Hi Glove (and others),
I've been thinking about what you wrote; this in particular:
"….As population grows, so does social unrest. Here in the United States, our
prisons are overflowing and the only answer that is given is to build more
prisons. This is not an intellectual answer as a vaccine against the AIDS virus would be.
……I seem to sense some great changes coming, but these changes will not be
made without a total breakdown of society as we understand it today..."
As Pirsig notes, the different levels (in this case biological and social) don't much resemble one another. Thus a social prescription or "vaccine", such as building more prisons, doesn't really seem to fix the underlying problem. Government sometimes tries this and loads up the social syringe with $$$; but all it usually achieves is the momentary numbing of pain which masks the real problem.
The intellectual solution for all of these social problems is actually well known, although the people who put this into effect aren't always the skilled social medics they could be. So what's the intellectual solution?
One of the guys on my crew knows the answer quite well. When one of us says or does something that he finds to be deviant, he'll shake his head and say; "I think you need some counseling". This counseling has long been used by individuals to help others rise up from the clouds of emotional/social imperfection. The right application of intellect (along with helpful biological cures) will raise most people up to a functional level that keeps them out of trouble with the rest of the group.
Intellect, which in India's Sankhya philosophy is called buddhi, is the natural movement of a calm mind toward truth. Buddhi isn't limited to rationality in the western sense but also includes intuitive movements of the calm mind toward truth. A good councilor helps a person clouded by emotional/social problems to move their mind free of those static containment's toward a state of clarity that is energizing. They point out truths or demonstrate the points at which their clients are stuck in static framework. So a councilor is a facilitator of DQ for a stuck person. They demonstrate the way out of the South Indian monkey trap! And often the technique for getting free is remembered by the client.
This is the way people have always done it. The problem is that the ratio of good councilors to people who are stuck, is not good. And as Pirsig said, those councilors don't work for free! They require a lot of scrilla (scrilla means $$$ in the language being taught to me by my young inter-city apprentices). Some of the old-time liberals sort of understood this and got government to pump a lot of money in this direction. But there was another problem. Not enough really good councilors. Not that the councilors weren't sincere, just that they themselves weren't expert in the use of buddhi. So they could only do a little and when the conservatives started to see the return on their tax dollars, they revolted. So today in the U.S., we've slid back to the less dynamic approach of just building more prisons. I'd personally like to see people not let out of prisons until they receive the benefits of good counseling. But as both good councilors and the money to pay for them!
are in short supply, this is a solution for another time (my specialty!).
But I see some good stuff going on too. There are a lot of good public service ads these days that provide decent counseling for not too much money. I see this as being toward a good solution. But of course, I would *love* to have the money to produce some public service ads for a group in this society that in my opinion is very neglected. The so-called rich people. It seems to me that the ruling class in this country is only a notch or too ahead of the ruling class of Nazi era Germany. A lot of imprisonment in poor static intellectual framework. It's not just the wild biological kids who are "destroying society" but also their dull, intellectually clouded leaders from the ruling class. The fight between these two groups *is* social unrest.
I live and work here in Orange County California, which is one of the wealthier and conservative places you'll find in this world. 20 years ago when I was an apprentice, my first job was at the home of a very wealthy old libertarian newspaper publisher. I really like all of these old, wealthy conservatives. With them I get more money for the quality I give them. With some of their snotty-ass, middle age children, I tend to get the opposite--less money for more quality. My company slogan is, All The Quality You Can Afford and some people just want more and more and more and really don't care about anything other then the little feeling of social power they get when they're able to grind out the best possible deal. A few of them would even pay you a day's feed in oats and Spam for a days hard work if they could.
But I've watched and studied this ruling class for many years now. All in all, they're not much different from everybody else. They need a lot of counseling and could even afford it if there were enough good councilors. People are always struggling for freedom from static containment, but for a lack of Buddhi, they end up getting sucked back down into a lot of half-baked static intellectual patterns, social wars and biological diseases.
I think my "public service" ad for the ruling class (of which I count myself as a member) might feature a tableau such as this: A friendly looking character like the Dali Lama would be standing on a hilltop talking to a visitor from another world who has come to view the earth and its people. The host would tell the guest of all the good things and bad while a visual ran depicting various SQ and DQ scenes from the four levels. The guest, having come from a place and time of higher civilization exclaims;
"I'm surprised to see the low level of Quality in this world".
The host nods in agreement. "Well, it's all the Quality we can afford at this time".
"But you have everything you need here!"
"It's true", says the host, "the kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, but men see it not!"
Anyway, even if I could afford to run some public service ads for the ruling class, I doubt if the TV would go for it. The big business people would probably consider it to be in conflict with their interests!
Well, so much for long -winded spells of writing from me. I gotta stack of dishes in the sink that you wouldn't believe and if I don't get to 'em I'll have to pay to get it done.
Bill
Best regards,
elg14 mailto:elg14@earthlink.net
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