From: InfoPro Consulting: Mark Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue May 11 2004 - 01:20:15 BST
Hi Platt, and all,
I'll now turn to the third Pirsig quote offered by Platt for my
analysis and opinion. Here's the quote, as it was offered:
"The idea that biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone,
that you can talk crime to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns
cannot directly control biological patterns. Only social patterns can
control biological patterns, and the instrument of conversation
between society and biology is not words. The instrument of
conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman
or a soldier and his gun. In the battle of society against biology,
the new twentieth-century intellectuals have taken biology's side.
Society can handle biology alone by means of prisons and guns and
police and the military. But when the intellectuals in control of
society take biology's side against society then society is caught in
a cross fire from which it has no protection."
(Lila, 24)
ANALYSIS OF PIRSIG QUOTE 3
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this quote is a concatenation of
two paragraphs. Unfortunately, the first paragraph appears in the
text some 10 pages AFTER the second, knocking both out of temporal
and textual context, and implying a false sense of continuity and
ideological support between the two.
For the purpose of my analysis, I'll divide Quote 3 into two distinct
paragraphs, then into distinct ideas, and deal with each separately,
in the order in which they appear in the text. Here they are:
Pirsig Quote 3A (LILA-HC, Page 300)
Pirsig Idea Q3A-1) "In the battle of society against biology, the new
twentieth-century intellectuals have taken biology's side.
msh:
I'm afraid this idea is too vague for me to know whether or not I
agree with it. I can understand how someone might take biology's
side over society, but Who are these new intellectuals, and what are
their ideas? Pirsig doesn't say. And what is an intellectual
anyway? Someone with a Ph.D.? Or just anyone who reads and discusses
and thinks, and tries to provide support for his ideas? Or is it
just anyone who thinks, which means everyone?
Anyway, my guess is that you can find "intellectuals" on both sides
of the biology vs society issue. So this idea just isn't very
fruitful, as presented.
Pirsig Idea Q3A-2) Society can handle biology alone
by means of prisons and guns and police and the military.
msh:
Sure, we can turn society loose on biology; there are countless
examples of this. Nazi society handled biology, as did Pol Pot and
his regime. American society has handled its biological "criminals"
in a variety of ways as well, many of them difficult to square with
ANY interpretation of the MOQ's moral hierarchy, from killing
strikers and imprisoning war protesters, to turning dogs loose on
civil rights workers, to stifling, even outlawing any ideas
critical of such actions. Pirsig is well aware of this, as DMB has
pointed out in an earlier post, which is why he emphasizes the
importance of the intellectual level. I paste Pirsig from dmb's
message:
"A culture that supports the dominance of social values over
biological values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does
not, and a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values
over social values is absolutely superior to one that does not."
Pirsig Idea Q3A-3)"But when the intellectuals in control of society
take biology's side against society then society is caught in a cross
fire from which it has no protection."
msh:
Again, those damned intellectuals!
Pirsig Quote 3B (LILA-HC, Page 310)
Pirsig Idea Q3B-1) "The idea that biological crimes can be ended by
intellect alone, that you can talk crime to death, doesn't work."
msh:
Agreed. But who says it does?
Pirsig Idea Q3B-2) "Intellectual patterns cannot directly control
biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological
patterns..."
msh:
Agreed. But,the intellectual level can INDIRECTLY control the
biological level by influencing actions at the social/cultural level.
Pirsig Idea Q3B-3) "...and the instrument of conversation between
society and biology is not words. The instrument of conversation
between society and biology has always been a policeman or a soldier
and his gun."
msh:
Agreed. A policeman, a soldier, a general, a president, all of whose
actions are influenced by the dynamic flow and interaction of ideas.
Pirsig, again, with thanks to dmb:
"All the laws of history, all the arguments, all the Constitutions
and the Bills of Rights and Declarations of Independence are nothing
more than instructions to the military and police. If the military
and police don't follow these instructions properly they might as
well have never been written."
CONCLUSION:
Lest we've forgotten, here's Platt's original question to me:
"What I'd like to know is what you think about Pirsig's moral
structure of reality, especially the moral necessity of social level
patterns keeping biological patterns under control and killing them,
like germs, if necessary?"
As we've seen, the answer is that Pirsig's moral structure of reality
is far more complicated than is suggested by this little question and
all it's vindictive undertones. Nevertheless, I'm in overall
agreement with Pirsig's full spectrum of thought on this issue, and
the issues addressed in my previous quotational analyses, but not
with the oversimple, out-of-context, and incomplete ideas Platt has
offered for our entertainment.
Best to all,
Mark Heyman
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." -- Henri Poincare' MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
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