From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 06:30:52 BST
HI Scott,
>I think Pirsig had mostly in mind that it is the economic system, but
>clearly, government is a part of that, since it sets and enforces the
>rules.
>By "economic system", I do not mean the theory of capitalism (or
>socialism),
>but the sum of everybody's getting and spending.
I think government is manipulated by the Giant, people who make up the
government have become addicted to economic growth and do anything the
Giant wants.
> > Platt wants to put the Giant in the third level, so that the fourth
>level
> > can be free of any "bad" patterns. I think the Giant is a fourth level
> > pattern, I like to see the third level as pristine.
>
>Obviously the third level, and I'm kind of boggled at how it could be seen
>in any other way.
Because I see third level patterns as being between people, or acting on
people, on a small scale, and fourth level patterns as being between
societies, or acting on societies. Thus monogamy, property, friendship and
family are social patterns because they are between individuals, whereas
democracy and free speech are intellectual patterns that use patterns of
society as their propogation and evolution, not people directly. (though
the society in turn uses people and the people use inorganic patterns.)
They are propogated by symbols manipulated in minds, as opposed to just
understood like third level patterns, but the patterns are not the symbols
or the minds. I don't think an intellectual pattern has to be clearly
conceived or concisely stated for it to exist, no one needs to really
understand it or value it or want it at all, just like a computer isn;t
aware of the novel and may prefer to simply be turned off, for all we know.
People seem to forget that lower levels aren't aware of higher levels at
all, so since we are biological creatures, we don' t really know what novel
is being written on us by the third and fourth levels. Our society knows
what social patterns are happening, but my finger doesn't know which lever
it is pulling in the voting booth. Social and intellectual patterns tell
our finger which to pull, our body is completely oblivious.
Now I've almost equated the Giant with the fourth level itself, which I
didn't intend to do. I think it is one of those patterns that we are not
aware of that acts on society and shapes society (societies - the same Giant
is behind "democracy" movements in Iran, and all over.) It might even be a
pattern made up of fourth level patterns, a fifth level pattern.
>And I can't imagine either the third or fourth level being
>pristine, short of the millenium. I must have missed something in the
>discussion.
I'm just referring to mine and Platt's (mostly mine) to get defensive when
our favorite level is disparaged. I think we both acknoweldge neither is
pristine, if by that we mean, contains nothing that offends our
sensibilities. But that's cause our sensibilities are a mixture of third
and fourth level influenced aesthetics.
> > Is the Giant even entirely bad? I don't like it, it isn't human, it
>uses
> > humans, devours them.
>
>It mostly just is. It is up to individuals to tame it (make it more
>fourth-level friendly) or escape it if they want to. There are better and
>worse Giants.
Hmm, what do you mean by make it more fourth level friendly? I guess of
course I would see taming it as making it third-level friendly, since I see
it as a fourth level pattern already. I think there is only one Giant.
Pirsig says there is one Giant, doesn't he?
Johnny
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