Wim and everyone who responded to this thread:
Wim wrote...
Just to say that I very much agree with your 27/1 18:44 -0700
post and hope that it indeed starts a good thread.
The 3rd level is one of my main interests on this list, too
(together with religion and other ways to 'jump/point to the
moon' of DQ). I hope you will recognize that I am writing about
exactly the same in a lot of my previous and future posts, even
if my style of writing is very different from yours.
DMB replies with...
I hoped the thread would do better than it has, but I suppose the difficulty
of it acted like a wet blanket. The 3rd level seems to be the source of
endless debate and misunderstandings. It can be pretty darn frustrating.
Glad to hear that you're very interested in it too and look forward to
further discussion with you. (Love the idea of integrating Pirsig and Wilber
too. I think they go together like peanut butter and jelly. Very impressive
graphics!)
Wim wrote...
The most important element in your post (for me) was the
association of unconscious/social and conscious/intellectual.
DMB replies with...
That was one of just two main points, neither of which garnered much direct
response. Bummer. Let me answer Andrea's objection to the equation "social =
unconscious" here, as it serves as an apt prelude to your additions. Simply
put, I do not "equate" them any more than I would "equate" democracy with
the intellectual level or an organism with the biological level. My point
was only that the unconscious is a very important feature of the social
level and that it deserves more attention that it gets. It figures very
large in that 3rd level and is easyily misunderstand precisely because it is
unconscious and therefore relatively invisible. It is a powerful force in
the way we percieve the world and yet it was only recently discovered. And
most of all, I was suggesting that the failure to distinguish between the
social and intellectual levels can be traced back to a failure to understand
that particular aspect of the third level. In other words, I was trying to
focus on that (and the false individual/collective dilemma) because it seems
to be the source of many misconceptions and misunderstandings....
Wim wrote...
My main additions would be
1) to stress that 'culture' is also material culture: how to do
things (important 'agents of cutting edge evolution' in the
pre-intellectual period that you fail to mention were artisans!)
DMB...
Again, my intention is to zero in on those hidden aspects of the social
level. I'd certainly agree that material culture is a 3rd level thing, but
it is far less mysterious and troublesome. There's much less confusion and
disagreement about the things that are easily observable and widely known, I
dare say even obvious. This is what happens when a person tries to focus on
one or two points. Everything else will go unsaid, but I'd ask that you
respond to what is said rather than what is not said. I shall not pretend to
be exhaustive in every statement or every post because its just not
possible. Besides, I'd hoped that saying the social level is everything
that's been produced by the last 100,000 years of cultural evolution would
cover it well enough.
Wim adds...
2) to distinguish the social level (also) from the intellectual
level by their distinctive ways of reproducing their patterns of
value: (unconsciously) copying behavior (that yields status) and
(consciously) copying motives for action/choices (producing the
experience of being true to one's self or some ideal or some
other 'reality').
DMB...
Yes, well the final goal is to distinquish between the 3rd and 4th levels,
but first things first. It seems there is very little agreement about how to
make such distinctions and I think that is a huge, huge problem. The
inability to draw a line between the two make the MOQ useless as a moral
compass, makes it worthless as an explanatory tool, and turns the whole
metaphysical system into an incoherent mess. As Roger and others have
implied, the MOQ is being misused as an ink-blot test with people seeing in
it whatever they wish to see, using to rationalize long-held preconceptions
and prejudices.
DMB
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:50 BST