From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sat Oct 25 2003 - 22:44:42 BST
Dear Platt,
You wrote 23 Oct 2003 10:35:09 -0400:
'Perhaps we've inadvertently discovered a crack in Pirsigs hierarchy because
it's evident that ideas (intellectual patterns of value) influence human
behavior (social patterns of value). Otherwise, social patterns would never
change. (Example of the Zuni brujo.)'
I don't think social patterns of value only change because intellectual
patterns of value influence human behaviour. I do agree that this nowadays
is an important explanation of social progress however.
Intellectual patterns of value influence only a small part of human
behaviour. The main relevance of intellectual patterns of value is not their
effect on human behaviour, but on the way people understand their experience
(including their own behaviour), on what they think that experience means
and how that behaviour comes about.
I don't really see the crack in Pirsig's level hierarchy.
Society depends on predictable behaviour. The concept of truth tells people
WHY their behaviour should be predictable in certain ways and under certain
conditions. It influences people only marginally to make their behaviour
more predictable. Societies can stand a lot of propaganda for untruthfulness
before the behaviour of its members is influenced enough to make it break
down. For example, the U.S.A. can stand a lot of election campaings in which
different access to funding effectively decides who wins before enough
people stop voting and accepting decisions of elected politicians to really
change the social patterns of value that define it (because they don't
accept the system as truly democratic any more).
You continued:
'Faking, lieing, misrepresenting, deceiving, falsifying--all related to the
concept of truth--will, if practiced on a large enough scale, break up a
society as surely as a natural disaster.'
Maybe. But the perception/understanding of a society (e.g. whether it is
perceived as 'democratic' or 'dictatorial') will change much faster than the
social patterns of value defining it themselves will change. From a social
level perspective hardly anything changes when from an intellectual level
perspective major historical changes occur (like the overthrow of the Nazi
regime at the end of the 2nd World War).
Finally you wrote:
'I consider it highly relevant whether social patterns of behavior are
relatively voluntary and unconformist in a libertarian society compared to
behavior that's involuntary and rigidly conformist in a communist society.'
I was comparing libertarianism and fascism. Social patterns of behaviour are
nearly as involuntary and conformist in a society that is understood as
'libertarian' as in a society that is understood as 'fascist', otherwise
there would be no recognizable social patterns of behaviour to define it as
a society.
From an intellectual level perspective the marginal differences in behaviour
and the huge differences in motivation of behaviour (i.e. the differences in
intellectual patterns of value) between libertarians and fascists are indeed
highly relevant.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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