From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 14:31:03 BST
Dear David B.,
I'm glad you appreciate my being 'nice and polite' (28 Mar 2004
17:05:39 -0700). Thanks for trying to return the favour (to both me and
others). That's all I ask. Well, almost all... (-;
You're completely right to criticize me for an 'urge to say everything at
once' and consequently making long and complicated sentences. That's a bad
habit of mine.
Can we make a deal? I clip my sentences and you are nice and polite to
everyone? (-:
It's not your use of the term 'junk' that bothers me (as you pretend to
suppose 28 Mar 2004 12:53:36 -0700). It's polarization on this list.
'Offensiveness' of the words used is not a good measure of polarization. If
you're abusing everyone at times (and see the value in what the same person
writes at other times) there's no polarization. If you're abusing
selectively those people you suspect of other political preferences, there
is.
You see a war between social and intellectual patterns of value almost
everywhere, also in the criticisms of some scientists of the Bush
administration. My point was not whether that is justified. You can indeed
quote Pirsig in your defense. My point was whether we have to re-enact that
war in this list. Can't we try to limit what we express here to intellectual
patterns of value?
You wrote 28 Mar 2004 12:53:36 -0700:
'I think it's literally preposterous of you to assert the Lila's Child
definition as something different and opposed to what Pirsig wrote in LILA
itself.'
I take what Pirsig wrote in 'Lila' on the subject to be metaphorical. So:
'different and opposed' only in the very limited sense of 'definition'
versus 'metaphor'. Metaphors have limited applicability and I do think that
Pirsig overextended this one in 'Lila'. You run into problems when you use
any metaphor for a relation to determine what belongs to the categories
being related. And that's what you seem to be discussing with Platt: do
conservatives (or their reasoning) belong to the 'social' category and
liberals (or their reasoning) to the 'intellectual' one, or vice versa. I
would have preferred Pirsig to stick closer to his hardware/software
metaphor for the relations between the levels, but even that would not have
helped in this discussion.
You also wrote:
'Pirsig also said that he didn't think a definition of "intellectual" was
needed because anyone who is up to reading his book should already know what
it means - and I can hardly express how much I DON'T appreciate your
pretending it is a difficult concept.'
In 'Lila's Child' Pirsig writes:
'In Lila I never defined the intellectual level of the MOQ, since everyone
who is up to reading Lila already knows what "intellectual" means. For
purposes of MOQ precision let's say that the intellectual level is the same
as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
brain, that stand for patterns of experience.'
Pirsig wrote to Paul:
'When I answered Dan Glover in Lila's Child, I remember being a little
annoyed that anyone should ask what the intellectual level is-as though he
were asking me what I mean by the word, "the." Any definition you
give is more likely to complicate understanding than simplify it. But since
then I have seen the question grow because the answer I have given is
inadequate. ... Like so many words, "intellectual" has different meanings
that are confused. ... "Intellect" can then be defined very loosely as the
level of independently manipulable signs.'
So 'intellectual' and 'intellect' are not difficult concepts. It's just
words that can refer to different concepts. I can live very well with
Pirsig's choice of concepts and with his definition. That doesn't mean that
it cannot be improved.
You wrote:
'It hardly matters if one clings to intellectual justifications for it, if
one is defending social patterns then one is defending social patterns.'
I agree. From the meaning 'conservative' and 'liberal' have to me,
conservatives seem to defend social patterns of value and liberals want to
liberate themselves (or others) from them. Liberation from social patterns
of value doesn't automatically imply promoting intellectual patterns of
value or promoting social progress. It can also mean degeneration. Platt is
right that if you choose the wrong methods, even promoting social progress
may cause degeneration and other undesirable results.)
The problem is, that the meaning of 'conservative' and 'liberal' in American
political dialogue seem to be tied up more with the methods being used
(especially government interference in society) than with what's being
promoted or defended. In Europe they are not used to refer to main political
controversies.
The 'political compass' you once alerted us to (www.politicalcompass.org)
had an economic left/right scale and a libertarian/authoritarian scale. In
the Netherlands 'liberalen' can be found in the lower right quadrant (right,
libertarian). In the USA 'liberals' are blamed for being left and
authoritarian. In the Netherlands typical 'defense of social patterns of
value' issues, like defending family life and heterosexual marriage, are
championed by the Christian Democrats who operate somewhere in the middle of
both scales.
In short: It is not as easy as you suggest it is to link defense of social
patterns of value and promoting intellectual patterns of value to political
positions, neither in the USA, nor in the Netherlands/Europe.
You continued:
'I certainly have a much more clear idea of Pirsig's level's than yours, but
its pretty clear that they are not the same. For example, it seems clear
that Pirsig's descriptions of the social level have pretty much nothing to
do with "unconscious copying of behavior". For Pirsig it is myth, ritual,
language, the giant, the values that hold a society together, it is blue
ribbons and saving face, it is that which controls and dominates biological
values, it is the parent of the intellectual level. It is many things, but
it is certainly not the "unconscious copying of behavior". Its hard to image
how you could have come up with something so, um, ... well, its just plain
weird. Where'd you ever get that idea anyway?'
I'm sorry, I had a fit of real philosophy and forgot that the thing we are
supposed to do in this discussion group is philosophologizing about Pirsig's
ideas. (-;
Now that I have formulated my alternative definitions, we may as well try to
discuss whether they are better or worse than Pirsig's
definitions/descriptions. You may be right that my definitions imply a
different split of 'static quality' than the one Pirsig intended. I'm not
convinced, but that's irrelevant for the moment. Even if they would, it
might accidentally be a better metaphysical split.
I retain Quality as starting concept, static/Dynamic as first split and 4
levels of static quality of which at least 2 are the same as Pirsig's. In my
opinion that qualifies my system of ideas as a Metaphysics of Quality, even
if it would be very different from Pirsig's system of ideas. According to
you 'a metaphysics in which the levels do not conflict is something other
than the MOQ'. I'll ask you the same as I did Platt:
Am I allowed to call my ideas 'a version of the MoQ' that admittedly
deviates from some of Pirsig's ideas? Should I go somewhere else to present
them and compare their quality with those of Pirsig and those of other
contributors to this list?
One of the ideas that started my philosophical fit was, that defining the
levels in a comparable way, with only a few variables, might clarify
matters. Another (hopefully) inspired idea was to use 'pattern of value' as
core concept in all those definitions and to avoid using 'value' or 'values'
separately. That might prevent contamination with Subject-Object thinking,
in which a 'value' is a characteristic of either a subject or an object. A
pattern is something that repeats or shows a recognizable structure. In my
understanding a 'pattern' is a 'pattern of value' because we value its
stability and versatility (and possibly the harmony with higher level
patterns of value). The comparability of my definitions derives from
concentrating on the way these patterns are maintained/replicated/latched.
In three of the four definitions I use the word 'copy': copying DNA (and
consequently hard-wired 'mechanisms' that guide behaviour), copying
behaviour and copying motivations/rationales for behaviour/actions. I do not
always include unconscious and conscious in the definitions of the social
and intellectual levels. That distinction is not essential for my
understanding of them even though it can help to understand the copying
'mechanisms'.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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