From: john williams (ducati900@bigpond.com)
Date: Thu Jan 16 2003 - 00:49:15 GMT
Hi Rudy,
Thanks for the endorsement I was starting to get a bit disheartened but
you've given me a spur. If your the only person who takes any notice of what
I'm saying that'll do me.
If your a freshman at philosophy god help the philosophers when you know
what your talking about.
I went and read Chapter 24 after reading your post and it does make all this
talk about not using the MoQ for social improvement a bit confusing. Then
again not really, as you couldn't expect most of the memebers of your
society to even begin to know what RP is on about.
Reading through it though was like reading ZMM, in every paragraph I was
able to come up with everyday examples of exactly what he was talking about.
Rudy said : At various points within the
> past quarter century, there were some thinkers who
> tried to justify black crime based upon cultural
> differences and upon the racist sins of the white
> culture (but given that blacks are the usual victims
> of black crime, that line of thought didn't gain much
> traction). If the MOQ says that such thinkers are
> wrong in demanding sympathy for violent criminal
> activity, then the MOQ appears to have come up with a
> correct answer.
That has been a very popular argument made here over the past few years but
more by polititians than intellectuals. It has been used as a reason not to
get involved in the human rights abuses of our neighbours. "We can't
intervene because it's a custom of theirs to lock up the leaders of the
oppostion political parties and students who point out there shortcomings".
The worst example of that is passing off Female Genital Mutilation as "one
of their customs". Very easy for MoQ to point out that dancing in your
countries national dress at harvest time is a cultural difference that is
O.K. and that these other examples are not.
Back to Woodlawn, Illinois for a moment, and the "war"
> of biological blacks and whites versus social blacks
> and whites. Mr. P says that the intellectual has to
> pick a side and stick with it. When biological values
> undermine social values, the intellect must defend the
> social, as it is higher on the meta-evolutionary
> scale. OK, despite my problems with this scale being
> a bit rubbery, I will agree that society needs to keep
> biological urges in line; i.e. the police have to stop
> robberies and break-ins even if the perps have their
> reasons.
Although in the chapter Pirsig is filled with the trepidation of the time at
not knowing what the outcome would be, there is a Quality solution where
intellectual over social level has achieved a result. Here in Australia we
have a system of community based judical committees in which juvenile
offenders instead of going to court meet in a committee of Police,
councellors, the offended party and the juvenile and their parents. These
committees have been very successful in stopping reoffending (no reason why
it wouldn't work with adult offenders but society isn't ready for that) and
are an example of Pirsigs statement that intellectuals need to know where
they stand and stand there. (Social before biological, Intellectual before
social). These committees do not let the offender off lightly and if a
suitable resolution cannot be reached then off to court they go. It stops
the kid from thinking of themselves as the victom and makes the people
offended against recognize that the kid is a person and less inclined to
want them strung from the yardarm.
I've gotta go to work,
Thanks again Rudy for helping me uderstand MoQ
John from The Rock.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rudy" <rudy_o_2000@yahoo.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 12:43 PM
Subject: MD Chapter 24
>
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