I've definitely thought about this one a lot and particularly where love
fits into the MOQ. I find it very much incomplete in this regard but I have
come to believe that the dynamic nature of an individual almost takes it out
of the static realm entirely. People are pressured by static forces that
make them behave in a predictable manner. Biological urges, social pressure,
intellectual reasoning, but sometimes people move in the face of all these
forces. Why? That I consider to the other side of the coin of quality, the
dynamic, and can sometimes be of greater quality than any of those concrete
values. Love fits there, forever undefinable, beyond logic, stronger than
any social values. Any static level is too static to include it. Don't even
try to cheapen love by defining it, like trying to define dynamic quality,
it's a degenerate activity.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On
Behalf Of Elizaphanian
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 7:06 AM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: MD marriage and the intellectual level
Greetings all,
One of the things I've been musing on recently is how the MoQ applies to
something fairly basic like marriage, thinking in particular of how it fits
into the different levels. Clearly there is a biological level involved, in
terms of reproduction, and equally clearly there is a social level, in terms
of the historic and traditional forces governing who can marry, what is
involved in marriage, how many can be married etc etc.
More significantly - and here I'm drawing on some basic theology - there is
what I would call an 'individual' level which I would say is not reducible
to the biological or social. This would involve the individual attraction to
and regard for the significant other, the joy in the other's joy, the
pleasure in companionship (including intellectual interests) etc. It also
involves buying into a certain code of values, eg for monogamy, not solely
due to biological and social static barriers, but also because of the
knowledge of the implications for the other individual involved.
The reason I raise this is because I've always assumed the Intellectual
level of the MoQ to be simply Pirsig's phrasing for the level of the
conscious individual. Whereas there is a social level that governs much of
what we do - so we function like ants in a colony, governed by a more or
less benign Giant - there is something available to humans which cannot be
reduced to that, which is the level of the individual, their capacity to act
in an autonomous fashion and follow their own dynamic values (what used to
be called the soul).
However, a number of debates recently (and some old ones - SOLAQI being the
most obvious) revolve around the fourth level being Intellectual in a much
stricter fashion. That is, the Intellectual level is concerned with the
coming into being of a new *theory* or a new understanding of the world
which allows for a more dynamic progression of ideas. It seems to me that
those views diminish what the fourth level involves, and that they are in
fact incompatible with allowing something like marriage to even contain a
fourth level value.
This may be something where Pirsig as an author favours the latter
interpretation (Intellectual being his consciously chosen name, of course)
but where he would appear to miss out something important.
I'd be interested to hear views on this.
Sam
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