Platt and MD,
During the socialism thread, I've read (I could be wrong) from Platt that he
fears every form of intellectual control over society. He brings as evidence the
famous 17th chapter of Lila, with the RMP's words about parallel working and
socialism.
But reading Lila, I find also (chapter 22) the very famous passage:
«Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality
*supports* this dominance of intellect over society.It says intellect is a
higher level of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level than
society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for a society
to destroy an idea»
«But having said this, the Metaphysics of Quality goes on to say that science,
the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take over society, has a
defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science has no provisions for
morals. [...] Now that intellect was in command over society for the first time
in history, was *this* the intellectual pattern it was going to run society
with?».
Well, it seems to me that there's nothing to argue about the fact that RMP is
longing for an intellectual control over society, but he fears the SOM
intellect. If he is not wrong about the idea that kills a society, I conclude
that it is immoral for market to destroy socialism. Actually, as Bo pointed out
in the post I quoted few days ago,
> communism is all but killed yet the Western democracies have
> inherited the solidarity strain. Whatever parties or programs the
> welfare system can't be dropped, democracy is transformed by
> the "socialist" idea".
But, even if the solidarity idea has been integrated in the western system, it's
not enough to say that intellect is running society. I think at this point Bo
would say that there's no hope, as Intellect *is* SOM. But I'm not in agreement
with his SOLAQI (Subject Object Logic As Q-Intellect), so I try another path.
The superiority of capitalism over communism resides in the dynamism ensured by
capitalism at the social level. So, I think it would be moral to have a dynamic
form of intellect (more dynamic than SOM), as counterpart of the social
dynamism, that, I'm pretty sure of it, causes also terrible damages, especially
to those population that are not enough intellectually equipped to tame the
capitalistic beast.
IMO an intellectual dynamism arises from the individual. Actually, the very
success of the intellectual level is not merely the development of science and
technology, that are mainly socially focused. It is the conquest of human
rights. In other words, the intellectual level IS an individual level, also.
Only when the individuals (every single individual) will have the possibility to
say "NO!", and the sageness to know when it is better to say "YES!", the
intellectual level is established.
Platt wrote:
> You propose that everyone "claim care." I know of no way to acheive
> that goal without imposing force on someone. The beauty of the free
> market is that if you are not getting the "care" you want from one place,
> you go to another. Or start up your own business to provide the "care"
> you can't get anywhere else.
Yes, I think the individual has to claim care. Of course, care can't be really
achieved imposing force. But also, I think it's really hard to BUY care with
money. The excellence you can buy costs a lot, and it is high standard, not
really excellence. As long as the logic is market driven, the main thought will
be to keep low costs.
Of course, if you are not getting the care you want, you can change the
provider. This is the dynamism of the individual-buyer, and it's part of the
solution. On the other hand, we have corporations, or governments (Giants), and
they have completely different (economic and/or politic) purposes. The
individual/giant struggle is evident *within* those giants. In too many cases,
the member of the giant is a number, a piece of the puzzle. Good as long as
useful for the goals of the giant. So there are low payments, minors working,
death over the job, political corruption....
How do we escape from all this? It's hard to say. The least we can do, and it's
what I suggest, claiming care is not simply to oppose the menace to change the
supplier. For example, we use to ask "How much does it cost" and not "What is
the value of your solution". We are very glad to know we got a good vote at
school, but we are not very used to ask our teachers for "What did I learn".
These kind of questions shift the focus from the objective measurement of the
product/service we are buying, to the quality they are giving to us. There's in
them the power to *force* the other individuals to consider themselves as
aRTists, more than members of a giant.
After all, my utopia for the intellectual era is a world of artists.
thanks for reading
Marco
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