From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 16 2004 - 15:02:53 BST
Ant,
> I do agree with you that MOQ Discuss is a “free market place of thought”
> though I’m very sorry to hear that some US state legislatures (i.e. social
> patterns) are attempting to impose limits (i.e. read right-wing views) of
> thought (i.e. intellectual patterns) on state-supported universities.
I don't know where you got that idea. The purpose of the Academic Bill of
Rights is to remove, not impose, limits on thought at state-supported
universities.
> Though a similar “Academic Bill of Rights” would be a good idea if applied
> to break up the monopoly of the limited spectrum of political thought found
> in Washington, in an university context, such a policy will be a disaster.
Are you proposing that elections of representatives to Congress be
abolished by law? Incredible.
> While a plural spectrum of thought is ideally a good attribute at
> university level, this type of artificial imposition is immoral and
> Soviet-like. It would be like Horse imposing a policy where you and Ham
> Priday would be allowed to make ten posts a day on MOQ Discuss while the
> rest of us could post only one. The only moral way for the Right to
> dominate the “free market place of thought” in universities (or elsewhere)
> is through the quality of their intellectual!
> arguments. (I do take it that you wholeheartedly agree with me here?)
What we have now in universities is precisely what you would object to in
your hypothetical Horse policy. Opposing views to leftist ideology are
systematically quashed on many college campuses. Intellectual arguments
against the prevailing orthodoxy are not permitted. (I do take it you
wholeheartedly agree with me that this is immoral.)
> As you ask, I highly doubt that Pirsig (as a free thinking intellectual)
> would ever support such a bill. You only have to read his experience (in
> ZMM) with the Republicans at Montana State College to realise this. The
> teaching only college they tried to implement at Montana was done to give
> an impression of a high quality education on the cheap (through rigged
> examinations which all students had to pass) while, in reality, they
> reduced quality.
Republicans set this up?
> “[Montana State College] was what could euphemistically be called a
> ‘teaching college.’ At a teaching college you teach and you teach and you
> teach with no time for research, no time for contemplation, no time for
> participation in outside affairs. Just teach and teach and teach until your
> mind grows dull and your creativity vanishes and you become an automaton
> saying the same dull things over and over to endless waves of innocent
> students who cannot understand why you are so dull, lose respect and fan
> this disrespect out into the community. The reason you teach and you teach
> and you teach is that this is a very clever way of running a college on the
> cheap while giving a false appearance of genuine education.” (ZMM, 1974,
> Chapter 13, beginning of)
I don't see any reference to "Republicans."
> >> Intellectuals per se are a social grouping i.e. a social group that
> >> professionally engages in intellectually orientated work (usually in an
> > >educational setting).
>
> >By this definition it seems the only people we can call “intellectuals”
> >are college professors.
>
> Is that right, Platt? What about college lecturers, researchers and
> post-grads? And authors such as Pirsig or Wilber?
What's the difference between a college lecturer and other lecturers?
What's the difference between college researchers and other researchers?
What's the difference between college grads and post-grads? Since when are
Wilber and Pirsig part of an "educational setting?"
> >How about media pundits, innovate business people
> >and researchers in the private sector?
> As with “SOM” in your misleading criticisms of intellectuals, I can’t see
> any reference to “public” or “private” in my definition.
"Educational setting" sets your definition apart from the private sector
which consists of businesses providing goods and services at a profit in
order to support the educational sector.
> >Are not Bill Buckley, Bill Gates and Wallace Carothers
> >(inventor of nylon) intellectuals?
> I think this issue depends (like defining “social” or “intellectual”), on
> how far you want to stretch a definition. If you stretch it too far it
> becomes useless because, for instance, everything becomes social or
> intellectual. I’d draw the line at what tends to be a person’s full time
> occupation so while Bill Gates and Wallace Carothers would definitely be
> out (as “intellectuals”), Bill Buckley’s position would be more ambiguous.
> As far as he isn’t a stooge for the Right (as independence of thought is,
> no doubt, a requirement for being an intellectual) he is possibly an
> intellectual though I also have an impression is that his “day job” these
> days tends to be more as a political commentator.
So, we are to rule out as intellectuals political commentators, innovators
and researchers (in the private sector)? Incredible.
> >Besides, Pirsig
> >said that anyone who is up to reading Lila occupied the intellectual level
> > defining it as the “same as mind.” I think that would include a lot more
> >people than you account for.
