Dear Rog,
It seems from your 13/1 12:57 -0500 post that you are getting
tired of our discussion and less 'intrigued by' my 'social
quality views' than before, even to the extent of proposing to
wrap up the discussion soon. I hope you are willing to postpone
that, because I am getting more and more interested now that we
seem to be getting to 'the' point. The points where we diverge
are getting clearer and clearer, which means that we should
become able soon to determine whether they are due to divergent
versions of the MoQ or to divergent applications of the MoQ. We
have been formulating a lot of points of agreement on the way and
have concentrated on points of divergence. Rightly so, I think,
for that will make our conclusions, when we take together all our
agreements at the end, stronger and less 'bland'.
I will not summarize our agreements now, but I am willing to do
so in the future.
It seems to me that we have come quite a long way since you
butted in to my suggestion of 16/9 22:23 +0100:
'Strengthening the immune system etc. of the impoverished and
disintegrated societies on which terrorism feeds and to which
terrorism restores bits of self-esteem, by sharing our wealth
(and maybe even our political power) might be the wisest road.'
You replied 16/9 20:12 -0400 sarcastically: 'So our response to
5000 casualties should be to send them money?'.
I am very glad that you
- 13/1 12:57 -0500 agree
'that ... status difference (both national and global)
contributes to terrorism and other
dysfunctional patterns' [I deleted 'relative', because it is
superfluous] and
- 27/1 11:08 -0500 agree
that 'the attack of fundamentalists on intellectual freedom can
derail progress until the problem is fixed (and [that] the fix
may need to be to reduce inequality between nations)'.
Which leaves us with the question how 'to assist the
dysfunctionals to create a better society for themselves'.
Would you also agree that reducing inequality between nations
might also require change in (our) high quality patterns? Not a
quality reduction of course. Changing them so as to allow
'dysfunctionals' more social quality would enhance the (absolute)
quality of our patterns, don't you think?
In what situations is reduction of global inequality needed to
put progress back on the rails according to you?
(You may wish to postpone your answers until you have read mine
in the course of this e-mail.)
Well, yes we could also formulate 'The Question' in this thread
as 'How to define The Path Toward Social Quality / Social
Progress / a better contribution to the evolution of life?'.
Except ... that we disagreed on the entity that should take that
path and that we now also seem to disagree on the goal...
I didn't formulate as 'The Question' 'What are the relevant
entities to evaluate the relative performance of alternative
social patterns of value: national societies or the global
society?' 'because I retitled the thread' (as you suppose 13/1
12:57 -0500). I retitled the thread because that question seemed
to be 'the (in my view) crucial point of disagreement between us'
(as I explained 9/1 23:18 +0100). It seemed a proper conclusion
from my summary of our discussion up till then. I am sorry to see
that you disagree.
I would now add a second crucial point of disagreement: 'Is
social quality only relative or also absolute?'.
I am no cultural relativist. I only hold that experiencing the
absolute quality of social patterns is not an experience of
SOCIAL quality but of DYNAMIC Quality. Maybe that's just a
difference in terminology now that we have dropped wealth as the
principal measure of social quality?
Every society is held together by BOTH win/win interactions
between its constituent entities AND by win/lose or even
lose/lose interactions between constituent and external entities.
The benefits of win/win interactions (and the losses of lose/lose
interactions) are unequally distributed. Whether the result of
interaction for relative losers in unequal distribution counts as
'winning' or as 'losing' depends on the experience of those
relative losers. Their experience involves a comparison with the
social quality which external entities experience. When they
experience less social quality as internal relative losers than
(they think they would) as external losers, they will opt out of
that society. Societies are held together by discouraging opting
out. The lure of a better deal in internal interactions is one
side of the coin. The other side is damaging or even destroying
alternative social patterns of value that could provide those who
opt out with social quality from another source. Every society
wages constant cold or hot 'war' of some sort on those it labels
'criminals' (those who break the pattern from within) and
'terrorists' (those who break the pattern from outside) and
sometimes also on other societies of the same type. The last
type, 'real war', is always a lose/lose interaction, but it can
still produce a relative 'winner' and seem necessary to preserve
the relatively 'winning' society.
