From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 18:20:45 GMT
DMB tried to describe the 3rd/4th level shift in a personal way:
.............................The social level person is a fully functioning
and responsible member of their community. While the modern person is
expected
to be that AND become a critical thinker and a creative agent as well. This
is something like a shift from social to intellectual values.. The
willingness and ability to critically examine the traditions and
institutions of one's own culture need not necessarily lead to radical
politics or militant atheism, but
wouldn't be afraid of them either. An intellectual is not the same as a
contrarian or a revolutionary, but they drink at the same pub, so to speak.
Sam responded:
I would quibble with this, but in a context of broad agreement. The quibble
relates to the substance behind being "a critical thinker and a creative
agent". I think those things are the result of emotional maturity and
insight, not 'intellect' as defined by Pirsig or convention. I think the
openness to DQ, characteristic of the fourth level, is dependent on a
particular mode of personal character, not on the manipulation of symbols. I
see language as fundamentally social level.
DMB says:
Sure, "emotional maturity and insight" are required. We don't disagree about
that. But I think a genuine shift from social to intellectual values is
never just about new cold, rational, cognitive abilites. Its a broadening of
perspective that entails a better capacity for moral reasoning, greater
emotional sensitivity and a wider range of concerns. Maturity? You bet.
That's what its all about; personal development, personal evolution. Wilber
goes into great detail on this and so my imagination is different than yours
when it comes to what I think intellect is. As he paints it, the
intellectual level begins after the mythic stage, at the rational stage, but
there are also stages beyond that. This is where Pirsig would likely draw
the line between social and intellectual levels. Its as if Wilber has
subdivided Pirsig's broader categories to show finer gradations. They are
essentially the same, but Wilber has more details. He makes it clear that
each stage or level isn't just "smarter". Consciousness is broader and
deeper, more subtle and poetic at each level. The highest stages are more
properly thought of as spiritual than intellectual. Don't forget that Pirsig
is saying the intellectual level is the most evolved level of static VALUES.
It is a more evolved MORALITY, not just a supercharged computational
machine. And its certainly possible that a person could excell at
mathematics, physics or symbolic logic and simultaneously ignore their
personal development in the more "emotional" areas, but this is a case of
uneven development. These things happen, but its not the rule. I mean, the
point of all this is just to say that GENUINE intellectual level values ARE
about maturity, wisdom and the other things you seem to think it is not.
Sam said:
With regard to ritual, I think I am coming to the view that it is not a
particularly fruitful line of enquiry into the MoQ. For most ritual seems to
be built around the preservation of the social order (historic DQ
innovations, static latched), whereas religious rituals are - according to
Pirsig - designed to make socially pattern dominated people aware of DQ. Our
understanding of how to place ritual in the MoQ seems therefore to be
dependent on how we view ritual in general - and that was what I was trying
to get away from. Ho hum.
DMB says:
Hmmm. OK. Let's think about these two views of ritual. We have ritual as
preserver of the social order on one hand, and on the other we have ritual
as a sign-post to DQ. I think there is no contradiction here and both views
reflect Pirsig's conception. (And Campbell backs it up quite nicely.) Think
of the religious rituals as the ones from which all other rituals emenate.
This are the highest ordering principles in the culture and all the other
ones reflect and support the these central rituals. (Its never so clean and
clear in real life, but indulge me for the purposes of explanation.) One can
even imainge the central temple on the city's highest hill. In ancient
cultures the city was built around the temple literally, psychologically,
mythologically, economically, militarily, politically and just about any
other way one can imagine. And all this was relatively recently. If we go
back 10, 15 30 thousand years ago, life was ritual all day long in a less
monumental way, but in a more "immersed" way. What was the phrase?
Participation mystique? Anyway, the idea here is that the religious rituals,
the ones that bring the participants into an encounter with DQ, are not
seperate from the larger society in this kind of setting. The rituals that
bring the participant into a personal relationship with DQ are also bringing
them deep into the culture, into the mythos. This is difficult to explain,
but the idea is that the "first, oringinal cosmic order of things" is
understood in the encounter with DQ AND it thereby becomes the central
organizing principle of the culture, SO THAT initiation into the mystery and
into the society is one and the same thing. See? That's how ritual as a
social glue and ritual as a sign-post to DQ are reconciled.
Thanks for your time.
DMB
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 : Sun Feb 23 2003 - 18:20:49 GMT