>
> You’re getting confused between the social understanding of “intellectual”
> and the intellectual level again. Just because you might employ
> intellectual abilities in your job as a head of Microsoft or reading LILA,
> doesn’t mean (in my definition, at least) that you are in the social group
> of intellectuals.
Looks like your definition is far afield of Pirsig's.
> As far as your other replies to my last e-mails (as well as to DMB), a
> couple of other issues particularly strike me.
>
> > A “Buddhist philosopher” is an oxymoron…
>
> I think only a person relatively unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy would
> try that on. (Come on Platt, you know that you should have qualified your
> previous criticism of intellectuals with the prefix “SOM” and I’m afraid no
> amount of smoke screening on your part is going to get you off that
> particular hook – Get Real!).
Nice try at a smokescreen. You have yet to identify any Buddhist
philosophers that have had any significance influence in the West which is
dominated by SOM whether you want to admit it or not. Buddhism is a
religion more than a philosophy. When you see monasteries and monks
associated with a particular worldview, you can bet you're looking at a
religious pattern.
> Moreover, there’s an element of compassion in Buddhism which you would do
> well to take on board (it is absolutely ludicrous that anyone purporting to
> support the MOQ can imply that “health care for everybody” is immoral) and
> it might help you see that you are undermining the MOQ with your continuing
> tendency to place social value patterns above intellectual levels. A good
> dose of Buddhism (or a spell with the Native American Church even?) would
> also assist in giving a more enlightened world view more akin to the spirit
> of the MOQ.
The MOQ is an intellectual treatise, not a spiritual guide. Health care
for everybody is a social pattern which, in the MOQ, is trumped by
intellectual considerations, namely, freedom to choose.
> Moreover, to prevent your continued confusion with the ideal forms of
> social systems (such as socialism, capitalism etc) and their actual
> manifestations as found in the West or in Asia, (as I can’t be bothered to
> go through your last e-mail to correct all these logical errors again –
> I’ve got a thesis to finish) I think you really have to read Northrop’s
> “The Meeting of East and West” and/or “The Logic of the Sciences and
> Humanities”.
Your idea of correcting "logical errors" is not to correct the errors but
to "read a book." Heck, I could recommend a hundred books to you to
"correct" your thinking.
> The first Northrop text is mentioned in ZMM and started Pirsig off on his
> philosophical quest; the second he only read much later (on my suggestion)
> and he was surprized by how far that Northrop had worked towards the ideas
> of the MOQ in this book. The latter is an idealistic book - in that it is
> primarily concerned with maintaining world peace – but, at the same time,
> it is logically very hard headed. Though, my examiners for instance, often
> had a field day with Pirsig (with him not being a philosopher in an
> academic sense) there never found such a fault with Northrop – despite much
> of my thesis being grounded in his work.
Your examiners sound a lot like you because you like to have "a field day"
with anyone not an academic.
> Finally, I end on this point:
>
> >It would certainly be a mistake to undermine the SOM oriented military
> >since they need to objectively identify and stop enemies from destroying
> >the higher levels.
>
> With all this criticism of universities and their funding, I’d like to turn
> this round to the military sector where private funding and free markets
> should definitely be applied.
If it wasn't the military, neither you nor I would be free to have this
discussion. As Pirsig points out, the military protects society (which
includes all of us) from biological forces such as radical Islam.
Questions you failed to answer, for whatever reason:
Is a socialist society open to DQ?
Are you in favor of ideological diversity on campus?
Can you list some non-SOM intellectuals?
Does the intellectual level consist of ideas?
Is eliminating monopolistic practices moral?
Is it moral for government to be unaccountable for the money it spends?
How do you identify an "MOQ intellect?"
What would be the "MOQ Manifesto" to overhaul society?
Is mysticism intellectual?
Has SOM intellect created "social catastrophe?"
Does the quality of goods and services play a primary role in a free
market?
Is it possible to have a free market of thought without social means?
Your reluctance to answer such questions is disappointing and leads me to
believe you are more interested in supporting your pacifist left-wing
views than debating the issues raised in the MOQ. Which is OK. No one is
obligated to respond in kind to anybody on this site. That's what makes it
high quality, not by what is written, but by its invitation to anyone to
express his views. However, from a self-described "intellectual," I had
hoped for better.
Best,
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Sep 16 2004 - 15:16:48 BST