Dear friends,
It is comforting to share this forum with new and old acquaintances.
Moreover, the appearance of "old-timers" who haven't contributed for many
months (Hi Maggie) is a joyous reminder that our community is much bigger
than the dozen or so names that appear in the recent post.
For now, it is difficult to discuss anything except for the terrible tragedy
that took place in the USA this week. We have to now accept the challenge of
trying to find meaning and quality to make sense of the chaos. . . . but I
don't think we should slip into simplistic interpretations.
MARCO:
It's more than a war: terrorism is a crime against
humankind. Or, in other words, a crime of a blind social pattern against the
basic values of the intellectual level.
With the greatest respect, this reminds me of David Buchanan's argument that
Truman's decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong because it was
based on social values.
I can't accept this. There is nothing wrong with social values per se.
Pirsig himself recognises the dangers of attacking social values. I see the
terrorist attack on the USA and all terrorist attacks as collisions between
conflicting social patterns. The framework that crowds people into tall
buildings in densely-populated cities, that flies thousands of people daily
in jet airliners, that lets people move and communicate freely via a fast
expanding array of technologies; I see all this as a social pattern. It is
important to recognise that the system that has evolved is a system that is
freely accepted by its participants, and valued by them.
But there are other social frameworks that rejects all of this. The people
who value these alternatives are the likes of Timothy McVigh, Bin Laden, and
the evil people who masterminded and executed the latest terrorist outrages.
This is not a conflict between levels, in fact, I've repeatedly expressed my
belief that there are no interlevel conflicts because each level is an
intellectual construct - its own world abstracted from experience in a
different way.
This is a conflict within the social level betweening two conflicting social
patterns, and personally I have little trouble in deciding which I value
more. . . . . and I am certain that I would have reached the same conclusion
before I read either of Pirsig's novels.
Jonathan
P.S. I was extremely moved by the news report of the "Star Spangled Banner"
played as part of the Changing of Guards ceremony in London (I am a former
Londoner myself). Without words it made a powerful statement that I think
was understood by all of us.
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