From: Johannes Volmert (jvolmert@student.uni-kassel.de)
Date: Sat May 21 2005 - 01:38:48 BST
Ant McWatt wrote:
> Michael Hamilton stated May 19th 2005:
>
> “The MOQ says that the good to which truth is subordinate is
> intellectual and Dynamic usefulness, not social usefulness.”
>
> I need to illustrate this. Nazi ideology placed the Volksgemeinschaft
> (“people's community”, i.e. social value) as the highest moral
> objective. Therefore, the practicality to which they subordinated
> truth was pure social value. Hence, their discouragement of
> intellectual development, and instead their indoctrination of children
> with the “correct” (i.e. socially conformist) beliefs. This is a clear
> example of intellectual value (truth) being shackled to social value.
> It is this kind of practicality that the social/intellectual division
> of the MOQ disqualifies from pragmatism.
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Michael,
>
> Thank you for your recent excellent posts on George Galloway, “Dynamic
> usefulness” and the distinction between intellectual and social
> practicality. Your illustration of the latter reminded of Pirsig’s
> view on leadership which I’ve been looking for an excuse to post for
> some time:
>
> “X sounds like a very decent person but his talk about leadership
> gives me a creepy Wagnerian feeling. In Minnesota, where I come from…
> the population is heavily Germanic in ethnic descent. (I’m one of
> them.) I heard a lot of that word in grade school before World War II
> where they were always talking about training us to be leaders. Then
> the German word for leader, ‘führer,’ dominated the scene and seemed
> to put the whole idea of leadership out of favor, and I was glad to
> see it go. Talk about leadership places social patterns as the thing
> to think about rather than the quality and ideas that the people
> should follow whether there are any ‘leaders’ or not. Saddam Hussein
> has been a leader in every sense of the word. Albert Einstein has
> acted as though he never heard of the word.”
>
> (Robert Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, October 24th 2003)
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Of course, it was ideas such as leadership in Nazi Germany which
> promoted social patterns (such as conformity to what a leadership
> might recommend). This, in turn, encouraged the silencing of
> intellectual dissent (by the ethnic Germans) and therefore facilitated
> the persecution of the Jews.
>
> I notice that in some recent MOQ Discuss posts, that Ham has stated
> (incorrectly) that SOM is the only way to metaphysically divide
> reality (modernist view) and that Matt K (incorrectly) thinks the
> intellect-social division is not particularly useful (post-modernist
> view). I think the MOQ analysis of Nazi Germany highlights the value
> of recognising that the social level (such as celebrity) is distinct
> and secondary to intellectual values (such as truth and justice) and,
> therefore, (via emphasising this difference) helps us (i.e. the human
> race) in not repeating the same error twice.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Anthony
>
Hi All,
as a German and as one being very much troubled by the named history of
my country (though born many, many years after the war) , I want to
support Ant's point of view, especially the last paragraph. The said
part of Lila has been always the most striking to me (except parts of
the description of the int. level). I have never before and after that
come over another similar convincing Analysis of the historical events
and conflicting forces in those times. I never came closer to grasp
these monstrosities.
Greetings, Johannes
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 : Sat May 21 2005 - 01:43:15 BST