On 24 May 2002 at 0:09, sriram25@comcast.net wrote:
> Hello Bo,
snip...snip....
> It's absolutely correct that modern intellectual opposition to the MOQ
> is mainly coming from dominant SOM-intellectual patterns that consider
> it a "disturbance." What must be noted, however, is that these are
> conflicting intellectual patterns, and due to the fact that the MOQ is
> better, it will eventually become dominant and replace the inferior
> SOM-intellectual patterns.
Sriram and Group.
Great reading this message of yours (I have changed the heading), my
petty remarks are probably uncalled for, but the notion of SOM as "low
intellect" and the MOQ as "high intellect" and the two conflicting don't
jell with me. Conflicting, yes, but unto the degree of not being able to
stay in the same "room".
Compared to the other levels what is "conflicting patterns" for instance
at the biological level? All life forms from bacteria upwards are in
"conflict" in the sense of feeding, exploiting ...etc. but the species are
really dependent on each other on a greater scale. Germs the most
necessary of them all. And the lower organisms are more pure
biological value - stable for millions of years - than the higher that are
prone to extinction. No, I only see a development towards greater
complexity inside each level, the lower necessary building blocks for
the higher.
> With a free exchange of ideas, it is
> intellectual quality that decides among conflicting sets.
To judge requires a higher perspective IMO. It's biology that decides
what inorganic stuff is good food (f.ex) and it's society that selects what
organisms are good "citizens", and intellect that chooses among social
patterns. So ...accordingly, it must be something "out of intellect" that
can tell what are the best ideas.
> What's
> important here is that there is no threat of social repression in this
> conflict.
No maybe not in the "shot at dawn" type, but social pressure has many
subtler forms and is an immensely strong factor. This demonstrates
intellect's social roots: Even if we try to act lofty and objective we are
not impervious to what other people think.
> The MOQ makes clear that it would be immoral for social
> patterns to repress either of these conflicting intellectual patterns
> or any other ideas. The point that was being made was that the
> freedom that these intellectual patterns have from the threat of
> repression by lower level social patterns is due to such rights as
> freedom of speech.
You are right, the "original" Intellect vs Society struggle - when social
repression had biological means at its disposal (death) - is secured by
the said freedoms, yet intellect can't rid itself of the its social roots.
> This was not always the case, and may still not be the case in some
> cultures. The ideas of Galileo, Hobbes, Spinoza, and many other
> Renaissance philosophers were repressed by the lower level social
> patterns, and this was immoral. Galileo was forced to recant on
> threat of torture by the Inquisition.
Right again, here the repression was very unsubtle.
> Hobbes, after publication of
> his Leviathan, was subjected to a heresy trial in England, where his
> ideas were attacked as "atheistic," "Jewish," and "heretical" and
> censored.
... while it here had become more subtle, or "social"
> The establishment of human rights such as freedom of speech
> was a moral step to protect intellectual patterns, even "amoral"
> SOM-intellectual patterns, from this type of degeneracy from society.
100% agreement!
> Just as social patterns have a moral right and obligation to protect
> itself from repression by lower level biological patterns by means of
> the law, police, guns, the military, etc., intellectual patterns also
> have a moral right and obligation to protect itself from repression by
> lower level social patterns. It does this by establishing rights such
> as the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. This is why that
> although many religious figures of the current day undoubtedly think
> the MOQ to be "stupid," and possibly also "atheistic," "Jewish," and
> "heretical," they are unable to repress or censor the dissemination of
> these ideas, at least in cultures where intellectual patterns dominate
> social patterns, unlike in the past before the moral rights of
> intellectual patterns were established as strongly. Pirsig is not
> being threatened with torture, imprisonment, or censorship for
> promoting such "heresy", at least here in America. The opposition
> that is coming from static intellectual forces that was referred to
> earlier will be overcome in time due to the betterness of the MOQ.
I agree with all this, but you will notice that any repression of the MOQ
from religious reasons these days will raise pained smiles, because
religion is considered nil and void in our intellect-dominated societies,
be it the USA or Norway. No, it's INTELLECT cum SOM that resists the
MOQ.
Notice also that whatever value strives to liberate itself from its parent
is prone to the "root" effect. If the Quality Idea is something that wants
to liberate itself from intellect, it will forever be intellect-marked. It's
these MOQ implications that I find so immensely powerful, they put
everything in such a revealing light.
> Bo, in contrast with your somewhat enlightened Jehovah's Witness
> friend, I have a couple of Christian Fundamentalist friends who are
> opposed to the MOQ because they think it promotes Buddhism, and other
> "false" and "heathen" religions in opposition to the only real "truth"
> which is the words of Christ as revealed in the New Testament.
> Although I disagree with their sentiments, I am thankful that in
> modern America I am free to continue advocating this system that
> supposedly promotes Buddhism and other "false" ideas without being
> threatened by the authorities of their church.
He, he, about the JW, but as said, accusations of false belief hardly
evoke more than wry smiles nowadays - more serious in Bruno's and
Galileo's time. Sriram, you will see from my above comments that I
want the intellectual level to be the subject-object divide itself (the
VALUE of the S/O divide more correctly) and consequently the MOQ is
an intellectual pattern that it no longer can "live with its parents". This I
have called the SOLAQI (subject-object logic as q-intellect) in case you
have wondered.
Thanks for reading.
Bo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:16 BST