Dear Friends.
(First of all: I have resigned my telephone to my studio in the hope
of concentrating better on my painting and only send/receive during
weekends, so if my messages sound disconnected that's why)
I am moved by the letters concerning the terrorist strikes at the US
east coast, particularly Rick's (is that Budd?) eye-witness report
from Brooklyn, but also the Quality perspective. If Rick is Rick I
recognize his accusation that the MoQ offers no moral guide, and
as always I reply that it explains - and thereby predicts - but it's no
"thou shalt" ethics.
Platt and Marco have got it right in seeing this as another aspect of
the Social/Intellect struggle, the quote from LILA shows it clearly;
the whole Islamic/West confrontation is. Pirsig says that everything
in the twentieth century has been, and for my own I may add:
everything since the Greeks! This interlevel conflict adds to the
previous ones, but those are so ancient that they are regarded as
life itself ... besides, there are no levels in the SOM.
Maggie hints to an Intellectual pattern gone wrong, perhaps
because the term "social" indicates something good in our
vocabulary, but it merely means collective and the hallmark of that
value level is that it calls upon the individual to forget itself, and -
IMO - its "expression" is emotions. The individual is not supposed
to look objectively on anything - just follow the the leader. Re. the
immense emotional appeal of the burial scenes and martyrdom
tradition of the Middle East.
Many call for reason and calm, I join that, but add that the Western
world - even if strongly intellect-focussed - can't skip social value
and at a time of crisis must also rely on that latch and appeal to
patriotism, revenge etc. - without emotions nothing moves. Even so
there is no danger of our becoming barbarians in the process. This
is a great palatypus in the SOM and our local intellectuals have
already started to wring hands at the prospect of a retaliation.
Horse fears that the response will be a reduction of freedom in the
name of security. I see this in the same light as above. For a while
this may be the result, but need not be permanent, besides nothing
can be carried into absurdity - not even "freedom". If you have no
evil intentions surveillance and security is no threat.
Gerhard tells about his travels and reflections. I would have liked to
mention a commentary article that appeared in an Oslo newspaper
VG (13 Sep.) "Those who hate America" it touched some important
points, but that must be for later discussion.
Jeremy's take on it was so interesting that I must examine it in
detail.
> From reading Arthur Koestler I discovered that evolution (at least in
> the biological sense) does often go very wrong. Incorporating Robert
> M. Pirsig's 'Evolutionary morality' we find that society is the result
> of evolution and that there is no reason to believe that society
> itself has evolved without some kind of built in internal error.
Koestler, Wow! He was once my favourite writer/thinker.
> The term 'cultural immune system' does not only apply to intellectual
> fields of study, but to all forms of evolution. As such, I believe
> that we can identify that society has an inherent 'cultural immune
> system' to the intellect.
This is a possible angle Jeremy, but I don't think it's useful (to look
upon the interlevel struggle as an immune reaction in the lower
level) because it complicates the "immune system" idea that Pirsig
postulates INSIDE each level. How the Inorganic's system works I
don't know, but Biology's is well known; Society's is penal law, and
Intellect's is psychiatry - at the present - but can have various
agents (LILA p.334)
> Society does not understand the intellect,
> it doesn't speak the same language. Thus, we have this kind of
> 'deafness' that society has toward the intellect which can be
> witnessed and identified throughout a large portion of mankind's
> history.
True
> Terrorism, on the other hand, is a means of direct communication with
> a society. That is because, I believe, terrorism is a direct result of
> this cultural immune system to the intellect. As Zack De laRocca said
> 'Riot be the rhyme of the unheard'.
Er...well ...in a way, but on the social level there is just "crime and
punishment", while "terrorism" occurs when a social focussed
culture resists an intellect-focused one ...and then only to the
latter, to the former it is "punishment for an injustice". But Intellect
has the upper moral hand, make no mistake about that!
> As I write this they are trying to put together an international
> coalition to try to put an end to terrorism. This I believe will be
> futile so long as society maintains it's deafness.
About deafness you are right, yet, like Society can't eradicate
biological value (which shows as crime) only control it, Intellect
can't put an end to Social values (which may show as "terrorism")
but can control it. This is best done within its home ground by
intellects immune system (to psychiatrize it: mentally ill, disturbed
...etc.), but this fails when confronted with a social-focused culture.
Then the response must be the kind that the lower level "hears".
> Today many newspapers carried the headline 'It's War'.
> But this is no war between nations. Nor is it really a war between
> terrorists and America. Because societies and terrorists are secondary
> to the values that create them, this is a conflict of value. Namely,
> Dynamic and Static Value. What's at stake is the static cultural
> immune system or deafness toward the intellect.
Again .. in a sense. To the social level Intellect is invisible and it's
workings just a threat to its own patterns, so in that sense it can
be said to be static/dynamic, but we see it from a Q-perspective
and from there it's a struggle between two static patterns.
> I don't condone these vicious attacks because of my respect for life
> but there should be much care taken in how this situation is handled.
On this we all agree.
Bo
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