On 27 Jan 2002, at 18:43, David Buchanan wrote:
> Please let me begin by asking every reader, especially the old-timers,
> to be ready to re-think some things and maybe even to let go of some
> long-held views. Its not easy. I'll present just two main ideas about
> the third level. One is about individuals and giants. The other is
> about the age and depth of the third level. Hope they interest you.
Hi Again David. This oldtimer am all ears :-)
> The social level is about society, right? Its about the "giant", the
> collective, right? And this is contrasted with the intellectual level,
> which is about the individual, right?
> No. Its not right. This is one of the main misconceptions about the
> 3rd level. Collectivity and individuality both exist in both levels.
> The scientific method, for example, absolutely requires many sets of
> eyeballs and peer review. Science is clearly a intellectual activity.
> Sure, philosophers and scientists are individuals but they both need
> groups and institutions to function properly. And social evolution
> requires the efforts of individuals, such as the case of the brujo.
I can't really find out - at a glance - if my vision of the 3rd level is in
accordance with your own or not, so I go to the statement that
collectivity and individuality both exist at the 3rd and 4th levels. But
of course, yet does this catch what is at stake? There are
individuals even lower down (maybe you say "all levels"
somewhere?) Organisms at the biological level and "entities" at the
inorganic, also an organism is a collective of cells and matter is
made up of atoms and molecules.
> In fact, as Ken Wilber points out, everything in the universe is both
> an individual entity AND part of a larger collective system. Its a
> basic feature of reality. I would challenge anyone to think of
> something that defies this notion. So please, take the idea that the
> battle between social and intellectual values is essentially a battle
> between collective and individual values, write it down on a piece of
> paper, crumple it up into a ball and flush it down the toilet. Its
> poop. Get rid of it. Ahhhh. What a relief.
About Wilber. Where does he take any first step remotely similar
to Pirsig's? I hear nothing about him taking leave of the
subject/object metaphysics. To the contrary his ideas sounds
much like the arch-som notion of matter becoming (imbued with)
mind.
> Social level values are in every individual human being. They go far
> beyond social institutions, conventions and traditions, far beyond
> issues of power, status, money, survival, and those cops and soldiers
> with their guns. These are just some of the most conspicuous features
> of the social level. It goes way deeper than that. When we talk about
> social level values, we're talking about everything that's been
> produced by the last 100,000 years of cultural evolution. The agents
> of cutting egde evolution in this period were not philosophers and
> scientists, they were shamans, the artists and storytellers. This
> period produced stuff like language, stories, myths, religions,
> political hierarchies, social traditions, and all kinds of invisible
> motivations that inform (form from within) us as individual to this
> very day. You know,... French culture exists, therefore Descartes
> thinks, therefore he is.
Social value in every individual human being. Yes! ...go far beyond
social institutions. YES!! I even believe that there is some social
patterning among the primates (apes), but why the former
paragraph's crumpling up of "individual vs collective"? At this stage
it was "biology vs society" that counted, and when intellectual
value reported it was all about breaking from the myths: to see the
myths as - right - myths. In the year 100 000 the myth said that
(for instance) the stars were gods, and no sceptical cavedweller
asking if this was OBJECIVELY true ...society couldn't afford that.
The first intellectual stirrings were all about breaking free from the
myths and as the myth always are the majority, it may look like
anti-collective. Also, the much later manifestations that look
individual-centered - the Habeas Corpus, human rights, trial by jury
..etc. - are only from "yesterday" in this perspective.
> There is a good reason why the 3rd level seems so enigmatic. The
> existence of SOM's old mind/body problem helps to point out how
> invisible the 3rd level can be. Subjects are minds. Objects are bodies
> and never the twian shall meet. Or so it seemed until very recently.
> Thanks to guys like Jung and Pirsig we can begin to see that there is
> more than just minds and bodies. There's a third thing in between. I
> mean, it seems pretty clear to me that the unconcious mind, which is
> effectively the source and well spring of all myths, religions and all
> sorts of non-intellectual and unconcious motivations, is one of the
> most powerful and mysterious features of the social level. Its one of
> the things that have evolved in the last 100,000 years. Its not
> intellect and its not biology. The unconscious mind is somewhere in
> between and connects the two. Mind/body problem solved. Or rather,
> dis-solved.
Good! The body/mind of SOM being replaced by the Inorganic-
Biology-Society-Intellect of MoQ. The problem for me is
"conscious" as opposed to "unconscious". Naturally our bodies
keep functioning during sleep, but I don't think it's that kind of
unconsciousness you mean. Platt speaks about awareness at the
social level and self-awareness at Intellect, but I have problems
with this too. These terms carry an absolute with them: You can't
be aware in stages, it's either or. To me these are somish terms
and in the MoQ merely indicate perception of the value of the
various levels. I.e. intellect isn't any absolute God's eye view but as
said ..."awareness" of intellectual value.
> And we all still live with it everyday, weather we know it or not. We
> inherit it in the same way that we inherit our biological structures.
> I know Jungian and post-Jungian psychology has it detractors, but
> don't be fooled. The discovery of the unconscious, the collective
> unconscious and of archetypes is just as profound as Darwin's theory
> of evolution or Copernicus' discovery of heliocentric solar system.
> Its the kind of thing that causes us to re-think things in radical
> ways. The meaning of Jung's ideas is still unfolding right now in our
> lifetime. Mythologists like Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves did
> quite a bit in more recent years to expand on the things Jung was
> saying. Quite simply, myths express social values in non-intellectual
> symbolic language.
I am not opposed to this if your - and Jung's and Gampbell's - point
is that myths are with us today, not as ostentatious as the old
mythologies' various godheahs, but as vague anxieties, urges
recurrent dream themes ...etc.
Hope I haven't misunderstood too grossly.
Bo
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