Pirsig's 'immune systems' are just another, more metaphorical,
way of describing this. Your 'The greater harmony achieved in
society does indeed come from coercion.' (13/1 12:43 -0500) also
indicates that win/lose-interactions are also 'part of the game'
(i.e. part of the social patterns of values that hold a
society -local, national or global- together). Coercion is a type
of interaction in which one side at least loses, at least
initially.
Let's distinguish a society A and a society B that are of the
same type. To the extent that they hold together by being part of
some larger scale social patterns of value, they also form
society AB. Let's consider a 'criminal' and a 'terrorist' from
the point of view of society A. The 'criminal' originates from
society A and the 'terrorist' originates from society B.
Both these 'dysfunctionals' can BE (i.e. experience themselves
and/or be experienced) simultaneously as external entities (to
society A) AND as internal entities (to society A or -in the case
of the 'terrorist'- to society AB) As external entities they are
damaging society A's and/or society AB's social patterns of
value. As internal entities they are 'only' trying to get a
better deal in internal interactions (i.e. of its benefits in the
unequal distribution) with -from society A's point of view- means
that are part of a low quality pattern of values.
To some extent we can choose whether we experience these
'dysfunctionals' as elements of social patterns of values or as
'exceptions' to social patterns of values (as pattern breakers).
To some extent this 'choice' is determined by the social patterns
of values we experience ourselves to be part of. If we experience
ourselves to be part of global social patterns of value (e.g. a
world-wide production and trading system), we will more easily
experience 'dysfunctionals' (from the point of view of a national
pattern of values) nevertheless as elements (e.g. underprivileged
members) of a global society too. If we rather experience
ourselves to be part of national (or even smaller scale) social
patterns of value, we will tend to experience 'dysfunctionals' as
... merely 'dysfunctionals'. It makes a difference that you are
American and I Dutch (citizen of a traditional trading nation).
The difference would be even bigger if you would live in a local
community in Central Africa with little interlocal (let alone
international) trade or other contacts.
The above 'story' may seem relativist and from a social level
viewpoint it is. Social values are not absolute. Being just a
brand of static quality, social quality (social values) just
implies 'the value of preserving/reproducing the social pattern
of values of which it is an element'. The absolute value of a
social value depends on the value of this social pattern of
values as a whole.
We can attach absolute values to different social patterns of
values from an intellectual level viewpoint. That means creating
a story that can (potentially) take into account all existing and
possible social patterns of values and comparing their
intellectual (!) value, i.e. their 'fit' with an ideal, an
intellectually constructed optimum.
Intellectual values are not absolute either however. Being also
just a brand of static quality ... etc.
The only way out of relativism is Dynamic Quality. That is what
Pirsig refers to with 'Cultures can be graded and judged morally
according to their contribution to the evolution of life.'
Absolute social quality does not exist.
So how to define the path of a society toward Dynamic Quality?
In accordance with your provisional conclusions in the 'Overdoing
the Dynamic'-thread I would define the path of any static pattern
of values toward Dynamic Quality as balanced maximization of
stability and versatility plus harmonization with higher level
patterns of values.
Preserving or reproducing a society, holding together its
constituent entities, is a social pattern of values.
- Maximizing its stability implies better deals in internal
interactions for relative losers to lure them away from opting
out (more equal distribution of benefits) and worse deals in
external interactions for external entities (to make opting out
less attractive as an alternative).
- Maximizing its versatility implies leaving or creating enough
difference in social quality (status) between its constituent
entities to motivate the underprivileged to emulate the
privileged and the privileged to stay ahead of them by creating
new or more status symbols (e.g. wealth, art, enlightenment), but
not too much difference in social quality on pain of making the
underprivileged apathetic and the privileged lazy.
- The balance depends on the intellectual pattern of values that
is the reference for harmonization.
This is where the intellectual level gets involved that is needed
to grade and judge societies: the intellectual value of a society
depends on its balance between stability and versatility. Judging
that balance (or harmony) implies (selectively) describing a
society and comparing that story of how that society works with
stories about other societies.
