From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu May 13 2004 - 14:40:28 BST
Hi Mark H,
Continuing with hopefully constructive criticism of your answers to my
original question.
> Here's my take on the second quote offered by Platt for my analysis
> and opinion.
>
>
> ANALYSIS OF QUOTE 2
> For the purpose of my analysis, I'll divide Quote 2 into three
> distinct ideas. Here they are:
>
> Pirsig Idea Q2-1) "An evolutionary morality would at first seem to
> say yes, a society has a right to murder people to prevent its own
> destruction. A primitive isolated village threatened by brigands has
> a moral right and obligation to kill them in self-defense since a
> village is a higher form of evolution. "
>
> msh
> I'm not sure why a small village is necessarily a higher form of
> social evolution than, say, a pirate ship full of brigands. Because
> it doesn't move? Because the pirates are bad guys? It's always
> wrong to steal? Probably. But certainly debatable. Anyway, I get
> and agree with the point; but this sort of statement supports my
> contention that Pirsig sees a secondary moral hierarchy at work on
> the Social/Cultural level.
I think Pirsig's point is that a group of pirates are thieves and thus
behaving biologically compared to a social level village where thieves are
punished to preserve social harmony and thus operating on a higher moral
level.
> A more interesting point here is that the wording of Q2-1,
> particularly the words "at first seem to say", strongly implies that
> there is a big "BUT" coming. Maybe society does NOT have the right
> to murder people. But the quote, as presented, leaves us hanging.
>
> Happily, we can turn to the text in order to complete the thought.
> In the book, two tremendously important paragraphs appear
> immediately after the the original quote. Here they are, with my
> emphasis added:
>
> "When a society is not itself threatened, as in the execution of
> individual criminals, the issue becomes more complex. In the
> case of treason or insurrection or war a criminal's threat to a
> society can be very real. But if an established social structure is
> not seriously threatened by a criminal, then an evolutionary morality would
> argue that there is no moral justification for killing him.
>
> "What makes killing him immoral is that a criminal is not just a
> biological organism. He is not even just a defective unit of
> society. Whenever you kill a human being you are killing a source of
> thought too. A human being is a collection of ideas, AND THESE IDEAS TAKE
> MORAL PRECEDENCE OVER A SOCIETY. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at
> a higher level of evolution than social patterns of value. Just as it is
> more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than a patient, SO IT IS MORE MORAL
> FOR AN IDEA TO KILL A SOCIETY THAN IT IS FOR A SOCIETY TO KILL AN IDEA."
> (LILA-13, HB pp 160-161)
>
> msh
> So, by expanding the original quote to include the ensuing
> paragraphs, we get a dramatically superior depiction of Pirsig's
> thought. There's no need for dissection here; I agree with these
> ideas completely, with one quibble. People with powerful ideas
> critical of an established society will often find themselves at odds with
> that society's laws, even to the point of technical criminality. This is
> the very essence of civil disobedience, which can be, and often is,
> construed as a threat against "an established social structure." I think
> that an evolutionary morality would argue that any action emerging
> dynamically from the free flow and interaction of ideas will take moral
> precedence over a society, no matter how well established, which is to say
> "entrenched", the society is.
Here Pirsig makes a clear distinction between the morality of war in which
social levels are in conflict to the morality of how a social level ought
to treat individual criminals in its midst. Note Pirsig's emphasis in
making the transition from talking about societies in conflict with one
another to an individual in conflict with society by identifying what he's
talking about as "individual criminals," "a criminal," a "defective unit
of society," and "a human being." In other words and in broader terms,
Pirsig makes a transition from the morality of war to the morality of
capital punishment, illustrating the moral difference between biological
vs.social values and social vs.intellectual values.
> Pirsig Idea Q2-2) "When the United States drafted troops for the
> Civil War everyone knew that innocent people would be murdered. The
> North could have permitted the slave states to become independent and saved
> hundreds of thousands of lives."
> Like any war, the Civil War was the result of actions taken by
> relatively small groups of privileged individuals with conflicting
> economic and power interests, within geographically distinct
> societies. In comparison to the total populations of their respective
> societies, these groups were microscopic in size, yet managed to accrue,
> almost always through inordinate wealth, or violence, or the threat of
> violence, a vastly disproportionate power over the decision- making
> processes of their societies. Once the decision to go to war is made, it
> becomes necessary to generate among the population at large a kind of war
> fervor, to ensure that bodies will be available to fight and die. This
> results in a social environment where oversimplifications run rampant:
> We're fighting to free the slaves! We're fighting to save our homeland,
> our heritage, our lifestyle!
No need to comment further about this because as you know I don't agree
with your Marxist interpretation that class struggle causes wars.
> Anyway, I digress. For anyone who's interested in the actual causes
> of the Civil War, I recommend historian Howard Zinn's treatment of
> the subject in his book "A People's History of the United States."
> For your perusal and verification, and further study, he provides
> numerous citations in support of his ideas.
And, you know my low opinion of Zinn's "history."
> msh
> Nothing much to disagree with here. I'll buy it off the rack. I
> particularly like the phrase "the principle of human equality is an
> even higher form [of moral evolution] than a nation." I mentioned
> this in my previous post. Working within the MOQ, such words become
> heavy with meaning: If a nation violates, suppresses, destroys, or
> in any other way impedes or diminishes even a single person's chance
> for equality with his fellow beings, it is MORALLY IMPERATIVE that
> that corrupted nation be destroyed. Tough but true words, I think.
Also, I commented on this in a previous post, saying your idea was moral
justification for invading Iraq. You responded that the U.S. doesn't want
to establish a democracy in Iraq. Suggest we discuss this further in a
separate post.
> Ok, so that's my take on Quote 2. Analysis of Quote 3 will follow in a day
> or two, As always, any and all constructive criticism will be welcomed.
My critique of your analysis of Quote 3 will be forthcoming. Then we can
circle back respond to each other's response if you wish.
Best,
Platt
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