From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 16:39:29 GMT
Hi David,
> Dmb says:
> This is a good example of why I don't think we can get at the nature of
> ritual with a five point memo. To understand what Pirsig is saying about
> ritual, especially as the connecting link to the intellectual level, we
have
> to go beyond chapter 30 and otherwise take a broader view. Recall, for
> example, that prehistoric stone age people preformed rituals all day long,
> that it was indistinguishable from knowledge. Rituals aren't exactly
> synonymous with the social level, but its something like the essential
heart
> of it all. To really see what Pirsig is saying about ritual is to see what
> the social level is. It is still with us in everyday life in a completely
> ubiquitous way. Recall, for example, that Pirsig says "celebrity" is the
> driving force of the social level. Recall how Cambell says it still lives
in
> our courts, armys and dining rooms. How Pirsig says its the Mass and in
pay
> day shopping. Its an Ocean, the one we all swim in.
What I was trying to do with the five points was find an agreed starting
point. I guess there isn't one (unless there is any sense in which you could
accept them). I have ordered the Kingsley book you've been referring to. I
want to do some digging around the Orpheus cult...
Good point about celebrity though - that's an aspect of the social level
which doesn't fall naturally into a description of ritual. There must be
others, also centring on social roles.
> All languages, civilizations, societies, myths, morals,
> religions and rituals are products of the social level. Its huge and
> ancient. It is everthing about us that is neither animal nor intellectual.
> Its everything that makes us human.
OK, I'm with you on all of this. At the risk of setting off another thread,
how do *you* understand intellect to be separated from all that? (In other
words I'm not after Pirsig, although I expect you to agree with him, I just
want to get a better grasp of 'your MoQ', as Wim might put it)
> DMB says:
> The idea is that the State is prohibited from establishing an offical
> religion AND from preventing the free exercise of religion. Perhaps you'd
> say it amounts to the same thing. That religious freedom necessarily rules
> out theocracy, even if people are allowed to believe in it and advocate
it.
> (Ironically, such activist would speak out under the protection of that
very
> same freedom they would dispense with.) In any case, begging the question
or
> not, theocracy is right us there with monarchy, serfdom and slavery;
> precisely the kind of thing that the advocates of intellectual freedom
would
> like least of all. These are the kinds of things intellectually guided
> societies are supposed to cure.
What I was trying to tease out with the question - because it is something
I'm mulling on myself and haven't come to a conclusion about - is how far an
institutional church-state division does in fact enshrine a particular form
of theocracy - a system built up around the god Reason. In another post I
talked about Sense 1 and Sense 2 metaphysics. The Church-State division
seems to say that it is impermissible to recast the institutions according
to any sense 2 metaphysics, but in doing so it is itself committed to a
sense 2 metaphysics of its own. Which is fair enough (I think the Church -
State division is a good thing), I just think some of the arguments in
favour of it depend upon a particular conception of 'religion' which doesn't
hold water. That is, the traditional arguments in its favour are no longer
intellectually credible. As I say, I'm musing on this one.
Sam
The lover of myth is in a sense the lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of
wonders. Aristotle
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 : Tue Feb 18 2003 - 17:47:24 GMT