This is also ... where my story is getting really complicated.
Please bear with me (or jump to my conclusions).
An intellectual pattern of values is more than just a story to
justify exploitation. The pattern consists of the preservation
or reproduction of similar stories. People only take the effort
to preserve or reproduce stories, if these are under discussion,
if their 'truth' -or more general their 'meaning'- is disputed by
alternative stories. 'Truth' is the 'fit' of a story with an
intellectually constructed 'reality', a supposed 'object' of
knowing. This 'fit' is intellectual quality that can be
experienced. If 'truth' is undisputed, the stories lose their
character of 'stories about reality'. They are not experienced as
'reference to' 'reality' any more, but as 'reality' itself.
'Knowledge' becomes 'reality'; the 'map' becomes the 'terrain'.
Such stories are not told anymore, except to new members of
society. When these are still 'blank' (newborns), 'knowledge' is
presented to them as indisputable 'truth' in the course of their
'socialization', except for spontaneous stories created in
response to direct experience (imagination). When new members of
society are opt-outs of other societies, they were 'socialized'
with other 'truths' and the stories cannot be told as
'self-evidently true'. The 'test of truth' then is the social
quality the opt-in experiences in the society he opts in to
compared to what he experienced in the society he opted out of.
In both cases 'truth' is directly subservient to reproduction of
a social pattern of values.
Without competing social patterns of values, the intellectual
level is hardly distinguishable from the social level.
A social pattern of values is reproduced by people copying
behavior of other people over generations; its
static latch is reproduced behavior or 'culture', 'accumulated
ways to do things'. Without win/lose interactions with external
entities (even if only with the predators an isolated
hunter/gatherer society meets in its natural environment) there
is no need for internal win/win interactions, no drive to
meticulously copy 'ways of doing things' that have proven
conducive to survival.
An intellectual pattern of values is reproduced by people copying
motives from other people (their reasoning that is supposedly
'behind' consciously motivated actions); its static latch is
reproduced motives or 'ideology' (in a non-derogatory sense),
'accumulated ways to justify actions'. In a stable social pattern
of values without serious competitors nearly all behavior is
'normal' and needs no conscious justification. Motivation and
copying motives from others is unnecessary.
Conclusion:
An intellectual pattern of values which is not just an appendage
of the social level needs competing social patterns of values to
be preserved/reproduced. It not only contains ways to expand
'knowledge', a growing set of stories about the intellectual
value of those lower level patterns of values, but also ways to
justify those stories via--vis alternative stories.
It will be clear that I agree with David B. when he writes (26/1
18:16 -0700):
'social values no longer represent evolutionary progress. Their
work is done ... If you want to talk about progress, the
intellectual level is where it's at. As the other Pirsig quote
says, a culture that supports intellectual values is absolutely
superior to one that does not. So to answer Roger's question, one
has to measure the extent to which a society, or a person,
supports intellectual values. That's why I say this is the battle
that really matters. Its not really about health or wealth. The
widespread availability of creature comforts doesn't really say
much about intellectual evolution, but the expansion of rights
and freedoms certainly does.'
An intellectual pattern of values facilitates non-biological
competition between societies (discouraging opting-out and
encouraging opting-in with words rather than weapons).
Recognition of an intellectual pattern of values (and thus of
alternative social patterns of values, alternative patterns of
behavior) implies both the need and the possibility to
consciously justify one's behavior. It is necessary because one
has to choose between those competing patterns of possible
behavior. It is possible because the intellectual pattern of
values contains not only stories about 'what exists' at lower
levels of value, but also ways to justify behavior with those
stories. Consciously justified/motivated behavior (which I
further call 'acting' or 'action') implies (relatively free)
choice and the possibility to break, change or at least make
exceptions to social patterns of values. The main 'trump card'
(as Angus calls it) at the social level is not DQ itself, but
intellectual quality. An intellectual pattern of values should
not be interpreted as a set of ideas that directly interferes in
the social level, changing lower quality social patterns of
values into higher quality patterns of values. It is rather a
pattern of ways in which social patterns of values migrate 'of
themselves' toward Dynamic Quality as mediated by intellectual
quality: by competition, by disputing the 'truth' of the
justification of those opting in and out of societies, 'is this
society really, objectively, better than that one?'...
