From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 07 2004 - 22:38:59 GMT
Hi dude, yeah the PARTY party is good for me too.
Back to reality.... OK interesting points below.
So how seriously do we need to take the value
of the intellectual level. How are we going to get more
people on this level and off of the dominance of the social
level. I think that mal-functioning aspects of the social level,
such as inequality and the failure to reduce working hours,
is making progress currently impossible.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 8:33 PM
Subject: MD Beyond Liberalism?
> Morey, Sam, Matt and all MOQers:
>
> dmb says:
> DM's comments (below) were taken from the "When is a metaphysics not a
> metaphysics?" thread. As you'll see, the topic has changed to politics
since
> the thread began...
>
> DM wrote:
> I think we need to promote the MOQ over the limitations of SOM. I also
> suggest liberalism is tied to SOM, so that moving beyond SOM probably
means
> going beyond liberalism. We have to undermine the present aristocracy,
with
> its patronage, corruption, inequality, illegitimacy, etc; not uphold its
> power by accepting private ownership and property, appalling standards of
> education, the moral vacuum at the heart of corporate life, etc. We
> currently lack ambition, I would like to dream again in a manner of those
> strange mixed times of secularism and intense religiosity known as the
> Renaissance.
>
> dmb says:
> Liberalism is tied to SOM? Well, yea, but not any more than any other
widely
> held modern political ideology. In fact, its hard to imagine how any
modern
> intellectual discipline could have escaped the effects of scientific
> materialism. BUT - and this is a really big but, even bigger than JLo's
> butt, I don't think that shifting from a SOM to the MOQ requires the
> ejection of Liberalism. In fact, I think Pirsig's framework only clarifies
> its status and sharpens its meaning.
>
> "What passed for morality within this crowd (of liberal intellectuals like
> himself) was a kind of vague, amorphous soup of sentiments known as 'human
> rights'. You were also supposed to be 'reasonable'. What these terms
really
> meant was never spelled out in any way that Phadedrus had ever heard. You
> were just supposed to cheer for them. He knew now that the reason nobody
> ever spelled them out was nobody ever could. In a subject-object
> understanding of the world these terms have no meaning. There is no such
> thing as 'human rights'. There is no such thing as moral reasonableness.
> There are subjects and objects and nothing else. This soup of sentiments
> about logically non-existent entities can be straightened out by the MOQ.
It
> says that what is meant by 'human rights' is usually the moral code of
> intellect-vs-society; the moral right of intellect to be free of social
> control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury;
> habeus corpus; government by consent - these 'human rights' are all
> intellect-vs-society issues. According to the MOQ these 'human rights'
have
> not just a sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are
> essential to the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of
> life. They are for real. ...Unless you separate these two levels of moral
> codes you get a paralyzing confusion as to whether society is moral or
> immoral. That paralyzing confusion is what dominates all thoughts about
> morality and society today." LILA CH 24
>
> dmb continues:
> I think this is where we see Pirsig tossing out the bathwater WITHOUT
losing
> the baby. He gets us out of the soup WITHOUT losing Liberalism. We can
build
> upon that. If that's what you mean by "going beyond liberalism", then I
can
> agree. But I think its pretty clear that Pirsig's MOQ only improves
> Liberalism. I think this clarification is exactly what "the pragmatists"
> need in order to avoid begging the question over social level ideologues
> such as fascists and fundamentalists. I think this is the larger framework
> we need to avoid the contradiction of Liberalism that Sam mentioned and
Matt
> explained. The MOQ allows us to assert that allowing each one the freedom
to
> subscribe to any conception of the good life is much more than just
another
> conception of the good life. The confusing paralysis that Pirsig refers to
> effects "the pragmatist" because he "can't separate these two levels of
> moral codes" and has no reasonable basis to priveledge liberal conceptions
> of the good life over any other. In "the pragmatists" view the conflict
> between fundamentalists and secular liberalism is only a matter of rival
> vocabularies, but Pirsig sees it as a manifestation of a much larger
> evolutionary conflict. As such, the freedom to pursue one's own conception
> of the good life is not only better than the opposite, it is a necessary
> part of the ongoing evolutionary process.
>
> "But what the larger intellectual structure of the MOQ makes clear is that
> this political battle of science to free itself from donimation by social
> moral codes was in fact a MORAL battle! It was the battle of a higher,
> intellectual level of evolution to keep itself from being devoured by a
> lower, social level of evolution." LILA CH 24
>
> DM wrote:
> ...how much more do we need a public re-evaluation of values? I think the
> first slogan of my new 'love and freedom party' is 'less work more quality
> for life'. Our values: freedom, life, love, giving, joy. Perhaps also
> 'CoOperation not competition'. Feels like 1968 again doesn't it? Anyone
want
> to join?
>
> dmb says:
> Yea, man. Groovy. How about if we call it "the PARTY party". We'll hold
our
> nominating convention in Las Vegas and Paris Hilton will be the first lady
> no matter who wins the nomination. Robert Downey Jr will be our drug czar
> and Tommy Chong will head the agriculture department. Our party's slogan
> will be "Imagine whirled peas". And we'll move the nation's capitol from
> Washington to Santa Cruz, man.
>
>
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