From: phyllis bergiel (neilfl@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sat May 10 2003 - 15:43:13 BST
Hi guys, esp. Johnny and Platt in this case:
> > Rachmaninov had to come first, and someone had to
> > introduce you to him, before you could experience his concerto, so there
is
> > a dependence there before your experience. And others depend on you to
> > educate them about static patterns, or Rachmaninov might never be
> > experienced again.
>
Question: I'm walking down the street, I've never heard any classical music
before, suddenly, someone starts their car, their jumping dog had changed
teh station to WFMT, and Rachmaninoff came blaring out. I liked it. I
asked - who's that - I suggest that while there were many determinate
contributors, there were also contingent elements at work, and I can't
imagine what directly related static patterns unless you want to include
ones like radios in cars and dogs as pets. P.S. Platt may I recommend
Corliss Lamont's Freedom of Choice Affirmed I think you'd enjoy it.
> This is your determinism bit that I completely reject simply by
> performing the simple experiment of wiggling my finger to the left or the
> right as I wish, anytime I wish.
>
> > Pure experience without any static patterns in which
> > the experience acts means that there is no difference between the
> > experience of a blow job and a hand grenade, or whatever the stale old
> > metaphor we use around here is
Doesn't Pirsig say soemthing about high and low quality experiences?
>
> This is where you miss one of the major points of the MoQ. Experience is
> always of Quality. The two occur simultaneously only they are not two.
> Experience and value are exactly the same phenomenon. There's no
> difference, no separation. Morality and experience are identical. It's
> Quality that tells you the difference between one thing and another.
Is this akin to thinking of color without shape?
>
> > >Morality in the MoQ is not restricted as in common parlance to how
> > >humans out to dutifully behave in mind or body, either the "middle way"
or
> > >"outside the box." Pirsig "frees" morality from that stale old static
> > >pattern.
> >
>
> If I led you to believe that morality as used in the MoQ refers solely to
> social level morality and human behavior, I apologize for my lack of
> clarity.
>
> > >Morality as you like to define it is a set of social patterns that
varies
> > >from culture to culture. Exceptions to your claim of "universal" moral
> > >social patterns such as adultery are easily found. Morality as Pirsig
> > >defines it includes but transcends social patterns.
> >
> > When I talk about the universal morality, I am talking the same
universal
> > morality that Pirsig is. It is superfolous however to say that we live
in
> > reality, so the usual meaning that comes out when I use the word
morality
> > is the cultural context.
>
> Yes, I thought you used morality in the "cultural context." I've left that
> context behind with the advent of the MoQ. To say morality is reality is
> not superfluous at all: it's the central postulate of the Moq.
>
> > You agreed with Mati that context is another term
> > for reality in that post, but here you see a need to make a distinction
> > (though you say I make the disctinction, which is laughable, my whole
> > mission here has been to get people to see social morality on the same
> > ontologically significant MoQ terms, not a different kind of morality
but
> > the exact same thing as gravity and carbon bonding). Phyllis was
looking
> > for shared moral precepts that different cultures might have in common
with
> > which to settle conflicts, so I supplied her with some like adultery.
You
> > don't have to tell me that not all cultures have the same things in
common,
> > but to satisfactorily work out conflicts without coercion, they had
better
> > find some from which to begin to agree. You are sounding a lot like the
> > cultural relativists you usually mock all of a sudden, you know.
>
> To recognize that different cultures have different standards of social
> morality is not to be a relativist. Relativists assert that we must honor
> and respect the morals of all cultures alike, even though we may judge
> their morals to be terribly wrong. That's what "diversity," a very popular
> term on the left, is all about. Under the rubric of diversity we are
> supposed to tolerate all forms of social behavior.
I'd like to try inserting some terminology here to keep this straight.
Cultural relativists say 1) What is considered morally right and wrong
varies from society to society, so that there are no moral principles
accepted by all societies. Descriptive only.
Ethical relativists claim 1) + 2)All moral principles derive their validity
from cultural acceptance. Therefore 3) there are no universally moral
principles, objective standards which apply to all people at all times.
Hope this helps. You two seemed to be talking past each other.
Fortunately, we now
> have the MoQ to explain rationally why headhunting and socialism are
> wrong and shouldn't be tolerated.
Actually, we had objectivism before that.
As for not using coercion, heed the
> words of Pirsig:
>
> "The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without coercion
> cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual good of all is a
> devastating fiction."
>
Do you have the page # handy for that quote? Most relativists, or
postmodernists tend to forget that and try to slip it past in another guise.
> > >People can do whatever they want so long as they don't harm or
> > >threaten harm to others. "Caring" feeds the ego and gives rise to
> > >victimology. Our "shared morality" is that we all live in a sea of
values.
> >
> > Sure they CAN, but they shouldn't. They should do what they should.
> > Denying this is denying the whole principle that keeps patterns
together,
> > it would make the universe collapse into nothing. It makes a
distinction
> > between between social morality and the whole of morality as to how they
> > work and what they are.
>
> You ignore the distinctions in kinds of morality that the MoQ describes.
> There's one kind at the inorganic level, another at the biological level,
> another at the social, and another at the intellectual. These four moral
> forces, each with different powers and goals, are constantly fighting
> each other for dominance. These forces are competing within each of us
> all the time. "Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know?" (29)
>
> > Social morality, because it is stale and old, need
> > not be followed, but the rest of morality, well that's different. They
are
> > the same.
>
And, I would say, no, social morality still acts as a base for higher steps
up the ladder. Please don't forget the static latch. That said, social
shouldn't restrict intellectual. Unlimited childbrith is what held the
nuclear family together. Medical advances like birth control, in vitro etc.
allowed individual choices outside family roles. I believe that the MoQ
applied would lead to saying that the social more shouldn't restrict the
intellectual freedom of the individual more. So much for fanning the
flames.
> No, the rest of morality is not the same, as explained above.
>
> > It is wrong to redefine social morality as what people
> > prudently, rationally, ought to do, divorcing it from the patterns of
what
> > people actually do. This is why what people actually do is important,
> > because their actions create morality, and morality is what causes
people
> > to do what they do.
>
> I don't know how many people are involved in your definition of "people."
> But what two or three people do, like get drunk every Saturday night,
> does not a standard of social morality make. What people should do is
> follow their individual, innate sense of Quality, recognizing that
> sometimes what feels good biologically, like being in a gang assaulting
> schoolmates, destroys the upper levels that makes human beings
> human.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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