories isn't just as big a mistake as following SOM.
Which you seem to see, too.
"Personally, using the MOQ I would say that the value of having 4
divisions lies....... in its value.;-) What this means is that its
value lies in its ability to explain phenomena in a concise and
consistent manner."
Exactly. It's important to have a simple, easy way of explaining the
basis of MoQ. It's up to the recipient of this framework to reorganize
and build upon it according to his own experience.
David wrote,
"I think there are lots of reasons to be sure that "intellect comes
after society on the ladder of evolution". But the most compelling thing
is Pirsig's explaination of the 20th century as a battle between the
social and intellectual levels. The history of this struggle is a major
theme throughout the book. You know, the breakdown of Victorian society
and all that.
Pirsig even says that this takeover was an evolutionary leap, no less
important than the "day" our ancestors left the oceans for dry land. So
we think of the intellect as being on the top rung because it has most
recently arrived. Its the newest level of reality. Social level values
have been around much, much longer than that. Its about the order of
appearance. And this idea isn't arbitrary or merely convenient, it
corresponds quite well with our scientific understanding of these
things."
I have to disagree with you. True, the breakdown of Victorian society
and the exciting, frightening turbulence left in its wake is an
important theme. But Pirsig's assumption that this is a step upward
rather than backward seems to me to be built on shaky ground. Intellect
has been publicized since at least Socrates, and has been at conflict
with society throughout its existence. But men could very conceivably
have been working through intellectual struggles long before that. As
historians, it's much easier to pinpoint the beginning of cultures with
all the physical debris that they've left. Can we disregard every
intellectual who doesn't write a book? Or who doesn't try to implement
his ideas in a society? Maybe intellectuals really did have to form
societies in order to advance. Consider Pirsig's description of Dynamic
Quality (or higher evoltion). It seems that while societies do
constrain, they also can break up intellectual patterns. The dramatic
effect of reading books on one's intellect, for example, or the speed of
new ideas that come from brainstorming, might demonstrate this.
Intellect can get new ideas straight from DQ, or from society. Then
again, society doesn't seem to be able to access DQ directly, but only
through intellect. And I think my use of "society" above was inaccurate
on two counts. First I was thinking only of human societies, and then I
was thinking more of intellectual interaction.
jc wrote,
"As I thought about it, I realized that whenever I read a discussion on
"society" I think of human society. But Ants and Bees have social
patterns and so do wolves and deer and sheep. These social patterns of
non-human animals point out that you don't need intellect to form
society. Society's evolve by obeying biological patterns that work."
I thought about that, too. See the mess at the top about a Y
configuration instead of a column or ladder. You're right, it is full
of questions rather than answers.
Thanks again for the response. I've been enjoying this list a lot. As
you can see by the way I contradict myself within a paragraph, I don't
nearly have it figured out yet. But that dynamic quality is what makes
it good.
Happy New Year,
Jennifer
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:35 BST