From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 09 2004 - 20:59:46 BST
Dear Ant:
> Subject: Re: MD The free market of thought
>
> Dear Platt,
>
> Sorry you weren’t too impressed with the Marxist rhetoric so, on this
> occasion, I will attempt to deal with this important issue concerning the
> “free market of thought” with the seriousness it merits.
Thanks. Much appreciated.
> Ant McWatt stated on September 7th:
>
> Remember a free market means a dynamic system whether economic or
> educational and the latter (in the MOQ) is primary.
>
> Platt Holden commented on this September 7th:
>
> And educational dynamic system primary in the MOQ? I don't think so. Pirsig
> blasted intellectuals in Lila, calling their obeisance to scientific
> objectivity “hogwash” (Lila, 22). Further negative assessments of
> intellectuals can be found in Chapters 22 and 24.
In Lila, Pirsig specifically defines the free market as an economic
system. Nowhere does he say anything about about a free market
"educational system."
"The Metaphysics of Quality says the free market makes everybody richer
by preventing static economic patterns from setting in and stagnating
economic growth. That is the reason the major capitalist economies of the
world have done so much better since World War II than the major socialist
economies." (Lila, 17)
> Ant McWatt states September 8th:
>
> These references to intellectuals (i.e. remember these are social patterns)
> and the intellectual level struck me as rather vague and unhelpful
> (definite quotes, please Platt!) so I re-read Chapters 22 and 24.
Please clarify why references to intellectuals are "social patterns." Are
you saying intellectuals are social patterns, or that references are
social patterns? Here is the definite quote:
When people asked, "If no culture, including a Victorian culture,
can say what is right and what is wrong, then how can we ever know what is
right and what is wrong?" the answer was, 'That's easy. Intellectuals will tell
you. Intellectuals, unlike members of studiable cultures, know what they're
talking and writing about, because what they say isn't culturally relative
What they say is absolute. This is because intellectuals follow science, which
is objective. An objective observer does not have relative opinions because he
is nowhere within the world he observes." Good old Dusenberry- This. was
the same hogwash he denounced in the 1950s in Montana. (Lila, 22)
> This
> clearly indicates that the above comment of Platt’s is misleading (it is
> indeed first class “hogwash” itself) because he has erroneously conflated
> SOM intellectual patterns (i.e. a concern with “objectivity” as providing
> the absolute truth) with the MOQ’s intellectual level as a whole (in which
> the SOM intellectual pattern is but one of a myriad of differing
> intellectual patterns).
No. I merely repeated what Pirsig said about SOM "intellectuals."
> Firstly, in Chapter 22, Pirsig makes it clear that the intellectual level
> is given a higher priority in the MOQ than the social level:
No doubt.
> It should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality
> supports this dominance of intellect over society. It says intellect is a
> higher level of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level
> than society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for
> a society to destroy an idea.
Which is why Pirsig is against the death penalty in most cases, and why
individuals, the source of ideas, are morally superior to society.
> McWatt notes: Pirsig then qualifies the above statement in that the
> SOM-based intellect that has been in control (during the 20th century) has
> a defect; namely it essentially perceives morals as unreal:
Right. The SOM intellectual pattern has a defect in it -- no provision for
morals.
> McWatt notes: Subsequently, in Chapter 24, Pirsig makes it clear that it is
> only social patterns which seek to dominant intellectual patterns which are
> immoral; not social patterns as a whole, that it is indeed moral for
> intellect to assist society in its control of biological patterns:
Right. But it isn't moral for SOM intellect to control economic social
patterns because they don't recognize DQ. Recall that Pirsig says the free
market economic system is more moral than the socialist system for that
reason.
> The paralysis of America is a paralysis of moral patterns.
> Morals can't function normally because morals have been declared
> intellectually illegal by the subject-object metaphysics that dominates
> present social thought.
Please keep the phrase, "dominates present social thought" in mind for
later.
> These subject-object patterns were never designed
> for the job of governing society. They're not doing it. When they're put
> in the position of controlling society, of setting moral standards and
> declaring values, and when they then declare that there are no values and
> no morals, the result isn't progress. The result is social catastrophe.
