From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jun 30 2003 - 16:32:49 BST
Hi Scott
> Yes. That is, I think Pirsig is not overall clear on
> this, perhaps
> especially in his comments in LC. Either the
> intellectual level is a MOQ
> level (something that potentially conflicts with
> the next lower level), or
> it is just a facet of the social level. Paul (I
> think it was) argued that we
> should restrict the social level patterns to social
> institutions (the UN,
> law courts, etc), but these can't exist without the
> corresponding symbolic
> patterns. In fact, they *are* symbolic patterns.
To use the UN example - The way I see it is that the
social level in the MOQ is the value that makes a
"Member of the UN Security Council" different from me
for instance. My ideas on world problems and those of
the said UN Member could be distinguished at the
intellectual level by their quality, but I may have
all of the answers but no power to do anything with
them (not that I do have the answers :-))
Or in the example of the law courts it is what gives
the Judge the authority to pass sentences instead of
the defendant, and what gives the jury the authority
to generate a verdict. When Mr Smith who is normally
an accountant joins a jury he is given authority which
is not biologically detectable and is not just a
concept but is the power to influence the verdict
which decides the fate of the defendant. What the
juror and indeed the defendant think about that
authority is almost irrelevant against the static
social pattern that is the justice system.
It’s what makes the seven day week work, it’s going to
church, it’s taking care of the elderly people in your
family, it’s why you allow someone to take a
percentage of the money you earn, it’s the value given
to the paper we call money, it’s the difference
between counterfeit and genuine dollar bills, it’s the
difference between owning a Porsche and a Ford, it’s
Christmas, funerals, expecting the police to help and
your wife not to sleep with anyone except you.
We can 'explain' these things intellectually, but the
value which is operating is social.
> Until there is an
> independent level there is no conflict, and if there
> is no potential for
> conflict there is no point in the MOQ considering it
> to be a separate level.
Ideas oppose institutions all the time. Pirsig
changing established teaching methods, the brujo,
anyone who decides not to go to church anymore, Bush
and Blair ignoring the UN based on their reasons to go
to war, a child disobeying her parents..
cheers
Paul
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