3WD and all:
The reason that some political positions are better than others, as Pirsig
paints it, is because some are located at the social level and some are
located at the 4th level. Guess which ones are better. I don't understand
how anyone can read Pirsig and fail to see this. I think its obvious to any
honest reader. The unwillingness to accept this aspect of the MOQ is a huge
mistake and only makes the unwilling party look very obstinate and obtuse.
Clearly, this issue upsets you. Sorry about that, but it can't be helped.
Just look at what Pirsig says about politics...and try to dispute it. Its
not about me or my politics.
The hurricane of social forces released by the overthrow of society by
intellect was most strongly felt in Europe, ..where Communism and socialism,
programs for intellectual control over society, were confronted by the
reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of
intellect." P274
"The New Deal was many things, but at the center of it all was the belief
that intellectual planning by the government was necessary for society to
regain its health. ...it was also a new deal for the intelllectuals of
America." P274
"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. Its a
higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a
society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism
its drive." p220
"It's not that Victorian social economic patterns are more moral than
socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite. They are LESS
moral as static patterns go." P221
"According to the MOQ these "human rights" have... a rational, metaphysical
basis. They are essential to the evolution of a higher level of life from a
lower level of life. They are for real." P307
"Once you see it in another culture like that and then come back to our own
you can see that in an unofficial way we have our contrarian societies too.
The Bohemians of the victorian era were contrarians. So, to some extent,
were the Hippies of the Sixites." "...when you add a concept of DQ to a
rational understanding of the world, you can add a lot to an understanding
of contrarians" "That's what drives the really creative people--the artists,
composers, revolutionaries and the like..." P359
But once established, you take this "social dependency" and religiously
weave it into your argument(s) suggesting that the MoQ is predicated on,
and primarily aligns itself with political positions in the "Ghandi"
"left/libertarian" quadrant of the political compass (which just
happens to coincide with your political bent) to the exclusion of all
others. A point that I, and others, strongly disagree with, not only
from a political, but primarily from a metaphysical PoV.
A metaphysics, as the broadest and most general of theories about
reality, that is "socially dependant" on any specific political theory
is not a metaphysics. It is politics, social values, seeking to usurp
metaphysics, intellectual values, which has been and is the aggenda of
politics since forever. Your crusade to align the MoQ with your
particular political bent seriously weakens the credibility of your
arguments, but luckly not the MoQ.
> But once this is resolved ... then we have to go back and develop an
intellectual
> system that DOES recognize its dependence on the social level, a system
that DOES
> see that it MUST be socially derived. That's what the MOQ does.
And when it does; What is its basic metaphysical premise? That there are
many parallel patterns of value sometimes competing, sometimes
cooperating, at all times striving to evolve to higher levels. An while
there is a structural hierarchy of dominance and dependance none of the
particular patterns of values are metaphysically privileged or
privileged apriori, absolutely and forever over other patterns. For
example no where does the MoQ claim that "democracy" is priviliged to
be, metaphysically, the only way that governments can be organized. Just
that appears from past experience to have been a good way. So when you
attempt to claim that your particular political PoV is privileged by the
MoQ I suggest you are just plain wrong. And when you do it pretty much
continually over a long period of time, just plain tiresome.
3WD
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