for fintan & glove & squad:
fintan wrote:
You wanna see what a society with total individual freedom is like, then
read
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
lithien writes:
in Lord of the Flies there are two groups of kids. the ones who revert back
to bestiality, as symbolized by the beast, and the ones who try to preserve
social order. the regression is one to the antecedent biological level,
survival of the fittest, not the intellectual one. but i have an example of
a book where the intellect tries to circumvent society by supporting the
biological level (which is the way Pirsig says it does) the book is Heart
of Darkness by Conrad. here we have an exemplary individual who is above
the rest, Mr. Kurtz who abandons society and goes native. Marlowe who goes
in search of him represents society. what he discovers is madness. without
the restraint of society, intellect goes berserk. however, there is a
transcendence of sorts experienced both by Kurtz and Marlowe. Kurtz' last
words: "the horror, the horror" point towards the realization of the
biological in us, ie. our capacity for violence. the same beast which
appeared in Lord of the Flies as an outside symbol becomes internalized
within. The Heart of Darkness (the biological level) exists in all of us
and it needs societal order and restraint to operate, perhaps not freely,
but productively. this is needed for the species to survive. to revert
into total freedom would be chaotic and would be a regression not a step
forward. we arose from chaos like the greeks myths ascertain, but need not
submit to it for a little while...lol. society and intellect dance a
tenous line wavering between order and freedom. too much of either is
disastrous. the dance itself when it is done just right is Dynamic Quality
which is Morality. that is where the Value lies. Morality is then defined
by the proper relationship between levels. the proper relationship meaning
the dance which perpetuates both with just enough freedom to create change
and just enough order to prevent chaos. the word "dance" connotes
creativity and passion given rein in an artistic but controlled fashion.
fintan writes:
Could intellect have been the servant of society back then?
lithien adds:
yes, fintan, intellect arose as a way to perpetuate society. but it is the
curse of the levels that they forget and try to rebel against that which
gave it birth. this is done as they strive towards freedom from the level
which is trying to restrict them.
fintan continues:
Personally I have had enough of
the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Especially the evil.
lithien writes:
i believe that the tree of knowledge of good and evil is the beginning of
consciouness in Man. the beginning of SOM if you will. the moment when
"the other" was discerned. perhaps what we term as evil is the conscious
effort of the individual to perpetuate himself in spite of "the others".
like you said in another post: one man's good is another man's evil. after
all, we dont see a hurricane as evil because it is a natural phenomenon.
well, i ask you, what are we? aren't we animals and as such an expression
of nature? how can we then be evil?
what i have just expressed is at the core of this month's discussion of
Morality. not Morality as defined in human's terms of politics, crime, etc.
but Morality as Value...as Quality. what "Quality equals Morality" means is
that which has more value for any one thing to survive. so that if during
the plane crash in the andes, the survivors resorted to cannibalism in order
to survive. that action was Moral because it had more Value: Life.
we are also learning that natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, forest
fires, etc. have Quality of their own. there is a renewal that takes place
after the clearing away of the old which is needed for Life to continue.
there may not be Quality in the loss of human life at the moment in Central
America. thousands of lives have been lost and the most advanced level has
higher quality. but what if that one act of destruction, in spite of the
loss in human life, has beneficial ramifications for the survivors?
perhaps, the benefits will not be seen by this generation. human life is so
short that we cannot properly gauge the workings of thousands or millions of
years in time. but as Shelley said in Ode to the West Wind: If Winter
comes can Spring be far behind?
in conclusion:
the break down of society causes a return to biological values which is seen
as evil because it endangers human life and its quality of living.
according to Pirsig, the next level intellect arose from the social level to
protect it but, especially in the West, has run away from its original
purpose and is supporting the biological level against the very level that
it was supposed to serve because it strives for Freedom.
when a level restrains the next level then it tries to revert to the
antecedent one. so, once again we see, that there is a delicate balance
that must be sought in order to optimize the original relationships between
each level which is what gives it Value. this dance between the levels is
DQ and that is what Morality means to me.
glove, it was your posts to fintan which finally clarified and crystallized
my thoughts on Morality = Quality. i couldnt have done it without you.
lithien
http://members.tripod.com/~lithien/Lila2.html
-----Original Message-----
From: glove <glove@indianvalley.com>
To: moq_discuss@moq.org <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Saturday, November 14, 1998 8:29 PM
Subject: MD MOQ is Reason in RighT relation
>Hi squad, o'brienje & glove,
>Just used your post as a launchpad glove- didn't mean to imply you
>support the direction i'm taking it in.
>
>hi Fintan,
>
>the art of writing is very difficult and one of the hardest things to do is
>to paraphrase someone else correctly. i am happy that you recognize freedom
>as an essential point of view in the Metaphysics of Quality. that way we
>begin to make progress on seeing that it is not the Metaphysics of Quality
>that is mistaken, but rather a mis-labeling of what each level represents
>within our analogy.
>
>Fintan wrote:
>
>Yes, I admit all societies today are potentially repressive, and therefore
>the individual must have the freedom in which to challenge that society.
>This freedom is at the heart of our obsession with FREEDOM.
