Hi Rog:
First, congratulations on a series of superb posts this weekend. They
all go into my file of "keepers."
Now, a couple of comments on the post you directed to me:
> Let me start with a small detour before addressing your specific comments.
> Of all the failings of the MOQ, the greatest, imo, is that Pirsig never
> explicitly and systematically rejects trying to avoid destruction and
> unnecessary conflict.
Au contrair. Pirsig addresses the issue of conflicts between collections
of patterns within a level in Chapter 17 where he offers New York City
as the ideal solution, "where people don't ask whether something's
been approved somewhere else." NYC is one of the few places on
earth where something that's Dynamic can get born even when it looks
like hell. The secret to avoiding destruction and unecessary conflict?
The very thing you and I champion as the highest of all social values--
freedom! As Pirsig writes about NYC, "It's the freedom to be so awful
that gives it the freedom to be so good." So this is the model Pirsig
puts forth to avoid destruction and unecessary conflict between "radical
idealists and degenerate hooligans."
> He focuses so much on conflict between levels that he
> seems to get lost and he never concludes that -- where possible -- the most
> moral course is that which best maximizes Quality across and between levels
> and patterns.
Maybe so. Resolving conflicts between levels is devilishly difficult if not
impossible. But he does specifically warn against a higher level
weakening a lower level, thereby endangering "its own stability." The
implication seems clear: don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Our
current problem is that SOM intellectuals don't realize that they are
undermining the social level on which they depend for their livelihood.
We see this most blatantly in academe as leftist professors spew
hatred of America while at the same time enjoying the freedom to
express themselves that thousands of Americans have shed blood to
guarantee. We also see it among journalists who refuse to salute the
American flag on the grounds that they will lose their (laughable)
"objectivity," failing to acknowledge that without what the flag stands for,
they wouldn't have a chance to be journalists, much less be objective.
> Certainly you are right, Platt, that it is moral to protect yourself from
> attack, and that the MOQ supports this. However, I would offer that the MORE
> MORAL course is to find a way to avoid the win/lose confrontation before it
> starts. Again, I need to shout out that I do realize that cooperation and
> synergy and harmony are not always possible. That is what makes morality so
> difficult though. Morality is in some ways knowledge (it would be more
> MOQish to say that knowledge is a form of morality, but you know what I
> mean). The world is a complex, changing place, and no simple moral edicts
> will ever handle the wide diversity of situations that we will encounter.
> That is why we are constantly searching for better moral solutions. And I
> say that the best solution is to discover or create ways to avoid the
> conflict where possible.
I agree. But when someone in a conflict pulls out a gun, the dark side
of biology asserts itself and all bets are off. Once more, as Pirsig
writes:
"Where biological values are undermining social values, intellectuals
must identify social behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and
support it all the way without restraint. Intellectuals must find biological
behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and limit or destroy
destructive biological patterns with complete moral ruthlessness, the
way a doctor destroys germs, before those biological patterns destroy
civilization itself."
Let us never be lured by the siren song of pacifism. The conversation
between social criminal biological patterns is a policeman or soldier
with his gun.
Platt
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