From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Fri Nov 08 2002 - 22:48:16 GMT
Dear Sam,
You're being awfully productive in between nappy changes. Or did you
toilet-train your child within 6 months?!
In reply to your 29/10 7:56 -0000 post: I'm looking forward to discuss the
reification of the levels/patterns/values, 'addition of' versus 'transition
to' the fourth level and the role of ritual in the addition of the fourth
level. These seem much more important to me than this re-naming campaign of
yours.
Behind this re-naming is an interesting discussion about the 'essence' of
the 4th level of course. I do feel sympathy for your argumentation that
'individuals' or rather their defining characteristic,
independent/discriminating judgement, have/has an essential role in the 4th
level (are/is 'distinct to the 4th level'). An important question to me
seems: do 'individuals' in this sense create the 4th level or do the
patterns of values constituting the 4th level enable people to become
'individuals' in this sense? The last feels most 'MoQish' to me. (Cf.
'Quality has Lila' instead of 'Lila has Quality'.) That raises the question
what characterizes these 4th level patterns of values (not 'individuality'
or 'independent/discriminating/conscious judgement', because that is only
enabled by these patterns).
You wrote:
'a full explanation of a judgement reaches a natural terminus in a
description of an individual character (and the virtues they are committed
to), not in the social context within which that individual is embedded.'
and
'I'm not sure that "dependence" is the word I would choose to describe the
relationship of an individual to the fourth level'.
For me a full explanation of a judgement does NOT reach a natural terminus
in a description of an individual character. You CAN go on: by describing
the 4th level patterns of values of which that individual character is an
element and an unique combination. That is partly expressed in the first
lines of the poem I quoted twice before on this list:
'"I" is just some other people's quotes,
a bundle of memories, cravings and hopes.'
Nearly all of my and your thoughts can only be expressed because others have
thought them before; the repetition of those thoughts 'in' different people
is the intellectual pattern of values. The same is true for a lot of your
and my emotions, intuitions and sensations (and for all of your and my
observations, reasons, empathy and -paradoxically- revelations).
You asked whether I 'have any views on the "problem #2" that' you
'articulated' [being the possibly logically coherent objection to your view
that:] 'Human flourishing (eudaimonia) is just a high quality static latch
within the social level; eudaimonic qualities just refer to high quality
social units; eudaimonic values are simply particular types of social value.
The intellect is still at a level above all this.'If you define the social
level in such a way that it includes the highest
available static patterns of quality up to (not including) Sophocles 'human
flourishing' may well have been a high quality social value (contrary to
your reasoning). Even if they were not able to describe it in an easily
recognizable way for us (account for it in a way comparable to Aristotle's
writings) even the shamans of old expressed it in their actions (and
accounted for it in the hero myths they created). Their ability to express
independent judgement and to detach themselves a bit from normal social
roles was exactly what gave them their special position in society. It was
the 'machine language type interface' between social patterns of values and
higher level values.
If you define the social level in the way I do it (by its latch on
unconsciously copied behavior) 'human flourishing' is definitely a 4th level
static value. It needs conscious copying of motivations for action to be
passed on and maintained. Whether it is the best way to define and name the
4th level is a wholly different question... I don't think so.
You were also 'wondering how [I] would describe the nature of the "choosing
unit" at the fourth level'.
I utterly dislike the idea of 'choosing units' at any level. It presupposes
Subject Object Metaphysics. Thinking about 'choosing units' implies thinking
about subjects that choose between (courses of action that more or less
accurately reflect) values reified into objects. The experience of
'independence', of 'discrimination' and of 'judgement' comes first and
subjects (choosing units) and objects (courses of action and values) are
deduced from or created by this 4th level static quality experience.
Behavior comes first. People calling each other to account for their
behavior, demanding convincing motivations, create the experience of
'choice' from options. Action is behavior that is motivated in retrospect.
The need to convince others 'values' copying motives from others and forms
patterns of people motivating their behavior in ways that are recognizably
similar. (E.g. 'God' was created because people developed a habit of
motivating their behavior with 'God told me to ...' in order to get away
with non-conformist behavior.)
Given your/Pirsig's description of the intellectual level in your 31/10
15:55 -0000 post:
'The intellectual level is the level of symbolic social learning, the same
as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
brain, that stand for patterns of experience.',
why don't you propose to rename the 'intellectual level' into 'symbolic
level'?
I guess I'll have to wait for the post in which you are going to present
your alternative to what you consider to be the 'standard account' of the
MoQ.
You asked:
'is there a deeper objection to "historical investigation as a means of
discerning philosophical truth" here?'
History can't be investigated. It can only be rewritten. The story we create
from the results of our investigation of the present all too easily gets
colored by our need to create heroes, individuals 'with whom it all began'.
I distrust such stories. Contrary to what Platt loves to repeat 'Societies
[do NOT] only change one person at a time and someone has to be first'.
Social change is not located in individuals, but in the relations between a
lot of them... Relational patterns change gradually. New patterns need time
to crystallize, to change from exceptions on former patterns that only
'prove past rules' to recognizable new ones. In retrospect -for those that
were there- there is never a specific place and moment in time at which a
pattern of values began, but at best a specific place and moment in time at
which they recognized it -a different place and a different time for
everyone involved-.
I will not comment on your 'standard account of the MoQ'. I'm interested in
YOUR account (YOUR MoQ) in order to compare it with mine. The MoQ will never
be a fixed, standard account. It is a pattern we recognize (or not) in the
different accounts of everyone on this list (with Pirsig's account in 'Lila'
becoming less and less important while the cumulative volume of this list
grows).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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