Wim,
> > ...nations based on ethnic or religious majorities
> are not at the
> > frontier of social progress. I'd say that even
> nations 'built around a
> > shared intellectual framework' aren't any more,
> because the type of
> > intellectual framework that allows for us (the
> intellectual elite,
> deserving
> > citizenship) versus them (the backward, not
> deserving citizenship)
> > distinctions are not at the frontier of
> intellectual progress any more.
> > Major advances in social progress are visible in
> areas, like Western
> Europe,
> > where ethnic and cultural differences are becoming
> less important and
> where
> > nations are consequently relinquishing sovereignty
> in favor of
> > supra-national entities (the European Union, NATO)
> that are in turn
> > gradually including more (also relatively
> 'backward') nations.
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly there is a
definite equivocation of the social and the
intellectual here. Social = Intellectual such that
"major advances in social progress" = major advances
in intellectual progress. Isn't this exactly what MoQ
is trying to get away from. Pirsig specifically
stated that the intellectual (individual) is SUPERIOR
to the social, unless there is disagreement on this
point. The example that he gives in Lila is how MoQ
plays out on the capital punishment issue where
individual "sovereignty" (Wim's words)trumps the needs
of the social "sovereignty".
Wim says that these "major advances in social
progress"...are evident in nations that are
"relinquishing sovereignty in favor of supra-national
entities." The problem, as far as I can see it, is
that the farther removed the governing body (i.e.,
supra-national entity) is from the individual, the
less individual/intellectual sovereignty there is (the
more the individual must relinquish sovereignty). Keep
in mind that these supra-national entities are at best
only indirectly democratically constituted bodies,
and in many cases representative of non-democratic
societies where individuals have absolutely no
sovereignty.
The conclusion that I draw from this is that all of
this relinquishing of sovereignty is not social
progress at all. Very low quality, indeed. I think
the reason that the intellectual is placed at the apex
in Pirsig's schema, is that the realm of the
intellectual (i.e., in the individual), is the place
where DQ has the most potential of real "progress."
Social change is slow, individual by individual, but
that's where it really takes root. Pirsig touched on
this in ZMM.
Scott L Berry
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