From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 02:09:39 BST
> DMB had said:
> OK, we've got two rival analogies about the evolutionary relationship
> between the social and intellectual levels, the shrub/tree vs. the
discrete
> levels. The first one implies that no definate line should be drawn, the
> more evolved version merely being a larger or more mature version of the
> same creature. The second one says that the more evolved level is an
> entirely different creature, not just a more mature one. Totally aside
from
> the fact that Wilber was talking about levels when he said it, we have to
> have the line. Not because its a better idea just for good theoretical
> reason, although that's true too, but because it is a description of the
> world. That line marks one of the main disasters of Modernity, the
> alienation of science from religion and vice versa. I think the line has
> already been drawn far too well.
Sam replied:
I don't understand this. I don't see why we have to have the line. I think
the line is a product of SOM thinking, part of the scientistic illusion. I
deny that it is a 'description of the world'. I agree that one of the main
disasters of Modernity is the alienation of science from religion - yet I
don't see why you offer that as support for your argument. To me it supports
my side!! Maybe I'm just being obtuse.
DMB says:
I'm saying that the line between social and intellect levels is demonstrated
in the historic conflict between religion and science. I'm saying that the
line is too broad, broader than is healthy. The intellect is dis-associated
from its parent level and that this alienation is evidence of the line
between them. To be a bit more subtle, I wouldn't want to erase the
distinction, which is think the shrub/tree analogy does. The problem is one
of excess. Instead of being independent, as a grown-up level should be, the
intellect has become estranged and even hostile to the social level. This is
the problem with Modernity and SOM. The distinction between myths as facts
is one of the benefits of Modernity and we'd do well to keep that bit of
progress even in these postmodern times. The problem is in dismissing myths
as untrue facts rather than seeing them as myths.
Sam said:
I think you have a naive understanding of what a 'fact' is. There are no
uninterpreted facts, and interpretations are governed by their overarching
narrative framework. ... Those who reject the resurrection (or whatever) are
saying that they embrace a different narrative, that's all.
DMB says:
I think that sometimes postmodernism is used as an escape hatch, as an
ejector seat to be used whenever one is about to crash into the obvious.
Sam asked:
Would it be fair to say that you see all religions as 'paths up the same
mountain' and that, if we extract the kernel from the mythological shell,
that we can get what is of value from religions without the trappings?
Equivalent to eating vitamin supplements instead of lots of bad tasting
vegetables?
DMB says:
Extract the kernel? Intellectual analysis of religion is a very good thing,
but it can NOT take the place of religious experience. Indeed, valid
intellectual analysis of religion is nearly impossible without knowing first
what a religious experience is like! Paths up the same mountain? I guess
that picture is OK, but it probably applies to a willful philosophical quest
or vision quest rather than to religions. As I understand it, there's an
"organic" quality to religions. Not "organic" in the sense of Pirsig's
biological level, but I mean that they arose and evolved spontaneously,
naturally, without anybody's conscious control. We didn't create religions
so much as they created us. Trying to step outside one's culture, the
religious traditions, the mythology and language that allows you to think in
the first place, to go seek the mountain top on your own or on the path
traveled by those of another culture is more than I can handle. I think its
more than almost anybody can handle. They don't call them trappings for
nothin'!
Sam asked:
What are the MoQ rituals?
DMB says:
It wouldn't be appropriate or even possible for a philosophical system to
invent new rituals. That'd be like asking the social level to invent new
organisms. The MOQ DOES include rituals nevertheless; namely all the rituals
in the world. The MOQ puts ritual at the social level of evolution, which is
far better than SOM, which puts it in a category called superstitious
non-sense.
DMB had said:
Unfair to Christians? Again, its descriptive. The scientific secular world
was built on top of the Holy Roman Empire, so when we talk about the
difference between social and intellectual values Christianity is nearly
impossible to avoid.
Sam replied:
Indeed not. Is that a matter of historical accident, or is there something
more to it?
DMB says:
Well, if Pirsig paints it rightly, the clash between levels is inevitable
because they have, or rather ARE, two different sets of values. This must be
especially true in the social/intellectual clash because its so new. But I
think one of the main reasons for the dis-association and alienation, the
over-doing of the separation is a bit of an historical accident. During the
age of scholasticism, Aristotelean physics and cosmology was effectively
married to Christian theology. (I'm sure you know all about it.) Then
Galileo sent the whole elaborate system into wack, not by pronouncing some
radical new doctrine about the nature of God, but because he had a telescope
and reported what he saw through it. The clash between religion and science
is actually, largely, as clash between ancient and modern astronomy.
Dante's Inferno depicts hell as a series of concentric circles. This is not
so different from the ancient cosmology adopted by the church. This same
cosmology also existed in the cultures that wrote the bible. Instead of
deeper and deeper levels of hell, the outward cosmological picture was of a
series on rotating concentric crystaline spheres on which the stars rode.
(This is a particular version of the great chain of being, an aspect of the
perennial philosophy.) This graded picture of reality worked morally,
theologically, socially and it even seemed to work in physics. Everything
had its natural place. Low things in their low places and high things in
high places. Everything reinforced and supported everything else, which was
really great if you were one of the lucky few in high places. Kaboom! The
attempt to strengthen the church's view with ancient cosmology blew up in
their papal faces. Galileo's telescope had enormous political consequences
that changed the face of Europe. It went from Monarchy and feudalism to
democracy in just a few hundred years. That's only a comic book sketch, but
you get the idea.
Finally, I'd like to bring this sketch to bare on an assertion you made
about the perennial philosophy. You said, "I think the 'perennial
philosophy' is an illegitimate Enlightenment construct." The Enlightenment
attack on the Church's cosmology was also an attack on the great chain of
being in political and theological terms too. The order of everything was
called into question by new data about the stars precisely because
everything was so tightly interwoven, as if pulling on one thread unraveled
the whole carpet. The point is not to simply reiterate what if already said,
but to couch the same idea in terms that show that the perennial philosophy
is NOT an "Enlightenment construct", but rather the opposite. It represented
the hierarchy they wished to shatter. The Enlightenment seeks to portray the
perrennial philosophy as quaint and obsolete, at best.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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