From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Tue May 04 2004 - 04:55:56 BST
-----Original Message-----
From: David Buchanan
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 9:33 PM
To: 'storeyd'
Subject: RE: MD The Individual Level
Dave S. and all individuals:
storeyd said:
The point is not that the social level is good or bad, but that it has good
and bad interpretations, enactments, performancances, etc. note too that
the intellectual level itself is niether good nor bad, but has its own set
of illnesses, as Pirsig consistently points out...
dmb replies:
Interpretations, enactments and performances. That's right and well said
too. (And may I say, your posts are a big breath of fresh air.) As I like to
put, its all good, the question is what kind of good is it. Seems to me the
biggest trick is keeping our goods straight...
storeyd said:
...It's such an important idea (centers of gravity, or bell curves, of
individuals and cultures) for understanding evolutinary contexts, the
relations within and between different levels, etc., and once you get used
to the ideas, it's really like a form of radar you develop for interpreting
people, conversations, history, well, all of it! ...in short, it's really
about a deeper self-consciousness, and you start to see how all the
different levels that make you up exert pulls on you, which are, yes, more
dominant, more prominent.
dmb replies:
Yes, and it seems that learning to read things this way,learning to develop
this radar, is exactly what we need if we are to make use of the MOQ as an
explanatory tool.
storeyed said;
But I was wondering: Dmb said a few emails ago that "cultures and
societies are complex creatures", or something like that. Is the suggestion
that cities, villages, abstract cultures, etc. have a sentient intelligence,
a
type of hive mind that orients their action? To a large extent, i think
there
is some validity to this idea, except that, from an evolutionary standpoint,
we need to clarify: the Big Giant is not alive, it does not intend a field
of
consciousness/Quality.
dmb says:
Its more a poetic notion than rational description. Its just that societies
and cultures often ACT as if they were alive, as in a cultural immune
system, the Giant's apparent willingness to sacrifice human bodies to
preserve itself. Like any complex set of patterns, it "wants" to hold
together and persist. You know, Pirsig's descriptions of New York City can
be applied to many such "organisims".
Dave S continued:
This is something I felt was unresolved and ambiguous in Lila, perhaps
someone can help me out. I wasn't sure if Pirsig was saying that the Big
Giant was like a gravitational field of DQ, a hive mind, or whatever. But
when you say that a culture, religion, or society has a center of gravity, i
know exactly what you mean, but i just want to make sure you're saying that,
for any given collective context--at any given LEVEL--the bell curve, avg.
level, etc., is the aggregate of all the individuals that make up and
participate in that context. Because contexts without individuals are
literally nowhere to be found. The very concepts of culture, religion,
society, etc., are totalities, products of rational abstraction formed in
order to order, structure, cognize advanced social life, right? i'm only
splitting hairs because I think the idea is a very subtle but crucial point,
and it should breed a lot of discussion. But i think my claims square with
Pirsig--as he says very clearly, he's interested in Lila because he thinks
that the best way to think about the universe is not through sociology, or
mathematics, or anthropoloyg, but BIOGRAPHY. right?
dmb replies:
Excellent. Yes, biography is key. The struggle between the Brujo and his
tribe serves as a central koan of the book. We see some kind of parallel as
Pirsig struggles with his culture, but then ends up at the top of the world
in Manhattan, a part of it all. Even the collective, intersubjective spaces
are really in each of us of course. Anyone who has ever attended church, a
rock concert, a protest, boot camp, a footbal game or a riot knows how
blissful it can be to let yourself be absorbed by the crowd. We notice it
more clearly at such times, but we are never really disconnected from that.
Even when we play our apparently divergent roles, we're all playing along.
Even the misfits are an integral part of the culture. And so when that
cultural immune system detects danger and kicks into high gear, it'll be
certain individuals who step up to play the role of defender.
Thanks.
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