Dear Dan,
In reply to my statement of 12/6 23:17 +0200
"Fighting government (= social patterns) with guns (= inorganic patterns or -according to interpretation- biological patterns) is immoral. Change of social patterns should be effected by intellectual patterns and ideally does not result in biological casualties."
you wrote 14/6 13:17 -0500
"I believe the MoQ states that social patterns evolve under their own set of moral codes and have little to do with intellectual patterns of value. Robert Pirsig states that many of the social problems we see today are resultant from intellectually conceived 'social programs'. On the other hand, I think you're completely right. Change of social patterns should never be effected by force or harm to lower patterns of value."
My interpretation of the MoQ would be that social patterns operate under their own set of moral codes and evolve because of interaction with other levels.
Pirsig writes in ch. 11 of Lila "Biological evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic forces at a superatomic level."
By analogy I would say "Social evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subcellular level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static biological forces at a supercellular level." and "Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at an individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static social forces at a collective level." Not every stratagem that is tried works, evidently ...
(I'm still thinking how the parallel can be extended and can 'predict' and define Bo's [7/6 20:36 +0200 in the "Toffler waves ..."-thread] "groping 5th level".)
In reply to my statement of 12/6 23:17 +0200
"Fighting criminals (= biological or low quality social patterns) is the task of the highest quality social pattern we have. That is a kind
of government guided by intellectual patterns that respects intellectual and Dynamic potential in every individual and that therefore does not harm individuals biologically in this fight. It may have to restrict their freedom to organise in low quality social patterns or to act insanely, but it never needs to kill them to do so."
you wrote 14/6 13:17 -0500
"Maybe the best way to win a fight is to not fight at all? By this I don't mean to repeal all the laws but rather look to the preconditions which allow crime to flourish in the first place. Can the government give tax incentives to draw more business to the area and alleviate unemployment? Can schools devise better programs to teach our children values? When we see upwards towards 80% of the prison population here in the US there for drug violations or crimes associated with it then perhaps it is time to look to change the drug laws themselves? I don't have any fast answers but it seems to me building more prisons and taking a hard-nosed stance towards crime is
not one of them."
>From my Dutch, left-liberal viewpoint I wholeheartedly agree. In the last parts of ch. 24 of Lila however, Pirsig includes a warning against this kind of intellectual approach to crime. "Intellectual patterns cannot directly control biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological patterns, and the instrument of conversation between society and biology is not words. the instrument of conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman or a soldier and his gun. All the laws of history, all the arguments, all the Constitutions and the Bills of Rights and Declarations of Independence are nothing more than instructions to the military and police." To the extent that Lila authoritatively expresses the MoQ, that also refutes your belief that "the MoQ states that social patterns ... have little to do with intellectual patterns of value." In short: intellect instructs society how to control biology.
I tend to reconcile my viewpoint with Pirsig's by doubting whether static levels really 'fight' and 'control' lower levels. How can a novel fight or control word processing software and how can software fight or control hardware? I think society doesn't really fight biology but lower quality social patterns of value. (Modern society fights mafia's for instance, which have striking parallels with medieval society: government by clientelism and terrorising your subjects.) Intellect doesn't really fight society but lower quality intellectual patterns of value.
In a sense intellect is a "stratagem for overcoming huge static social forces" by not 'fighting' them in the way social patterns are fighting among themselves. Intellect instructing society operates by individuals identifying increasingly with intellectual values (e.g. truth, justice, integrity of creation) instead of social values (fame & fortune, celebrity etc.).
In reply to my statement of 12/6 23:17 +0200
"No cause (= intellectual pattern) legitimises fighting with material weapons (= fighting social patterns by fighting biological patterns with inorganic patterns)."
you wrote 14/6 13:17 -0500
"This is a tough one. I would like to intellectually agree with you but I am quite sure in a threatening situation my instinct for survival would precondition my actions. There would be no thought involved at all. Only action. And that action would be of a violent nature if that is what the situation called for, but only upon reflection. At the time it would be just what I had to do to survive. I think that part of 'me' is very old and very ruthless and it disconcerts me when I look at what we are capable of as human beings. There is no more dangerous creature on earth. It fills me with wonder too though. Dynamic Quality is very strange."
No dispute here. You describe reaction to biological or perhaps social threats: from an intellectual viewpoint illegitimate action but nevertheless unavoidable to the extent that one identifies with biological and social values. One can train oneself to identify more with intellectual values and less with lower level ones. In fact "Civilisation" is maybe about just that: offering scores of disciplines for this training. Aikido, which I mentioned in my e-mail to Clarke (12/6 22:46 +0200 same thread) is only one among many such disciplines.
Thanks too.
With friendly greetings,
Wim Nusselder
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