From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat May 24 2003 - 18:16:54 BST
Sam and all MOQers:
DMB had (rhetorically) asked:
I mean, you're not really DENYING that Europe's Dark Age is an actual
literal historical event, are you?
Sam answered:
The difference between my view and that embodied in what I styled the
'mythology of science' lies in
the dating of the Dark Ages in Latin speaking Europe. (There were no Dark
Ages in the Eastern half).
I would date them as being between 600 and 900. The mythology of science
stretches them to,
effectively, 1600 or so (ie Galileo). That only works if you equate religion
with darkness - which
is precisely what I object to.
dmb says:
You're missing the point entirely. The truth of a myth does NOT depend on
its basis in historical fact because the events depicted are symbolic.
Obviously, history is different and DOES depend on actual, literal events.
The notion that there might some diputes about when the Dark Ages begin or
end makes for an interesting historical debate, but is completely irrelevant
to the distinction between myth and history, between Pirsig's social and
intellectual levels. (Historians refer to the Dark Age as such not because
of the rise of religion or Christianity, but because of the loss of the
classical Greco-Roman world. The writing of the Greeks and Romans were all
but lost to Western Europe for centuries and were kept by Irish and Arab
scholars until the Renaissance.)
DMB had said:
The most basic distinction between myth and history is revealed by the
non-symbolic nature of historical narrative.
DMB concluded:
: Would I be correct to think this assertion goes along with, at least
: roughly, what you called "the meta-narrative of rational primacy"? That
: looks like essentially the same argument in a different form, no? And this
: also goes along with your preference for the bush/tree analogy for the
: social/intellectual distinction, no? All of which adds up to the SOM view,
: that the difference is only like what's in the left and right hand
pockets,
: which is much less of a distinction than Pirsig makes, no?
Sam said:
I'm with you until your last sentence, which seems like a non sequitur. Feel
free to expand on why
it follows from the earlier comments (where you are correct).
dmb says:
Non sequitur? You really don't see how that adds up? Hmmmm. OK, I'll try to
"unpack" it a bit. Your position on this and many related issues is
consistent. In different ways, you say there is no real difference between
the social and intellectual levels. You say religion and science are really
just two rival mythologies. The shrub/tree analogy suggests that intellect
values are really just a bigger version of the social level's values. And
this is not a difficult case to make since it agrees with SOM. Conventional
wisdom tells us there is no real difference, just as you say. But here
Pirsig explains how SOM, the metaphysics of substance, fails to see the
distinction.
"Phaedrus thought the metaphysics of substance fails to illuminate the gulf
between ourselves and Victorians because it regards both society AND
intellect as possession of biology. It says society and intellect don't have
substance and therefore can't be real. It says biology is where reality
stops. Society and intellect are ephemeral POSSESSIONS of reality. In a
substance metaphysics, consequently, the distinction between society and
intellect is sort of like a distinction between what's in the right pocket
and what's in the left pocket of biological man."
dmb continues:
And now you know where the phrase "right and left pockets" comes from too.
The MOQ replaces SOM's misconception about the nature of society and
intellect and thereby makes the two far more distinct than you or SOM.
"In a value metaphysics, on the other hand, society and intellect are
patterns of value. They're real. They're independent. They're not properties
of 'man' any more than cats are the property of catfood or a tree is a
property of soil. Biological man does not create his society any more than
soil 'creates' a tree. The pattern of the tree is dependent upon the
minerals in the soil and would die without them, but the tree's pattern is
not created by the soil's chemical pattern. It is hostile to the soil's
chemical pattern. It 'exploits' the soil, 'devours' the soil for its own
purposes, just the cat devours the catfood for its own purposes. In this
manner biological man is exploited and devoured by social patterns that are
essentially hostile to his biological values."
dmb continues:
In switching from SOM to the MOQ, society and intellect are not just rival
mythologies, not just different in size or age, but are two distinctly
different levels of static reality that operate on a whole differnt set of
rules and with completely different purposes and goals. Understanding their
differences is pretty much the key to using the MOQ as an explanatory tool.
We're talking about the most basic structure of the MOQ. The moral codes are
only about the four levels and how they relate to each other. These are the
ABCs of the MOQ, without which we can read nothing. But understanding the
levels and codes allows us to see things that SOM can't see, namely that
intellect and society are in a fierce battle, and that helps us see our
history, our own times and our selves more clearly.
"This is also true of intellect and society. Intellect has its own patterns
and goals that are as independent of society as society is independent of
biology. A value metaphysics makes it possible to see that there's a
conflict between intellect and society that's just as fierce as the conflict
between society and biology or the conflict between biology and death.
Biology beat death billions of years ago. Society beat biology thousands of
years ago. But intellect and society are still fighting it out, and that is
the key to an understanding of both the Victorians and the 20th century."
dmb concludes:
Call it the meta-narrative of evolutionary primacy, if you like, but there
it is. Pirsig puts intellect over society for evolutionary reasons, not
because of "the myth of objectivity" or any other SOM reason. In fact he's
able to make a distinction as response to SOM's inadequacy on precisely this
matter; its inability to see the dif.
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 : Sat May 24 2003 - 18:19:50 BST