On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Donald H Crawford Jr wrote:
.......snip
> One other thought: As I've mentioned before, I get a little uneasy with
> the hierarchical arrangment of the 4 levels as I worry about how easy it
> is to justify bad ideas (low quality ideas) as superior when in fact they
> might be destructive socially or biologically or inorganically. IMO the
> quality of ideas is not only not independent of the other levels, but
> should be evaluated in part on how they enhance the quality of
> experiencing at other levels. Don
Hi Don H.
Do you by the above mean that Intellect is the highest moral level
and ideas its value, then "ideas" - however bad - are always superior
to Social and Biological value? If so it is an old misinterpretation
of the MOQ and we are back at a thread started by Kevin Sanchez in
March this year when he wrote:
>>The organization of inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual
>>static values seemss comprehendsive and compatible with
>>contemporary social ethics but, I have a problem. I cannot see
>>that the next level automatically trumps the one before it. For
>>instance, in Lila, Pirsig states that an idea warrants the death
>>of a society. Yet, doesn't the quality of that idea effect that
>>warrant? Is it moral for us to all die for a low-quality idea? Was
>>Hitler correct in killing for his extremely low-quality ideas?
>>This troubles me because the humanistic ethics to which I subscribe
>>seem slightly undermined by MoQ. Comments?
To which I answered:
>>> Pirsig's statement about ideas moral right to kill societies
>>> sounds dramatic, but has nothing to do with killing of humans or
>>> physical destruction. In your example of Hitler the
>>> social-value-dominated Nazi regime was "killed" by
>>> intellect-value-dominated regimes (democracy). The fact that it
>>> took place in the midst of a political war (inter-social
>>> struggle) war has nothing to do with the MOQ tenets. The
>>> Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were "killed" as
>>> effectively, but with very little bloodshed. The most dramatic
>>> "killing of societies" that now take place is the West's ideas
>>> (democracy, freedom of speech, trial by jury etc.) threatening
>>> the social-value-dominated Islam society. I just can't see how
>>> they can resist...........snip..........
>>> One point must be emphasized first: When you use the term
>>> "society" it has a political significance - cultural perhaps.
>>> The "Social Static value" of MOQ is extremely basic. It is the
>>> good of the many at the cost of the individual. Full stop! As
>>> said above: a state or country can be part of a
>>> intellect-dominated culture or a social-dominated one, and
>>> Pirsig holds that only the Western culture is fully
>>> intellectualised, i.e: its values pervades our outlook.
>>> Consequently the "bad ideas" are almost invariably high social
>>> value, but as there is no social "dimension" in the
>>> subject/object word view it all get messed up as political
>>> ideologies and "bad" ideas etc. The fist step is to make the
>>> double meaning of society (low value to the intellectual
>>> level/high value to the social level) visible, that is:
>>> recognition of the MOQ.
Was this relevant at all Don H.?
Anyway, one final word: Look how the notion of Q-Intellect as
"thinking itself" keeps messing up the MOQ. If so, everything that
crosses our mind is supposed to be superior value!! Nothing
can be more confusing and I entreat you (all) to look into my SOTAQI
and try to understand what it says. Q-Intellect's value (in the
overall MOQ picture) is the ability - by way of language - to
visualize a subject as different from an object, from this base a
host of derivative values have grown: all more or less centred on the
worth of the individual.
But "thinking itself" Nope! There is a lot of thinking, speaking
and writing going on to forward social value - as demonstrated
in the quoted passages above.
So spaketh
Bodvar
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