In a message dated 98-10-25 18:24:56 EST, Kilian wrote:
<< This is a hard question to answer, because it calls into question, (to a
certain extent) the nature of the human condition. Do humans have
instincts? If so, are they violent ones, as Freud contended? Most
predatory animals have the capacity to set up "ambushes" through
stalking of prey etc., but I doubt few would argue that animals are
capable of realzing the "intelectual" level of SQ. I suppose I would
say that the driving force, the inspiration so to speak, behind the
action existed on the biological level, but that the means with which it
was carried out were contained within the intellectual sphere. Can an
action exist on one or more levels simultaneously? Or can such an
activity, when disected, contain more than one level? Common sense says
"yes" but I'm not sure what this metaphysics would say. >>
This is exactly what must be discussed to truly "discover' the MOQ as a
superior metaphysics to others. This discussion seems much more fascinating
to me than trying to define DQ. And the terrain is so much more undeveloped
out here.
As a response, I would say we need a good metaphor or analogy for the
situation.
At first i thought it was the late twentieth century intellectual
destabilization of social controls over biology. I considered that people
today (particularly in the USA) think the 10,000 year development of social
mores to dominate the biological desires is just outdated, primitive thinking.
All the rules were meant for those people without the culture of freedom and
the 'sophistication' (sophist) of today. And I remember thinking now about
how the parents of those kids were thought to have been relatively good
parents that let their kids have quite a bit of freedom. With my new
membership in these discussions I'm thinking that perhaps the parents thought
that it was up the children to decide what is right and wrong and for them to
make decisions what ideology and groups to live in, not giving guidance as
much as freedom. This is especially evident in the American way of thinking
that has nothing to do with what came before the twentieth century. And it is
most apparent in the Dominant Culture (White America) that doesn't have a
specific cultural identity that is popularily held. We all know that the
great proportion of serial killers are white males. Is this correlated to our
discussion? Does minority culture keep these minority peoples more socially
in check? What I'm coming to is that Intellectually, Western thinking has
gotten into thinking that it determines how biology should be kept in control
and Pirsig says this is morally wrong. It is the bailiwick of Social Quality.
The social controls are out there (religion, laws, common sense rules, etc.),
but intellectually we all have many problems with them. This part is correct
because we need to question them. But we have a big difficulty in replacing
the ones we decide are deficient in some way. Without an entire Social
Quality replacement, I would say MOQ would say that we have to leave all
Social Quality in place. This argument is similar to the argument to killing
oneself or throwing out the computer because you didn't like the program. But
these analogies are not sufficient in this situation.
I want to go back to the analogy thing. The above is what I first thought
of when the question was posed. But I think I need a better illustrative
analogy for the original question -why those boys did what they did. I'm
still thinking...I'll get back to you if I think of something.
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