What I have been doing until now, is giving interpretations of
'social pattern of values' and 'intellectual pattern of values'
that seem to contradict Pirsig's interpretations.
I told you that a society (family, country, group of people
subscribed to a mailing list, etc.) is not in itself a social
pattern of values. It is the way in which its constituent
entities are held together that constitutes the social pattern of
values that is associated with that society.
I told you that a system of ideas or an idea (the ideas in the
head of a chemistry professor, the idea that freedom is good, the
ideas contained in 'Lila', etc.) is not in itself an intellectual
pattern of values. It is the way in which these ideas are passed
on and reproduced (as justification of alternative courses of
action) that constitutes the intellectual pattern of values.
I'm going to tell you now that the contradiction between Pirsig's
an my interpretations of patterns of values (also at the other
levels, but that's another story) is less than it seems.
A social pattern of values holds together a particular society,
so one can indicate that social pattern of values with the name
of that society. If you are aware that in MoQish 'America' and
'the Netherlands' don't stand for a territory or for a set of
people self-identifying as 'American' and 'Dutch' but for the way
in which these people stay recognizably together (by their
behavioral pattern), it isn't wrong to name those social patterns
of values 'America' and 'the Netherlands'.
One should however beware of indicating a social pattern of
values with a society that is only a part of the society that is
held together by that pattern (e.g. associating capitalism -a
social pattern of values that operates on a global scale- only
with countries like America and the Netherlands. Capitalism
includes also the countries they have substantial business
relations with and the win/lose interactions and lose/lose
interactions with areas that are excluded from global
capitalism.) You should not use the name of a society for only a
part of a social pattern of values (e.g. only for the internal
win/win interactions forgetting the win/lose and lose/lose
interactions between constituent and external entities that are
an essential part of the same social pattern of values).
A social pattern of values usually operates with minor variations
in more societies of the same type. So it is usually better to
indicate it by naming the type of societies rather than an
individual society.
An intellectual pattern of values preserves/reproduces a
particular set of ideas. So one can indicate that intellectual
pattern of values with that set of ideas. You should be aware
however that in MoQish the name of that set of ideas (e.g.
chemistry, freedom or the MoQ) then stands for the way in which
these ideas are preserved/reproduced.
One should beware of indicating an intellectual pattern of values
with a subset of the ideas that it preserves/reproduces. (E.g.
science doesn't only preserve chemical knowledge and the small
differences between the scientific methods as applied in
chemistry and in other sciences don't justify calling it a
different intellectual pattern of values in most situations.)
Disputing the truth of alternative sets of ideas presupposes a
common denominator. E.g. disputing whether decentralized
distributed control or central control of the economy produces
most wealth presupposes that producing wealth is an important
goal of any society. And disputing whether electrons are waves or
particles presupposes the existence of electrons. The set of
ideas that is the common denominator for dispute of an
intellectual pattern of values is also preserved/ reproduced/
reinforced by the dispute even if no-one ever puts it into words.
Disputing such 'common denominator' ideas can easily be
criticized as 'attacking a straw man', as criticizing ideas that
nobody holds. The fact that they are the 'common denominator' for
all the disputes that are part of a particular intellectual
pattern of values, implies that most people (who have never
consciously experienced alternative intellectual patterns of
values) are not aware of them and will never put them into words.
Alternative intellectual patterns of values have different
'common denominators' for disputes and therefore can't be
reconciled by appealing to 'truth'.
How then to choose between alternative intellectual patterns of
values in order to chose the best one to use as a reference for
harmonization of social patterns of values?
An intellectual pattern of values migrates toward Dynamic Quality
by balanced maximization of stability and versatility plus
harmonization with ... Dynamic Quality itself (for lack of higher
level patterns of values).