>But.....and it is a BIG but. The function of society is to RESTRAIN
>individual
>freedom. (What? did he really just say that?)
>Yes I did say it.
>You wanna see what a society with total individual freedom is like, then
>read
>Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Or check out the behaviour of a three
>year old
>throwing a tantrum. The infant is a demagogue. I do not mince words. If God
>had not
>cleverly designed it so that infants were considerably smaller than us,
then
>we would
>be living in a dictatorship of the kindergarden.
>
>Fintan, here it seems to me that you are confusing lower biological
patterns
>of value with higher intellectual patterns of value. i say lower only in
the
>context of the whole Metaphysics of Quality, as each level contains its own
>moral values. as a child, humans are incapable of perceiving the
>intellectual level as yet, as a rule. the childs tantrums are a regression
>from the social level to the biological unless they are used
pre-meditively.
>then we move into something altogether different i suppose. the child has
>transcended the social layer and is using the intellect to "get his/her
way"
>by disrupting social patterns with a tantrum. this becomes a pattern in
some
>people that lasts all thru adulthood...ah, the unbridled passion of really
>giving that 7-iron a Good fling after an extremely Bad shot!
>
>Fintan writes:
>
>Is the adult any better?
>
>Fintan, you have a point. but still, i think we must agree that there is a
>sequence of events that led each of us to this point in life where we can
>get together via cyberspace and discuss morality.
>
>Fintan writes:
>
>So, I say again: Intellect should submit to society- where that society is
>good.
>
>Fintan, i agree to a point. social static latches are needed, just as
>inorganic static latches and biological static latches. still, intellectual
>patterns of value lead to Dynamic freedom and cannot be restrained morally.
>the key is to use these self-destructive patterns to transcend the self, in
>some sense. that naturally leads back into Buddhism but it doesnt
>necessarily have to. Buddhism is a social pattern of value and not an
>intellectual one unless its purpose is under-stood, much like the child who
>under-stands the reason for the tantrum and uses it to some end.
>
>Fintan writes:
>
>Or to put it another way:
>One man's PROGRESS is another man's WAKING NIGHTMARE.
>
>Fintan, i am sure Ted Kaszinsky, the hermit uni-bomber, would fully agree
>with you. a balance is desired in all things.
>
>Fintan writes:
>
>
>Let's imagine the un-imaginable. That there once existed a Utopia.
>Back........before the flood, for arguments sake.
>Could intellect have been the servant of society back then? I can see how
it
>could
>have worked that mind served only the GOOD. Personally I have had enough of
>the
>fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Especially the evil
>part. (sic).
>
>Fintan, i happen to be a believer that myths and legends contain kernels of
>truths revealed thru metaphors. if the time of the Golden Age is to be
taken
>literally then we have indeed fallen from grace.
>
>Fintan writes:
>
>I am not suggesting that we try to attain Utopia- rather that we try REGAIN
>Utopia.
>We blew it. Naturally- from our fallen state- it is easy to castigate
>Utopia. But not so easy,
>however- if we rename it PARADISE to imagine THOSE gates forever shut
>against us.
>Was Utopia actually BLAND. I think not. Look at the variety of season,
>location and
>circumstance we find around us today. If fallen life is this varied- then
>how much more
>variety may it have had before. Here in Ireland, in the past, most
everybody
>had a talent-
>a high talent like music or painting. Now, most everybody listens to
>SUPERGroups who
>make a pseudo-music for the vast majority who are now PASSIVE. That
>combination
>of a passive majority and an pseudo-Entertainer minority is a classsic
>EGO-ridden structure.
>Let me make this clear: The voice which is amplified is ego-driven. The
>voice which is
>naturally heard is in RighT relation to the listener. (RT is the morpheme
>{thanks Glove})
>The intellect in RighT relation to society- implies a relationship between
>intellect and
>society. Intellect serving- not in a blind service- but in an ACTIVE
>service.
>
>Fintan, you are welcome. i dont mean to pick nits but i thought perhaps you
>had another meaning in mind. you have the right idea in mind, but not the
>correct approach, in my opinion. lets take the American Indians as an
>example. many years ago, the white european settlers appeared on the shores
>here and took the land for their own. they moved the Natives to
>reservations, usually on the very poorest land that no one else wanted
>anyway. the years went by and things were very bad for the Natives. poverty
>and disease were rampant. alcoholism and drug abuse epidemic. and then
>something happened.
>
>a few individuals began counciling the tribes to go back to basic value
>systems instilled by their ancestors. and they also realized that the very
>laws that kept them on the reservations also exempted them from
>anti-gambling laws. casinos paved the way to an increased standard of
living
>for all tribal members. there is a land dispute underway now in my area
>between the Shabbona Indians and the local
>government, which it looks like the Indians are going to win. and it is
>their intension to build the first land-based casino here in illinios.
>
>i only mention this because the white europeans did not " wipe-out " the
>Native Americans at all. Dynamic Quality has a way of turning disasterous
>defeats into just the way things are.
>
>thanks for sharing your thoughts and many best wishes
>
>glove
>
>
>http://members.tripod.com/~Glove_r/Bohr.html
>
>
>
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