From: edeads (edeads@prodigy.net)
Date: Thu Jul 14 2005 - 04:52:12 BST
Platt,
MSH had noted:
This means we must work toward an environment where everyone has an equal
chance to survive and be nourished both physically and intellectually; and
we must eliminate the influence of wealth on social policy.
Your comment was then:
I find no support in the MOQ for your ideas of limits on personal wealth or
eliminating the influence of wealth on politicians.
I then wrote some stuff about the MOQ warning.
And you responded:
I've read the passage you quoted from Chap. 13 several times, and all of
Chap. 13, and have yet to discover where Pirsig says pursuit of wealth
threatens society.
Condensing further the relevent phrases we have MSH's "the influence of
wealth on social policy;" your reference to "limits on personal wealth or
eliminating the influence of wealth on politicians," and your subsequent
reference to "pursuit of wealth threatens society." I would have to agree
with you as you worded it in your subsequent reference; I also don't see
that Pirsig says pursuit of wealth threatens society.
I further agree, as you noted earlier, that "The thrust of the MOQ is toward
dynamic freedom, not static limits." Yet this is not the entirety of the
MOQ. Pirsig notes that this evolutionary morality contains a warning. I took
this warning to suggest that at the interfaces of the four levels,
Inorganic-Biological-Societal-Idea, the higher level can threaten itself
when it "weakens and destroys the health" of the next-lower level. The Idea
level can pursue dynamic quality to its heart's content, but when in this
pursuit it "weakens and destroys the health" of the Societal level--it in
turn threatens itself for it will have a weaker base upon which to stand. We
may differ in opinion as to whether "the dynamic pursuit of this mogul and
those he represents is simply an intellectual level argument against society
that has run amok." I see this as holding well to MSH's original concern
about "the influence of wealth on social policy." But before we argue that
further, I wonder if you see the MOQ warning in the same way that I do.
A further example of this MOQ warning, apt for the Biological-Societal
interface, is found in the following passage from State of the World 1987.
Although the emphasis is on the Bio-Social interface, it traverses all four
of the evolutionary levels:
Several thousand years ago, the Mesopotamian civilization thrived in a
fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Supported by an
impressive system of irrigated agriculture, Mesopotamian society became a
seedbed of discovery, and is today credited with developing writing, the
wheel, and domesticated cereals. Sometime around 2400 B.C., however, the
productivity of its agricultural land began to decline. Lack of underground
drainage for irrigated land had caused the water table to rise near the
surface, a situation that often occurs in irrigated areas today. In dry
climates, evaporation of this water leaves the soil surface covered with a
layer of salt that greatly reduces crop productivity.
...
Archaeological evidence suggests that political weaknesses, civil strife,
and warfare eventually caused the collapse of Mesopotamian civilization. But
the decline of sociopolitical structures may have partially been triggered
by the decline of the food-producing system. As researchers Thorkild
Jacobsen and Robert Adams wrote in 1958: "Probably there is no historical
event of this magnitude for which a single explanation is adequate, but that
growing soil salinity played an important part in the breakup of Sumerian
civilization seems beyond question."
> Ed:
> > More generally on the topic of Morality and Society, I'll set forth two
> > quotes. One from Joseph Campbell and one from Pirsig. Both provide
support
> > in looking at the larger picture and synthesizing our activities with
> > greater awareness. I found them similar and thought they not only hedge
> > against the static codes of morality in which our society is now
embedded,
> > but also force a look at the foundation upon which our morality is
based:
Platt:
> Forgetting Joe Campbell for a moment, you provided the following quote
> from Pirsig to support your contention that somehow our society needs
> improvement. ... I fail to see the connection. Please explain.
My primary intent here was not to contend that somehow our society needs
improvement, although I can see how you would construe this as being
implied. On this implication I noted that the two quotes "hedge against the
static codes of morality in which our society in now embedded." I was
bringing to the fore the greater context that must be addressed, in my
opinion, in order to assist society in its evolution. The Pirsig quote, as
well as the Campbell quote, bring us back to a location that is before the
duality began. From this place there is more dyamic freedom. As humans we
must traverse into duality, but in this duality an unrelenting static hold
can sometimes mitigate this freedom.
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