- Maximizing its stability implies enlarging the set of 'common
denominator' ideas that are difficult to dispute.
- Maximizing its versatility implies leaving or creating enough
'room for dispute', a large enough range of alternative sets of
ideas that can be combined with the 'common denominator' ideas,
to stimulate creativity, but not too much 'room for dispute' to
make every 'truth' seem arbitrary and relative and consensus
apparently beyond reach.
- The balance can be experienced as absolute Dynamic Quality.
In order to get an idea about how to experience that balance,
harmony with higher level value that has not formed static
patterns yet, we need to imagine the situation in which humanity
was outgrowing the social level, when intellectual patterns of
values were beginning to form.
In chapter 30 of 'Lila' Pirsig traces back the transition from
social to intellectual patterns of value, from 'mythos' to
'logos' ... the 'birth of the intellectual level' that is
occasionally debated on this list. He goes back first to the
Greek word 'aret' of the Sophists and then to the morpheme 'rt'
from the proto-Indo-European language. By connecting 'rt' with
the Sanskrit word 'rta', meaning both 'ritual' and 'cosmic order'
(physical order AND moral order!), he then deduces that rituals,
from which the first intellectual truths could have been deduced,
probably were the connecting link between the social and
intellectual levels of evolution. (p. 442 of my Bantam paperback,
end of chapter 30:) 'He could only guess how far back this
ritual-cosmos relationship went, maybe fifty or hundred thousand
years. ... stone age people were probably bound by ritual all day
long ... so much so that the division between "ritual" and
"knowledge" becomes indistinct. In cultures without books ritual
seems to be a public library for teaching the young and
preserving common values and information'.
So early humans probably experienced harmony with 'truth' as a
higher level value which had not yet formed static patterns
through rituals from which they derived a dim understanding of
'cosmic order' beyond the social order which they did understand.
Art and religion were (on hindsight) the kinds of activity in
which early humans explored the 'cosmic order' beyond 'social
order'.
In due course the exploration of 'cosmic order' would give
rise to the exploration of 'laws of nature' and science, which
left art and religion to explore DQ beyond even intellectual
quality (truth).
That's were we are now: the intellectual level has fully formed
as an independent level of values and in order to experience even
higher level value we have to return to art and religion.
I propose to indicate ('point to') the higher level value beyond
truth as 'Meaning', capitalizing it to distinguish it from the
'meaning' of a 'text' in a certain 'context' which defines its
'truth', the 'fit' of that 'text' with 'reality'. If we
experience harmony with DQ in a work of art of in a religious
experience, we say 'it is Meaningful' without being able to
define a 'truth' that explains that experience of 'Meaning'. This
culminates in the experience that there must be a 'Meaning of
life' or '... of my life' even if no amount of science can tell
me where life is eventually heading for or originally originating
from and 'Who' could have given life that 'Meaning'.
Let me summarize what I have been doing in this post until now:
1. I accept your suggestion (13/1 12:57 -0500) to formulate as
key question 'How to define the path toward absolute quality?'.
2. I also accept your suggestion (implicit in the title of this
thread) to ask ourselves next whether society is making progress
along that path.
3. Given your agreement with the idea that international
inequality contributes to terrorism and may need reducing, the
next question is how to assist people in other parts of the world
to make progress along that path.
Sub-questions would be:
3a. Would that also require change in our patterns of values?
3b. Where and to what extent is reduction of global inequality
needed and reduction of what inequality between what entities?
I have interpreted 'absolute quality' in question 1 as 'Dynamic
Quality' instead of as 'social quality'. Do you agree with that
step?
I have implicitly split question 1 in two sub-questions:
1a By what method should we define the path toward DQ?
1b What path toward DQ follows from applying that method?
My answer to question 1a applied a formula derived from the
'Overdoing the Dynamic'-thread: higher absolute quality implies
balanced maximization of stability and versatility plus
harmonization with higher level values. I have suggested that
higher level values should determine how to balance maximization
of
stability and versatility.
