From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 23:06:50 BST
Dear Platt and Dave S.,
I accept Dave S. amendment of my thinking about rationality/irrationality by
distinguishing pre-rationality, rationality and transrationality plus
healthy and unhealthy manifestations of these.
I do not presuppose that Americans are distributed differently between these
categories (or express them in different proportions) than Europeans or
Dutch. I was just trying to figure out what truth there is behind the
statistic that 59% of Americans believe Revelations to be literally true and
the suggestion in my source article in that they are willing to act (in the
political realm) on that belief. That statistic (combined with the 2,5% for
the Dutch mentioned in that article) suggests something I'm not willing to
believe yet. So I need your help to give me counterstatistics and/or
experience. (A claim that in your experience Americans are no more or less
rational than people in other Western nations requires more supportive
detail.)
Platt's Gallup statistic that 50% of Americans call themselves religious and
an additional 33% calls themselves spiritual but not religious doesn't
necessarily prove the 59% wrong. That depends on what Americans mean with
'religious' and 'spiritual'. (In the Netherlands these percentages would be
considerably but not as drastically lower as the 59%/2,5% comparison
suggests, but I have no statistics at hand.)
David B.'s statistic of 60 million sold copies in Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind"
series DOES support the 59% statistic (if you take into account that the
majority of people who hardly ever read a book are apparently catered for by
'a movie or two'. Probably by radio and television too, even though David B.
doesn't mention these.)
I don't think being religious is in itself proof of pre-rationality,
rationality, transrationality or of healthy/unhealthy manifestations of
these. I can think of religions predominantly expressing each of these
categories. Distribution of religious people between these categories or the
proportions in which religious people express these categories may differ
with the rest of the population though. To what extent that is the case will
surely differ between nations, as differences in religions and distribution
between religions may be one of the most important identifying
characteristics of national identities. Investigating the differences in
this respect between the USA and Europe/the Netherlands is exactly the point
of this sub-thread.
Platt wrote 13 May 2004 14:27:41 -0400:
'I always thought that Pirsig defines the fourth level by its rationality.'
The only definition by Pirsig of the fourth level is in terms of symbols.
'Lila' doesn't contain a definition. 'Rational' is mentioned as a criterion
at the 4th level, but I found no quotes suggesting that irrational,
prerational or transrational thinking would not belong to the 4th level (as
lower or higher quality symbolic patterns of value compared to rational
ones).
Platt concluded:
'I think the third level is dominated by more or less automatic human
behavior but not completely without thinking or behavior motivated by
mindful symbolic manipulation. Organized religion is a shining example of
symbolism over substance (to coin a phrase). But more than that, the
biological energy the Giant sucks up from humans to attain it's own ends
includes brainpower. Otherwise, New York City could never have been built.'
According to Pirsig's definition 'mindful symbolic manipulation' would
belong to the 4th level. That (relatively) modern 3rd level patterns of
values have come into being under the influence of symbolic patterns of
value doesn't show that the 3rd level contains symbol manipulation, but that
there is some interaction between the 3rd and 4th levels. 4th Level patterns
of value can promote the stability and versatility of 3rd level patterns of
value and stimulate 3rd level evolution towards DQ. (Usually they have
'purposes of their own' however and their influence on 3rd level habitual
behaviour is relatively marginal. 3rd Level evolution has a much slower pace
than 4th level evolution.)
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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