Folks-
Well, I thought I might have something to add to this so here goes a ramble...
On 6/4/99 at 1:22 PM +0100, Ian Warburton wrote:
> I reakon that these quotes contradict one another. The first to says to me
> that mankind has been corrupted by society whilst the second says that
> society has saved mankind from itself. Or in other words, man is basically
> good contrasted to man is bad. (O.K, so maybe my interpretation is a bit
> indulgent.)
I don't know that I agree with this interpretation. Pirsig speaks of
"societies and cultures" and then "mankind." To me, each and every
society/culture are subsets of mankind. So, while mankind does not want to
destroy itself, individual societies at war with other societies could very
well want to destroy one another.
What Pirsig is saying to me here is that mankind wants to survive. He also
hopes that it wants to evolve. In order for this to happen, intellectual
values will need to master these static patterns of society and keep them
from killing one another. This is analogous to societal values mastering
static patterns of biology (man) and keeping them from killing one another.
I think Pirsig believes individual instances of mankind to increase in
quality depending on the level of their actions. He finds people acting on
the intellectual level to be better than those acting on the biological
level.
As for societies, in my opinion they are a "higher organism than biological
man" and a lesser one than mankind itself. Mankind can perhaps best be
understood as the super-society.
> The issue of original human nature ( read human biology minus social and
>intellectual patterns )
Framed that way, I'd say that original human nature is good compared to
rocks and stone and base elements. It can even be argued that humans are
better than individual monkeys. I'm not sure you can talk about groups of
humans without including social patterns of some sort. I think that once
you have more than one human you have an elementary social pattern and this
automatically makes humans better than animals and trees (at least the ones
not living in a society).
On 6/6/99 at 1:55 PM -0400, Platt Holden wrote:
> Here's the problem. In Chapter 17, Pirsig says its OK for society to
> kill people to save itself. In Chapter 24, he says people aren’t
> basically good. In Chapter 13 he says people have good ideas like
> “equality” so it’s wrong to kill them.
>
> So we’re faced with Pirsig’s Paradox:
>
> It’s OK for a nation to kill people on behalf of an idea that can only
> come from people who it's wrong for a nation to kill.
Society views individuals as biological entities to be controlled. Each
instance of society, like each man and mankind itself, wants to survive. It
is right for society kill a biological entity that is threatening the
survival of the society, as a society is higher on the MOQ's evolutionary
scale. A society can also kill a biological entity that is threatening the
survival of other members of the society.
Pirsig writes:
"But if an established social structure is not seriously threatened by a
criminal,then an evolutionary morality would argue that there is no moral
justification for killing him."
Throughout this area of Lila, Pirsig seems to be saying that society is
required to kill for its own preservation or to protect patterns which are
better (more evolved). If there is a madman with a gun, it is right to gun
him down to protect the values of society. If, however, he surrenders that
gun and is put into prison, he is no longer a threat to society or its
members and the only activities he has left, biological work and
intellectual thought, are potentially valuable to the society. This makes
the death penalty immoral.
> Something here doesn't compute. I guess it depends on whose side
> you’re on and whose ideas you’re willing to kill (or die) for.
Never kill for ideas, always kill for self-preservation. For what it's
worth, I don't think Pirsig can justify all of this statement in terms of
the MOQ:
"In the case of treason or insurrection or war a criminal's threat to a
society can be very real."
If the criminal is captured, there is no threat and no need to kill. In
fact, as I belive Pirsig points out elsewhere in Lila, that's really the
way you make martyrs and martyrs cause problems for established social
patterns.
> The liberal vs. conservative arguments that have captured many of the
> posts recently are a reflection of the basic moral questions that Pirsig
> raises in the above passages from Lila. Like Ian, I'm confused, not only
> about original human nature as Pirsig sees it (does original human nature
> have good ideas?), but also about how Pirsig views the role of the state
> and how Pirsig's evolutionary morality can help settle many of the
> individual vs. state issues we’ve been arguing about.
The state is there to protect individuals from harm which could come from
themselves (reckless driving, etc), other members of the state (murder,
mayhem), other states (war in terms of being bombed, etc), or even the
state itself (no death penalty). All of these are biological or societal.
By generating theories and ideas (the intellectual level), the individual
helps the state evolve and make correct choices. The individuals, as a
body, should be in control of the state through the use of their intellect.
Since the intellectual level is more dynamic, it is wrong for the state to
try to control it.
This is why I think democracy is a good political theory according to the
MOQ. It is also why I am for free speech and gun control. The first is a
case of the individual having rights over the state, the second is a case
of the state having right over the individual. Thus, I'm a statist and an
individualist.
As for man being inherently good...well, he is both good and not good,
depending on the level he is acting on. All men have the capacity to be
good, not all men are good the majority of the time. Man is also evolving
and is better than he was...at least that seems to be something the MOQ
implies...
That's my take on it...
Cheers,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Brooks <mark@epiphanous.org> <http://www.epiphanous.org/>
How do you know who wrote this? <http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/pgp/>
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