> It's this intellectual pattern of amoral “objectivity” that is to blame for
> the social deterioration of America, because it has undermined the static
> social values necessary to prevent deterioration. In its condemnation of
> social repression as the enemy of liberty, it has never come forth with a
> single moral principle that distinguishes a Galileo fighting social
> repression from a common criminal fighting social repression. It has, as a
> result, been the champion of both. That's the root of the problem.
Is this is the type of thinking you want to taxpayers to support? Most
universities are dominated by SOM.
> McWatt notes: Hence, in the subsequent paragraphs, the criticism by Pirsig
> of the SOM intellectual sentiment that the social level needs to be
> undermined. However, it is important to note that this is not a criticism
> by Pirsig of the MOQ intellectual level per se. As such, it is important
> to note that these two types of intellectual patterns are being
> mischievously conflated by Platt in his arguments:
If anyone is doing the conflating, it's you. To you, the intellectual
level, SOM and the MOQ are all intellectual patterns of the same type,
whereas both SOM and the MOQ are subspecies of the intellectual level.
> McWatt notes: Continuing, in Chapter 24, Pirsig then concludes that (the
> intellectually-based) MOQ provides a solution to the amorality caused by
> SOM intellect’s failure to properly perceive the distinctions between
> intellectual, social and biological patterns:
Not to mention SOM intellect's failure to perceive DQ. I say it's immoral
to support SOM thinking with taxpayer funds.
> McWatt notes: And this is why completely unfettered commercial free
> markets in all aspects of life can lead to immorality – without any
> intellectual control these social patterns may eventually dominate
> intellectual and Dynamic interests rather than serve them (as governments
> and commercial organizations sometimes do with university curriculums).
I notice you have switched from free markets in general to "commercial"
free markets. What happened to "dynamic educational systems?" And why
don't completely unfettered educational free markets lead to immorality,
especially if dominated (as we know they are) by SOM intellectuals?
> Thus when Platt states that “Governments… never hand out taxpayer money
> without strings attached, including to universities” the morality of these
> conditions depend on whether or not they are social or intellectual. Only
> if the conditions undermine intellectual independence are they immoral and
> is why Pirsig emphasized in ZMM that the true Church man in the university
> system must maintain the (intellectual value of) truth no matter what the
> social pressures are.
Precisely the point. With postmodernism , universities have made a
determined move away from maintaining the intellectual value of truth.
Further, we have seen what "intellectual independence" has wrought in the
name of SOM -- in Pirsig's words, "social catastrophe."
> Similarly, the morality of the stipend that Pirsig received from the
> Guggenheim Foundation for writing LILA again depends on whether, or not,
> the conditions limited intellectual independence. However, it would
> certainly be moral for a government or a private organization such as the
> Guggenheim to set certain restrictions e.g. that a grant be spent on an
> intellectual purpose and not a biological one such as buying alcohol.
Would it be OK, considering the immorality of SOM, to restrict grants to
only those professors who adopted the MOQ?
> As
> far as “commercial interests” are concerned, no doubt they bestow grants
> “on ivory tower professors” to provide the high quality engineers, science
> and business graduates so essential to maintain the profits of these
> commercial interests.
Since commercial interests are private, have earned their own money, and
cannot back their restrictions with guns, I don't see a problem.
> Finally, to state that “To put artists in the same category of police,
> soldiers, doctors and employers is an insult to all” strikes me as a very
> strange comment coming from someone purporting to support the MOQ and who
> occasionally likes to eulogize about the merits of beauty. Let’s put it
> this way, doctors maintain the stability of biological patterns; employers,
> soldiers and police maintain the stability of social patterns all of which,
> in an ideal world, serve intellectual purposes (at least, in the MOQ they
> do).
Well, if you put it that way, every occupation supports some level
somehow.
> While, art may not directly contribute to maintaining the stability
> of the lower static levels necessary for the “well-being” of the
> intellectual level, it provides us with the intuitive insight to the beauty
> and mystery of the universe.
Very well put.
> Without this draw of the Dynamic, the
> existence of the static levels (and especially the intellectual) is
> considerably diminished. Northrop’s “The Logic of the Sciences and
> Humanities” makes this latter point very well.
Which is why are put artists ahead of the pack, the good ones, that is.
Finally, referring back to an earlier passage, since we both want a free
market of thought, is it correct to call this market "social thought?"
Thanks for your thoughts,
Platt
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