From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Mon Nov 18 2002 - 18:37:04 GMT
Hi David,
As with the mysticism thread, I'd like to try and refocus this one. So I'll
pick out one aspect which I'd like to pursue, because I think it gets to the
nub of our disagreement.
You said:
> Perhaps I'm not "listening" that well, because I don't really hear
> the intellectual or mystical in what you're saying, at least that's not
the
> thrust of it. What I see are various attempts to paint social level values
> as intellectual ones. This is usually where I jump in to try to explain
why
> they can't rightly be called intellecutal. So its not that I put you in a
> box, these are conclusions based on what you've written here, often
directly
> to me. At this point I should tell you that I certainly don't take you for
a
> reactionary, a fundamentalists or anything like that. Not at all. The
values
> you mistakenly present as intellectual are the very finest examples at the
> social level and you seem to hit on the one's that don't contradict
> intellectual values. The one's really worth keeping. You strike me as a
> classicist, a well educated and intelligent person. But still.... as
> wonderful as it is, the social level is no longer the most wonderful
thing.
> The most wonderful thing includes all that, is built on that, AND has
> something more.
My main point is that 'intellectual' doesn't really capture the essence of
the fourth level. Now, that could be because I'm using too narrow a
construction of 'intellectual', but the problem is that this narrow
understanding is precisely the one that Pirsig identifies and endorses (ie
"the intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the collection and
manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of
experience.") Although, having said that, I think there could be a way for
Pirsig to unpack that which doesn't make it 'narrow' - but he doesn't do
that, and it would run counter to what I see as the main emphasis of Lila.
So what I have tried to do is describe lots of things which are a) not
intellectual and b) not social (ie not third level). From where I stand,
much of what you have said can be summarised as 'those things aren't
intellectual' - which I completely agree with. It seems as if you are taking
the social level to mean 'all human elements which are non-intellectual', so
everything that I am describing is _by definition_ at the third level, when
it isn't intellectual. But I'm objecting to that way of classifying things
as a whole. I completely agree with you that certain things aren't
intellectual (eg friendship, athletics, Shakespeare - all the elements of
individual human flourishing, the 'eudaimonic values'). I'm saying they
don't fit properly in the social level either; that they represent something
of higher quality; and that they are characteristic of the fourth level.
I'll repeat the three 'rejections' that I think would 'justify' Pirsig:
1. Pirsig doesn't actually define 'intellectual' in the narrow fashion.
2. The 'eudaimonic' values are social values.
3. The 'eudaimonic' values are illusory.
Although logically I think you're arguing for 2., I don't think you've
actually come out with a positive articulation of the way in which the
'eudaimonic' values that I am arguing for qualify as third level - you've
asserted it frequently, but you haven't argued for it (or if you have, I
missed it).
As I think friendship is one of the highest 'eudaimonic' values (I think
that, to use your language, it includes social values, it builds on social
values AND it has something more), why don't you demonstrate that it is in
fact a third-level value? (That it _doesn't_ have something more?) If you
achieve that, you'll have blown a great big hole in my argument.
Sent in the spirit of friendship!!
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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