-----Messaggio Originale----- Hi LS. > Seen in the light of the MOQ, what is it that is described in the last part > of ZMM (The Greeks). > Is it the emergence of SOM, the"coming of age" of the Intellectual level, > or...? I am happy that this argument has been chosen. I too was hesitating to vote it, even if I suggested one mine topic. It is undoubtedly true that mine topic and the Bo's one are similar, therefore I have just several things to write. As you know, I have joined Lila Squad only last month, and up to now I have not given information about me, unless I'm Italian. My full name is Marco Bonarelli, I'm 35 and I live in Northern Italy, in a town not far from Ravenna, Bologna and Venice. I have read several times ZMM and Lila in last 5 years, and every time I find something of new. You will find few quotes in my letters, because up to now I have read only books in Italian language. I have just found on the Net a e-text of ZMM and I can only insert quotes from this. My interest on the MOQ derives mainly from my past school training: a classic one, with Latin, Greek and Story of the Philosophy. Moreover the topic of the Quality stimulates my interest, because of my job as responsable of the quality for software house. Another coincidence between me and Pirsig is that I have studied also Chemistry for two years at Bologna university. But I do not want to bore all you with my life... as I said, the topic of tis month is very interesting for me: it joins the Quality to the classic world. Therefore it is time to begin... =====> Why the Greeks? Firstly it is important to understand why today, after more then 2500 years, we must still argue about the thought of the Ancient Greeks. Greece has been the parent of western thought. In few centuries the Greeks were able to process the 90% of our actual thought. It is obvious that if you want to write of Metaphysics you must confront yourself with the Greeks, and Pirsig made it. "One must first get over the idea that the time span between the last caveman and the first Greek philosophers was short. The absence of any history for this period sometimes gives this illusion. But before the Greek philosophers arrived on the scene, for a period of at least five times all our recorded history since the Greek philosophers, there existed civilizations in an advanced state of development. They had villages and cities, vehicles, houses, marketplaces, bounded fields, agricultural implements and domestic animals, and led a life quite as rich and varied as that in most rural areas of the world today. And like people in those areas today they saw no reason to write it all down, or if they did, they wrote it on materials that have never been found. Thus we know nothing about them. The ``Dark Ages'' were merely the resumption of a natural way of life that had been momentarily interrupted by the Greeks." (ZMM , chapter 29) At the time of ZMM , MOQ did not exist... but, the topic is "Seen in the light of the MOQ..." so we must talk about ZMM Pirsig , seen in the light of LILA Pirsig. =====> One step behind. In order to understand the Greek thought in the light of the MOQ we must make one step behind. The MOQ teaches that the history of the universe is essentially an evolution. Pirsig aims its attention to the fight between the levels, especially between social and inellectual. This fight exists today, but it doesn't mean that it was always like this in the past. When a new level rises, it's weak. The older levels instead are very strong and could eliminate it. If it doesn't happen it is because the new level is initially created by the lower in order to solve special problems. For example, the social level initially is created by some biological pattern to resolve biological problems, like the food or the house. The COMPETITION between biological individuals makes to rise in some of them the Dynamic Idea to create a social pattern. When a social pattern is very simple there is no need of fight between social and biological levels: the bees are very happy of their nest, and the wolves are happy too of their pack. When we speak about the rituals of the social level we must think that many animals live also in simple social patterns and the behavior of the individuals is regulated through established roles. That establishment is their pattern and all the knowledge they need is stored in fixed behaviors, the rituals. It happened the same at the birth of the intellectual level: when the social level created complex patterns, like tribes, cities or nations, the problem of the COMPETITION (in form of war of conquest) between them raised again, for the attainment of social assets like riches, lands, human resources. The most of human social structures has found a better way to face the social competition: the intellectual level. We must always remeber that inellectual level is not thought, or mind. It is a new class of patterns, originally created by the social level, and evolved along the time. At the time time of it's birth, it was useful to the society that created it, because it became stronger then the ones that did not develope it. Initially the target was just to find solutions to win a war or to improve the economy. Then innovative solutions were invented, like politics, that rather tries to develop alliances. In this moment there was the birth of the opinions, and a beginning of new competitions. The main target of the intellectual patterns became therefore the search for the social agreement about their theories, and the fight for democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press derives from this point. I think that we can distinguish a level by another on the basis of their main values of his patterns: the main value of a biological pattern is to live and replicate (LIFE); the main value of a social pattern is, initially, to preserve individuals, then, to accumulate richness to the detriment of other social competitors (ECONOMY); the main value of an intellectual pattern is, initially, to lead the society by the use of mind and not by the use of rituals, then, to fight for social agreement, creating an useful system of thought (PHILOSOPHY). Now , we can debate if we must intend for intellectual level his first form or his second, but this is not the month's topic. ====> Let's return to Greece. At this point we can better understand the extraordinary experience of the Greeks: at that time, about ten centuries B.C. the Greeks colonized wide areas of the Mediterranean coasts, from Turkey to Spain. In every place where they disembarked , they created a particular social structure, the polis (city). Soon the competition between polis was strong and was created a fertile situation for the birth of a new level. In parallel with that, during approximately five centuries, the Greek thought anticipated great part of our modern western thought. We can note that our thought has employed approximately the same time from Renaissance to now. The Greeks coined the word Philosopher, in order to mean someone who works at an intellctual level, and takes care of his acquaintance (sophia). Initially their business was indifferently about technique and metaphysics. Many polis soon understood their usefulness. Especially Athens, promoted the birth of many Schools. Such social configurations are the conjunction between the social and the intellectual level. ===> SOM vs MOQ We cannot know if , at that times, the division between MOQ and SOM were already present. We cannot know if the Sophists, or Socrat, were the defenders of the MOQ (I don't think so). All that we know about them, (especially about the sophists) has been mainly reported by Plato, Aristotle and their schools. They made them say what they want. Surely all the schools created an own philosophy, that is an own intellectual pattern. I believe that the philosophy of Aristotle has been the birth of the SOM. And I think that until that time the intellectual level was only in his first form: to find a philosophy good for leading a society. In that age Aristotle won, and it was unavoidable: in that moment too many social problems were not yet solved and the society needed useful intellectual patterns. The theories of Aristotle (SOM) were more useful for the development of technology; technology was useful in order to increase the riches of the city; the city was useful in order to preserve the life of human beings. This simple reasoning induced the society to proclaim the victory of SOM, and try to cancel every shape of alternative thinking. And in the history of philosophy Aristotle has always the last word. Along 2000 years, SOM, created by Aristotle and developed by many other philosophers and religions, ruled in western culture. ====> Today Today we are again at the same point. The Native Americans have not invented the idea of freedom: it was already latent in the western culture at least from ancient Greece, and inside the Christian culture. What the Native Amercans have supplied to us was the example, that has begun the reaction. Now we are in the second form of inellectual level: theories are now fighting not only to lead societies, but also for freedom. And freedom of opinion and association helped the developement of many new philosophies (intellectual patterns). In some of them is born the conviction that SOM is inadequate. The MOQ is one possible answer. It will be able to win if it will be able to obtain a sincere social consent. But until many people in the world are enslaved of hard work, or, worse, of hunger, the society will have to think about something else, and will entrust who promises "objective" results. The MOQ has an advantage: it knows the adversary. In order to win definitively, MOQ can fight SOM , by the use of rhetoric or dialectic as "intellectual guns"; or must have a dynamic intuition: to find and to create the fifth level, that will be will allow an intellectual pattern to defeat the others. But this is an other story. Post Scriptum. I did not mention the eastern philosophy, fot two reasons: the fomer is yhat the topic was about the Greeks, the latter is that our western world has not been influenced a lot by eastern philosophy a lot. I'm sure that something like I described about the evolution of intellectual level was happened also in other places and other times, but the Greek's one is THE TIME and THE PLACE. As always, I'm sorry for my English. I hope to be able to complete soon a my own contribution to the MOQ.ORG Forum just to make more clear my interpretation of the evolution of Quality and the evolution of patterns inside a level. I would also give some answer: Diana: > If you haven' t already noticed we have two excellent new contributions > to the Forum: > > On Quality 28 Aug ' 99.... > > Creating an Organismic MOQ19 Aug ' 99.... I have read completely the second one and, slowly, I am reading the first. I would have something to say about the Organismic MOQ... To Cntryforce @ aol.com: > believe the last part of the ZMM contains one of the most historically > important showdowns in the history of American Literature, and indeed one of > the most historically important showdowns in the history of man. >That may sound absurdly exaggerated... I think it sounds exaggerated. Undoubtedly Pirsig has supplied an optimal key to interpret the history of the western thinking, but it is not the only one key. As an example, a book of a French philosopher has been useful to me : Marc Sautet: Un Caf� pour Socrate. It gave me another valid interpretation of the western thought, correlating the thought of many philosophers to their ability to produce riches... One of the instructions that I have drawn from Pirsig is that I must not be fixed on static positions, and therefore I must not be too sure of any theoretical position, MOQ comprised. Ciao a tutti. Marco. MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
