To: Soj
From: Rog
SOJ:
The other part is that it was the social giant at work: the property of the
heretic AS WELL AS that of his family was confiscated by the church upon
conviction.
ROG:
Just a point here. The social level is a level of quality that Pirsig
represents as a separate organism. Property rights confiscation is a very
low quality (ineffective) social pattern. It is not an example of WESTERN
cultural QUALITY, but of a FUNDAMENTAL cultural PROBLEM. Actually, it is a
problem that the West has been exemplary -- in comparison to other cultures
-- in solving.
SOJ:
Sound familiar to you yet? It's the same thing that happens in these United
States. Only the "Inquisition" is on some plants and other chemical
compounds collectively known as "illegal drugs". If you have enough illegal
drugs in your car it is considered an automatic (legal!) assumption that you
are going to sell them, therefore your car is now an (illegal) business
enterprise, therefore your car can and will be seized by the police and sold
for the benefit of the local government. Same for your house and property.
The only difference between the "War on Drugs" and the "Spanish Inquisition
to Root Out Heresy" is no physical torture is used in these remaining days
of 2001 (of course torture is used in Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia where
they do confiscate property as well).
ROG:
OK, I grant you that it is not a good precedent to allow modern governments
to sieze property. But the difference here is a matter of degree. And it is
a huge magnitude of difference. But yes, I agree that it is a small step in
the wrong direction.
SOJ:
This is thinking in a bottle to say the SI or the WoD are the results of
"good intentions". They are social actions, designed to increase the
political and financial power of social entities. Torquemada didn't inherit
the lands and your local sheriff won't be living in your house either.
Social entities seek to increase power by _any means available_ and if one
method is shut down it will find another, no differently than an animal will
eat in a territory but if the food runs out it will move to another
territory.
ROG:
They are social patterns gone awry. The Inquisition was a social patterns
that had the effect of exploiting the many and of suppressing future social
quality. You aren't using the Spanish Inquisition as proof that Western
societies increase power by any means available -- and that this is in
contrast to other cultures are you?
SOJ:
The "intention" drives the Quality event belief springs from an individual
level, which is a totally different "level" than that of a "society". I
myself find it fallacious logic to say that societies are beholden to
individual intentions.
ROG:
Again I agree. The best level of explaining and understanding societies is
not always at the individual level. Collective behavior patterns emerge.
SOJ:
It is my firm belief that what we call "Western culture" is a collection of
societies that do not have morality in the MoQ sense. They are not built
upon a "right or wrong" but upon a "can or can't". If a society can do it,
it will.
ROG:
The MOQ agrees that there is a missing component in the western paradigm --
they subtract value out of their Aristotelian/Cartesian worldview. Supposedly
at least some other cultures don't miss this crucial ingredient -- though
they may miss myriads of other social values. Where I lose you though is
where you say "They are not built upon a "right or wrong" but upon a "can or
can't". Would you please both clarify and support this statement compared to
your indigenous 'exceptions'. (I certainly don't get it reading your next
paragraph -- but maybe I am just being dense)
SOJ:
The exception to these societies would be the ones which are
largely destroyed, but can be labeled as "indigenous cultures". The Hopi
tribe (just to take an example) was a social unit that had a very moral code
built into it; the proof of which can be found in the fact that there were
no judicial branches and/or written laws. The "laws" of conduct for a Hopi
were built-in from birth and were known and subsumed into every member. A
"Hopi" man could offend the tribe and be excommunicated, but he was Hopi
even in that and was part of the tribe even when being excluded from it. In
other words, his very nature was "Hopi" and not even abandonment in the
desert could remove that. The rules of what was "right" or "wrong" for a
Hopi tribesperson was "self-evident" and whenever there would be a question
of what to do, the elders (the people who have been Hopi the longest) would
meet and try to discover what was the most "self-evident" course of action.
ROG:
I could offer that another explanation for no judicial branch is that this is
a pattern which only develops in very complex, highly-advanced cultures that
have achieved large, specialized populations within a given area. Smaller
tribal units are usually run by a chieftan or "Big Man." As for no written
laws, may I suggest it is because they had no writing? This again is
something that cultures develop as they become larger and more complex.
You are comparing a social phase of story-telling and ingrained mores to a
pattern of divided government and written rules (atop the underlying stories
and mores). To state that the first is superior is not valid. I will agree
that the above are high quality hunter/gatherer social values. But they are
not workable (they are by themselves of low value) as society gets bigger and
more spread out etc, etc.
SOJ:
The cultures we live in now are not in any way based on "self-evident", they
are based on an SOM analysis that is continually in flux and is usually
thought of as "superior" to those other cultures because the other cultures
use "superstition" and we use "rationality".