My method to define the path toward DQ of a social pattern of
values (that holds together a society) is thus:
a) Choose from the available intellectual patterns of value the
one that is most Meaningful. That requires religious experience
and/or aesthetic judgement.
Be aware that every intellectual pattern of values (as a sine qua
non for its stability) rules out discussion about its core ideas
('common denominator' ideas that enable discussing 'truth'). So
it may be necessary to create a new intellectual pattern of
values at a higher level of abstraction in which the
'indisputable' core of the best available intellectual pattern of
values becomes disputable. Pirsig paved the way for us by
creating a MoQ that makes disputable the
subject/object-distinction that is part of the 'indisputable'
core of most modern Western intellectual patterns of values. It
is impossible to conceive of and compare all available
intellectual patterns of values without such an intellectual
pattern of values at the highest level of abstraction.
You will choose the intellectual pattern of values that has the
'right' balance between stability and versatility, between the
size of its 'indisputable' core and its 'room for dispute'.
b) Use the chosen intellectual pattern of values to judge how the
balance can be enhanced between stability and versatility of the
social pattern of values concerned.
Be aware that this path may not be same for every social pattern
of values. It depends at least on inorganic and biological
circumstances and to some extent also on its social environment.
It is also useful to distinguish between
- the 'path of migration' which that social pattern of values
would take of itself without any intervention from the
intellectual level,
- the path it would take under influence of the already present
intellectual patterns of values and
- the path it can take under influence of the intellectual
pattern of values of your choice.
Take into account the limits that are set by the (required
stability of) biological and inorganic patterns of values that
underpin the social pattern of values concerned. The path to be
defined will have to within those limits and will have to be
better than the path of migration without the proposed
intervention applying the best available intellectual pattern of
values.
It will be a path which combines:
- a relatively better share of 'fame and fortune' for internal
relative losers to more effectively lure them away from opting
out and becoming external entities,
- a relatively worse share of 'fame and fortune' losses for
external entities in external win/lose or lose/lose interactions
to more effectively lure them into opting in and becoming
internal entities,
- more motivation for relative losers to emulate the relative
winners and
- more motivation for relative winners to stay ahead.
That is as far as I have come until now.
I will postpone a thorough answer to the questions 1b, 2 and 3
until your reply in which you hopefully agree with this agenda
for further discussion.
A few provisional ideas:
- I suspect that your idea that wealth needs no justification
(17/11 11:27 -0500) implies identification with an intellectual
pattern of values with an indisputable core that contains the
idea 'wealth is good'. Both the Communist and the 'free
enterprise/democracy' intellectual patterns of values presuppose
that idea in most of their variants. I experience little Meaning
in striving for wealth however, so I propose to find or develop a
more abstract intellectual pattern of values that enables us to
discuss that idea.
A positive outcome of the present war against Islamist terrorism
may be that it necessitates the development of such an
intellectual pattern of values. Most variants of the Islamist
intellectual pattern of values do NOT have that idea at their
'indisputable' core. Before you suspect I'm a crypto-Islamist:
neither do the Quaker intellectual pattern of values and a lot of
other intellectual patterns of values that are religiously (and
aesthetically?) founded.
I am not a relativist. I believe that DQ, the source of Meaning,
is the same for everyone. Even if the path to DQ for a given
social pattern of values may be different from that of another
social pattern of values, for any social pattern of values (at a
definite position relative to DQ) there is only one best path
toward it.
I do not pretend to know or be able to know that one best path
for any social pattern of values. My ability to take into account
all possibilities and judge them is too limited for that. Only
collectively can we hope to define The path to DQ for a specific
social pattern of values (after eliminating misunderstandings
about exactly what social pattern of values we mean). Until then
I consider everything I write as provisional (and even after that
we might be wise to do so, as possibilities may change).
The biblical story of the expulsion from Eden conveys for me a
relevant Meaning: Man ate from the tree of knowledge of Good and
Evil. Now we know Good and Evil. We only tend to forget that
'man' (Adam) stands for 'mankind' collectively and not for a
single man... No single man (of woman) has a monopoly on
knowledge of Good and Evil.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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