To all those who are Guilty of presuming:
>From hardback LILA, page 163. "First there were the moral codes that
established the supremacy of biological life over inanimate nature.
Second, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
social order over biological life - conventional morals like
proscriptions against drugs, murder, adultery, theft and the like. Third
there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
intellectual order over the social order - democracy, trial by jury,
freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Finally there is a fourth
Dynamic morality which isn't a code."
Pirsig doesn't specifically name the presumption of innocence on page
163, but I think its obvious that it fits with the other legal concepts
he lists there. His examples show what to look for in discovering what
values and levels are in conflict. Notice the social level's emphasis on
the body - as in, drugs, murder, and adultery.
Notice the intellectual level's emphasis on the mind - as in rational
politics, formal legal protections, and a tolerance for practically any
human discourse.
As a student of history, I find it helps to ask about the age of the
thing involved. It seems like the social patterns of value can be
identified and differentiated from intellectual patterns of value by
their persistence. You know, like the Ceaser, Czar, Kaiser idea. Since
the social level preceeds the intellectual level on the evolutionary
ladder, it also preceeded the intellect in time too. The social level
existed before the intellect ever came along and evolved according to
its own value system. And I think it is also important to remember that
intellectual patterns can't effect that evolution. The intellect can't
change these ancient social patterns any more than a society can change
the organisms that live in it. Isn't it DQ that is really responsable
for all evolution, and not static patterns? The higher level of values
can't change the lower ones, they can only restrain, harness or
otherwise manipulate them - which is like the difference between
training a dog and turning it into a bunny.
In spite of the restraints put on the Brujo by his society, I think
Pirsig was generally saying that native Americans were more free and
more in touch in DQ than their European counterparts. Their
freedom-loving patterns of value were absorbed by the American mythos
and logos. And so we hold these truths to be self-evident... endowed by
their creator with certain inalienable rights and that AMONG THESE are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson only names three
inalienable rights but they are AMONG others. The constitution names
even more of theses certain rights in the first ten amendments, the Bill
of Rights, but the same constitution also specifically says that the
list is NOT to be considered complete. This forms a government that
seems to respect the boundry between social and intellectual domains. It
seems to respect the open-ended, dynamic and evolutionary nature of the
intellect. It even refuses to name all of the rights, as if it were an
ineffable mystery. And how similar is "self-evident" and "direct
awareness"? OK, maybe I reach a little too far.
LILA page 164 "Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at war
with society, seeking to subjugate society, to put society under lock
and key. An evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to do
so, but it also contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens its
people's physical health endanger it own stability, so does an
intellectual pattern that weakens and destroys the health of its social
base also endanger its own stability"
Balance isn't a bad word to describe the relations between levels, but I
think its more a matter of respect. If the U.S. Presidency is the same
as all the various Ceasers, then we ought not dispose of that
institution. The intellect can "subjugate" that underlying social
pattern with election laws and term limits. But its repeated persistence
in history demonstrates a reality that is, to a certain extent, beyond
our control. We can tame it, but we can't kill it without "endangering
our own stability". Makes radical revolution seem rather foolish, don't
you think?
Franz Kafka is spinning in his grave. As a principle, "Presumption of
Guilt" is an exteme bias in favor of social values over intellectual
values and is highly immoral. Such a society would be a nightmare for
its citizens and I have no doubt that it would fail in the long run.
David B.
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
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