Hi Marco:
To continue commenting on your post of Feb 8:
> Up to now, I think I've explained Pirsig's point. Then, let me go on saying
> why, IMO, rationality is not about freeing intellect from society. Platt
> evoked "totalitarian society". In the same chapters Pirsig clearly says
> that Nazism and Fascism have been social reaction to intellectual freedom.
>
> (ch. 22)
>
> «This [society vs. intellect] conflict explains the driving force behind
> Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming
> glorification of social authority an hatred of intellectualism»
>
> So, a consideration. For what I know, Germans have been very logic and
> rational inventing V2 rockets, jet airplanes, "enigma" code, color films
> and other technological things. And also organizing extermination camps.
> And wasn't Heisenberg a honored scientist in Germany during those times?
> So, how do we classify this utilization of rationality that was completely
> subjugated by 3rd level?
We classify this utilization of rationality by Fascism as a case where
society, in conflict with intellect, won the battle. How? By appealing to
patriotism or at the point of gun or both. And this war (not a game) is
still going on today between the countries who believe in defending the
intellectual rights of free speech, assembly, travel, etc. against those
who would impose by terrorist acts the social authority of
fundamentalist Islam as practiced in pre-war Afghanistan.
> Can we say that rationality is the tool intellect uses to "triumph over
> society"? No, rationality is NOT ENOUGH. Rationality has been invented by
> society, and it has been widely used at the social level, as well as
> science and technology and religion and art.
>
> (ch. 24)
>
> «The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
> ultimate meaning of the universe [...] It's historical purpose has been to
> help a society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies».
True. But once intellect discovered that by observing and measuring the
data of experience that the secrets of nature heretofore hidden by a blanket
of socially correct religious dicta could be uncovered, the battle by intellect
against all forms of social smothering of the intellectual (scientific) "truth"
was joined. The potential of intellect to change the world for the better was
MORE THAN ENOUGH to triumph over static, stifling society. But the battle
continues to this day.
> Saying that rationality is the form of morality that gives intellect
> "control over society" and makes intellect "triumph over society" (wasn't
> it the matter of the discussion?) is changing the tool for the purpose.
> Human rights are the tools! They say " Dear society, you CAN'T completely
> force intellect to work for your own sake". Rationality is not a tool: it
> is the intellectual pattern that it is to be liberated!!! Because, in the
> hands of society, science is very dangerous.
You have it backwards. It was the "they" of individual intellectuals that
created human rights. To buy your line of reasoning is to propose a
higher level than intellect called the Human Rights level. Either that, or
you pull human rights out of thin air to "liberate" the intellectual pattern.
Just as biology freed itself from the physical and society freed itself
from biology, intellect freed itself from society by the actions of a few
brave men. But the battles between levels are not over. Far from it.
> By the way, just rereading chapter 22 I've found this passage, that IMO
> closes the debate about where does Pirsig would classify art.
>
> «In the chaos of social patterns a wild new intellectual experimentation
> could now take place. Abstract art, discordant music, Freudian
> psychoanalysis... »
> It seems to me that art fits perfectly in the intellectual level, or not?
Abstract art and discordant music does. But is that what you consider
great art? I'm surprised that someone who has the statue of David in
his own back yard would think of "intellectualized" art as even faintly
comparable.
> In the end, I want to use Platt's own words to test my position.
>
> "Intellect and art do not flourish in a totalitarian societies where what
> you say, write or paint can get you a one way trip to rat infested cell"
>
> Exactly. So let me be logic and state that:
>
> a- Pirsig says that totalitarian societies like Nazism and Fascism are the
> hardest expression of the defense of social patterns.
>
> b- Pirsig's MOQ is about sketching the MOQ as a broader metaphysics
> (intellectual pattern of value) which is able to unify rationality and art
> (read SODAV on that)
>
> c- You yourself, Platt, are putting art and intellect on the same side
> against totalitarian societies.
>
> ....ERGO.....
>
> d- The day you will live under the rule of a totalitarian regime, your
> right to paint what you want to paint, as well as to say what you want to
> say and think what you what to think, without getting a trip to an infested
> cell or being burned on an electric chair, will be defended in the name of
> Human Rights, despite the fact that YOU (not Pirsig) dismiss them as a
> "sentimental soup of sentiments". Hope for you that day will never come. In
> that case, hope you will at least thank those intellectuals who eventually
> will fight for your Human Rights.
Pirsig called human rights "a soup of sentiments" because the
intellectuals of the 60's, and indeed many of today's intellectuals, have
no idea how to justify those rights on a rational basis. They have no
rational metaphysics that tells them why freedom of speech, assembly,
travel, etc. are human rights. They just "feel" there ought to be
something called human rights and that you are supposed to cheer for
them without spelling out explicitly what those rights are or identifying
the foundation for their legitimacy. This "feeling" comes from a long
battle with religion and the "rational" evidence of how intellect, once
freed from the clutches of religion and totalitarianism has made the
world a better place. But, having no metaphysics that shows them why
the human rights Pirsig listed are high quality, intellectuals are
susceptible to all sorts of bogus "human rights" claims, like
redistribution of income and reparations for slavery which are based
on a social, not intellectual, values. Thus, we get irrational,
"sentimental" movements like the flower children and the
postmodernists.
Platt
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