From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 08 2004 - 18:37:25 GMT
Hi DMB
Thanks for interesting reply, I was not questioning
this perspective only asking what others
thought. Did you have any thoughts on:
>>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.
Or do you think the key to change is through intellectual/
cultural change? My concern was about the blocks in our
current social arrangements to even addressing the problems
of SOM intellect and culture.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 1:35 AM
Subject: FW: MD Beyond Liberalism?
> David MOREY asked:
> 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.
>
> dmb says:
> How seriously should we take it? Pirsig says the social/intellectual
> conflict is the theme song of the 20th century. He says its an earthquake,
a
> hurricane, a period of evolutionary transformation. I take it pretty darn
> seriously. As I understand it, the main problem with effecting a smooth
and
> successful transition to an intellectual culture is not just resistance
from
> the social level. The problem is with intellect itself. (SOM) In its
> historical struggle to free itself from society, intellect has gone past
the
> independence it sought and become disconnected, disassociated and divorced
> from its parent level. Scientific materialism has gutted the world and
left
> it devoid of spirit, morals and the like. The social level is responding
to
> SOM in an especially violent and hostile manner because this flaw declares
> so much of the social level to less than real. There is bound to be
conflict
> in any transitional period, but SOM's attack on the social level has given
> rise to fundamentalism, fascism and other forms of the reactionary right.
>
> Ken Wilber:
> "When only objective its with simple location are really real, then the
> mind itself is a tabula that is totally rasa, utterly blank until filled
> with PICTURES or representations of the only reality there was: objective
> and sensory nature. There is no real SPIRIT, there is no real MIND, there
> is only empirical nature. No superconsciousness, no self-conscious, only
> subconscious processes scurrying endlessly, meaninglessly, in a vast
system
> of interwoven its." A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING pages 264-5.
>
> Ken Wilber:
> "Only objective its with simple location were really real. The entire
> interior
> dimensions were completely gutted, and the ghost in the machine began its
> sad and lonely modern moan, a haunting cry made all the more plaintive in
> that it had not even the power to attract attention."
>
> Pirsig says essentially the same thing:
> "the metaphysics of substance...regards both society and intellect
> (subjects) as possessions of biology (objects). 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." (Lila page 265.)
>
> Pirsig:
> "A scientific, intellectual culture had become a culture of million of
> isolated people living and dying in little cells of psychic solitary
> confinement, unable to talk to one another, really, and unable to judge
one
> another because scientifically speaking it is impossible to do so." (Lila
> page 283)
>
> dmb says:
> It seems that Pirsig and Wilber both agree about the problem. And the way
to
> solve that problem is to repair the flawed intellect. If our culture is
> going to be dominated and guided by intellectual values, then SOM must
first
> be replaced. The independence of the intellect doesn't require that
relegate
> all spiritual and moral matters to the social level. The birth of
intellect
> does not mean we MUST divorce science from spirituality or morality from
> philosophy. This is only a symptom of the metaphysics of substance, not
> intellect itself. And its not accident that Pirsig and Wilber agree that
the
> solution lies in a philosophical mysticism, because it successfully
> dissolves the SOM problem.
>
> Ken Wilber:
> "I always found it fascinating that both William James and Bertrand
Russell
> agreed on this crucial issue, the nonduality of subject and object in the
> primacy of immediate awareness. Now we have to be very careful with these
> terms (radical empirisism) because "empiricism" doesn't mean just sensory
> experience, it means experience itself, in any domain. It means immediate
> prehension, immediate experience, immediate awareness. And William James
set
> out to demonstrate that this pure nondual immediateness is the "basic
stuff"
> of reality, so to speak, and that both subject and object, mind and body,
> inside and outside, are derivative or secondary. They come later, they
come
> after, the primacy of immediateness, which is the ultimate reality, as it
> were. Of course, virtually all of the mystical or contemplative sages had
> been saying this for a few millennia, but James to his eternal credit
> brought it crashing into the mainstream ... and convinced Russell of its
> truth in the process. Russell had a rather tin understanding of the fact
> that the great comtemplative philosopher-sages - from Plotinus to
Augustine
> to Eckhart (Pirsig's favorite mystic) to Schelling to Schopenhauer to
> Emerson - had already solved or dissovled this subject/object duality."
>
> Pirsig:
> "Some of the most honored philsophers in history have been mystics:
> Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
> common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language;
> that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
> is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of
> dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American Church
argues
> that peyote can force-feed a mystic understanding upon those who were
> normally resistant to it,.." LILA (ch 5)
>
> Thanks for your time,
> DMB
>
> Thomas Jefferson in a letter to George Washington, January 4, 1786:
> "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but
> laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human
> mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries
> are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the
> change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with
> the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which
> fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the
regimen
> of their barbarous ancestors."
>
>
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