ROG:
What do you really mean by 'self evident?' I get the impression that you
mean static patterns that are drummed into people's heads until they are
unquestionable. If so, you may be right that modern cultures are more
versatile/dynamic (which can be messy, yet which the MOQ judges as GOOD
overall). And, according to the MOQ, intellectual values are more dynamic
than superstition, so yes, on this dimension, rationality would be superior
to superstition.
SOJ:
And yet at the same time I've
seen on this list (as well as a lot of other places too) how we, this
culture which is now 99% of the human race, is a "cancer" or a "virus" on
the planet.
ROG:
Here is where I lose you altogether. Why is Western culture a cancer or
virus on the planet? Western culture has produced a better health, a higher
standard of living, longer life, better education, more freedoms, etc and has
done so in a fairly sustainable way with the environment (in general
pollution and environmental protection have improved dramatically as western
countries gain in social quality.) Yes, we have permitted ourselves to
thrive, and the environment has had to adjust to us and vice versa. And yes,
the progression has been far from perfect (every solution leads to new
problems) and we still need to solve the ozone problem/global warming etc.
(Or do you think the Hopi's will solve it? And no, not experiencing a higher
level problem is not the same as solving it!)
SOJ:
It doesn't receive much argument to say the world's population
of human beings is growing at an enormous rate that is consuming every
resource on the planet to sustain.
ROG:
Agreed -- problem. But, lets analyze the nature of this problem. The cause
is quite simple -- higher quality medical care, standards of living and
nutrition and ensuing reduction in death rates. Birth rates haven't gone up.
It is death rates that have gone down. So, your problem is pure biological
quality! (which is the initial purpose of society, and thus a measure of
where social quality is REALLY to be found)
Once we state this, the question is what needs to be done to solve the
emergent problem created by the underlying solution. The answer -- of course
-- is lowering birth rates. Now, this is exactly what your evil western
cultures have done. They are no longer growing appreciably. The problem is
with all the other cultures that have gotten the benefits of Western Science
without making the underlying adjustments to their reproductive tendencies.
If your problem is overpopulation, then the answer is fewer children. Right?
SOJ:
The culture we live in is an a-moral
culture. A Hopi culture was never a culture of environmental saints but
they never went over the hills to massacre another tribe because Hopi
culture is a moral culture. There is no book sitting in Arizona which says
"don't massacre the Navajo" and yet they never did (and never tried) and yet
many thousands of my neighbors have a book which they follow that says "do
not kill" and of course we know we do.
ROG:
You are presenting the "noble savage" argument. You find quaint, rustic
virtues in a primitive culture studied from afar and dismiss all the
problems. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are wonderful things we can
and should learn from the Hopis. However, if you want to hold their culture
up as higher quality, you need to eliminate your technologies, your
education, your standard of living, your modern medical care, your rlue of
law, your ability to communicate across the globe, your science, etc. More
importantly, you need to point out which 95% of the human race needs to be
exterminated (perhaps we could ask for volunteers), because Hopi culture
can't sustain anywhere near the world's current population. Or is this what
you WANT?
And, btw, maybe the Hopi's are the exception, but l Hunter/gatherer societies
are often quite warlike. Most American Indians certainly were. Murder rates
are as high or higher in most hunter/gatherer societies than in anywhere but
disfunctional modern inner city areas too. Murder is the most common cause of
death in many primitive cultures.
SOJ:
The short summary of this email:
People as individuals can follow and execute a MoQ morality. The societies
WE live in however are not predicated upon an MoQ morality therefore they
violate MoQ whenever possible. The societies we live in are based on the
maxim "if it can be done, do it" and then if it is successful a theory of
why it was the right thing to do is developed. In the USA we see every day
on the TV how righteous and moral we were in destroying the evil and immoral
Nazis, yet anyone who can read history knows the USA was bitterly anti-war
and anti-Lend-Lease and anti-convoying and anti-Cash-n'-Carry until December
7th.
ROG:
My summaried response:
There is indeed a missing in Western Culture that Pirsig fills. No society,
to my knowledge, has yet been predicated upon MOQ morality. However,
western society is relatively moral as evaluated by the MOQ -- it is large,
it is powerful, self-sustaining, it allows people to thrive biologically, it
has created the intellectual level, it is dynamic, it is versatile, it
creates more freedom, etc.. You never gave any clear arguments on your maxim
or of justifying after the fact. And what in the heck is your last point
about WWII?
Sorry if I am coming across so contradictory, but I would like to establish
an environment where we can both question our assumptions and grow. I will
say that your arguments smell suspiciously of that post-modern,
self-loathing, anti-rationality, anti-westernism thing that has infiltrated
the SOM halls of "higher" learning: All cultures are hunky-dory except
western culture, which is corrupt. Please don't fall for it.
Post modernism and cultural relativism and their misguided world-views are an
outgrowth of extreme SOM absurdity, and should never be confused with the
MOQ.
Rog
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