From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue May 03 2005 - 17:34:27 BST
Hi Matt,
Continuing...
Although I enjoy reading your essay-posts, I'm gonna limit my
responses to what I perceive to be your core ideas. If I leave out
something important, lemme know.
Here's what I said re my reckless use of the term "social-level
thought":
When I said "social-level thought" I meant all thought that is static
and therefore protective of the status quo. I meant all thought that
retards rather than enhances evolution.
On 2 May 2005 at 14:16, Matt Kundert wrote:
But say we allow it. There's social level thinking and intellectual
level thinking. How do we tell the two apart?
msh:
We can distinguish good ideas from bad ideas by evaluating the
effects they have at the Social level. For example, requiring people
to pay exorbitant, profit-driven prices for basic services will
result in the destabilization of society, as more and more people are
pushed to the margins. This particular bad idea can be summed up as
the "let them eat cake" philosophy. And we know where that led.
matt:
This seems to me to be a complete impasse because both leftist and
conservative are going to argue that the other side is only employing
social level thinking whereas their side is at the intellectual
level. How do you resolve that?
msh:
First, you get rid of the red-herring left-right dichotomy. Both
conservatives and progressives can and do come up with bad ideas.
So, again, re-evaluate the ideas to see whether or not they are
static and therefore retard the process of evolution.
<snip some of the essay>
matt:
To my mind, there are two directions that Pirsig's metaphysical
category "the social level" comes under suspicion. The first is from
behind, from the biological level, from the long noted idea at the MD
that animals display sociability, that animals are social creatures.
msh:
I don't see where this makes the Social category "suspicious," which
I'll read to mean metaphysically useless, unless you argue otherwise.
Do you disagree that all animals are social, some more or less than
others?
matt:
The other direction is from the intellectual level. It was long
supposed that the intellectual level is where language was invented,
that language was to the intellectual level as DNA is to the
biological level.
msh:
Yes, but thanks to Chomsky, we now understand that language is rooted
in biology.
matt:
Its [language] the currency one deals in. But then we get ideas like
"social level thinking."
msh:
I hope this was clarified above. I'm sorry I ever used the phrase.
matt:
So, suppose the levels are like this:
inorganic -- rocks
biological -- plants, animals
social -- social customs
intellectual -- independentally manipulable symbols
msh says:
As I've said before, I'm no pure Pirsigian, but this seems a
terrible over-simplification of his metaphysical hierarchy. The
intellectual level, though distinct, is far from Descarte's isolated
realm of symbol play. In fact, there is a constant traffic between
the Social and Intellectual, some members of the former using some
ideas to maintain the "static quo," while other members use different
ideas to push evolution along. The interaction between the Social
and Intellectual is continuous, as I see it.
<snip Descartes, Witt, Russell because all three of them were
attempting to understand "Intellect" without considering the
influence of Quality.>
matt:
The reason, I think, math seems independent is because we view
"independence from society" as relating to "independence from
everyday life." The more a subject seems to get away from the
functioning of life that we deal with on a day to day basis, the more
"independent" it seems. And so math and logic and grammar seem very
independent.
msh says:
I think all three are independent of society in the sense that they
are internally consistent systems of thought, no external
verification required. But this doesn't mean these "tools" can't be
used at the Social level to solve problems, does it?
matt:
But at the same time, as I noted above, they also seem very remote
from the concerns of politics, which is what people try to turn the
distinction between the social and intellectual levels towards.
msh says:
See immediately above.
matt:
I still can't imagine how one would use the distinction in a
political discussion. Start from abstract principles like "freedom"
and "human rights" and you'll get agreement from everybody,
msh:
Right. Then you attempt to show through evidence and argument that
some ideas promote freedom and human rights better than others. Does
a law against gay marriage increase or decrease freedom? Does
allowing wealth to influence policy decisions expand or restrict
human rights? On and on. I know from experience that people who are
honestly engaged in discussion can and will be persuaded by good
argument and evidence. And when you change minds you can affect
policy. Quality and evolution can be served.
matt:
This is all to say that I think in Pirsig's formulation of the
levels, particularly with a distinction between social and
intellectual, there are remenants of Reason Idolatry. One of
Pirsig's aims in his books is to take down this idol, but in his Lila
(and later) formulations of the static levels, I think there may be
a few heaps of refuse that still need to be cleared away.
msh:
You may be right about this. So maybe we can tweak things a little,
or a lot, and clear away some of the refuse without hauling the whole
metaphysics to the dump.
I want to think about your reformulation of the levels, and get back
to you in another post.
Thanks for the hard work.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Now, 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." (LILA-22) 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
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