> [Platt] > But completely and sadly overlooked (or ignored) is the role of the > significant individual who changes society > > [Arlo] > This is actually funny. "Completely overlooked"??? If you could get > your head out of your dichotomy for even a microsecond, you'd see > that far from devaluing the "individual", I herald the individual. I > simply also pay similar herald to the role of the collective.
If you've ever "heralded" the individual the references are few and far between compared your heralding of the almighty collective. The latter I do not herald because it is a lower form of evolution than the autonomy of individual. > BOTH, > as I've argued countless times, are equally valuable, mutually > dependent, and dialecticallly intertwined. Not equal in the MOQ, the social level being lower on the evolutionary scale. > Unfortunately, ANY > recognition of the social processes (that Pirsig and others have > recognized) in the formation of "mind" or "intellect" or "self" seems > to be immediately met with a barrage of "he hates the individual" > nonsense. I don't know how many times I have to say it, but I get the > feeling that no matter how many times I do, since I (gasp!) agree > with Pirsig's assessment of the role of the collective consciousness, > or the fact that intellect derives from social participation, I'm > going to get nothing but the same old, tired attacks. Arlo the > commie. Arlo the nihilist. Arlo the devaluer of the Individual. No, Arlo ignoring the role of the inorganic and biological levels in the evolution of intellect. > [Platt] > Without such singular movers and shakers societies would stagnate.. > > [Arlo] > And without society, there could be no "singular movers" doing > anything but living like animals. Which is like saying without air there would be no lungs. > [Platt] > ... and we would still be nomadic wanderers dressed in buffalo skins > and hunting with spears. > > [Arlo] > And what would we be were it not for society? For a collective > consciousness, transmitting and structuring our ability to encode > experience? We'd be even worse off than those "nomadic wanderers", > we'd be like individual animals. Before the singular individual Gutenberg, transmitting experience hardly got beyond the monasteries. Lost to history is the first person to point to an object and say, "Gork!" > [Platt] > Some PERSON that is, not an amorphous intellectual abstraction such > as "collective consciousness." > > [Arlo] > Absolutely. But that PERSON is not a lone autonomous agent. That > PERSON derives his power to act, his agency, from his assimilation of > the collective consciousness. > His intellection comes out of his > social participation, it is not counter to it, it is not in spite of > it, it is BECAUSE of it. So do tell us how "intellection" begin? > Had Pirsig not approprited the language, > history, culture, voices, metaphors, etc. of his particular culture, > he would have had NO ABILITY to formulate the MOQ. His voice, an > important voice, is not a soliloquoy, it is a polyphany, it is a > voice that is part of a dialogue, that derives it power from being > part of a dialogue. All you are saying is Pirsig presupposes people. Well, golly gee. > Same with the others I cite. They did not write, nor think, in Lone > Autonomous Bliss. Their voices are significant, but this significance > is because of the culturally dialogue they are part of. Their voices are significant because each has something different and new to say -- or so I presume -- not because others are around to hear them. That's a given, like sex. > This "war" between the "individual" and the "collective" is simply > ridiculous. See Pirsig about "battles" between the levels. > It's like the night being at war with the day. When > Pirsig placed the social level between biology and intellect, he > aligned himself with a way of thinking that overcame this dichotomy > as well. No. He has made clear that intellect took over and dominated society in the U.S. beginning with Wilson and has made a holy mess of things because SOM that intellect uses has no provision for morals. > Just as with the structurationalists who sought to unite > agency and structure, and free them from their historical war, or > Vygotsky who recognized that the "self" is a social phenomenon not a > biological reality, or Bahktin who recognized that each voice is part > of a dialogue... and while without voices there would be no dialogue, > with the dialogue there would be no voices. I'll match your sociologists (if that's their claim to fame) with Locke, Jefferson and Hayek any day. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
