From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 29 2005 - 17:33:53 BST
Hi Platt,
[Platt]
One of the reasons I, and perhaps others including my favorites, the Founding
Fathers, "deify" the individual is because Pirsig emphasizes that evolution
depends on individuals. The story of the brujo is all about one, single
solitary soul being responsible for an evolutionary step forward in the Zuni
society.
[Arlo]
Except the brujo was not one, single "solitary" soul. If he was, he would have
been nothing more than a set of high Quality biological patterns.
Don't continue to misunderstand, individuals emerge through the social layer
(not separate from it). They are able to respond to intellectual quality
because of the social layer. Their responses to intellectual quality are shaped
by the social layer. And, their actions in pursuit of intellectual quality are
completely supported by a social layer providing artifacts, libraries,
colleagues, assistants, etc, without which your "individual" could do nothing
(except enjoy biological Quality).
But, that individuals, re-mediating their experience back into the social layer,
from which they emerge, drives the evolution of social and intellectual
Quality, is not in doubt.
[Platt]
Of course there's no denying your point about society being necessary to support
the individual and to react to individual DQ responses. But to claim "me" is a
delusion? Doesn't it say Arlo Bensinger on your birth certificate? :-)
[Arlo]
I didn't make this claim, I am only restating it. Einstein made the claim. And I
happen to agree with it. "Arlo Bensinger" is a semiotic marker. If "I" were
born onto a desert island, "Arlo Bensinger" would not exist.
But, semiosis demands such demarkation. Without it, we would never have advanced
beyond the biological layer. "The absorbtion into the Symbollic order (the
social layer in the MOQ) simultaneously releases the subject to the possibility
of social intercourse (and hence intellectual Quality) and condemns it to a
forever divided status." (Cavallero in Critical and Cultural Theory). This is
echoed by Pirsig in his comments about how much man has gained, but has lost an
equally important understanding, to know what it is to be part of the world,
and not separate from it.
Arlo
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