[Ron] Cultivate individual awareness. Develop patterns of value separate from society, for society may dictate those values without our direct knowledge
[Arlo] I have to comment on this, Ron, because I think it reveals a deep-rooted S/O fallacy of western culture. The social level is not a filter that distorts an otherwise "pure" perception of "the world", it is the very lens which makes our viewing the word "intellectually" possible. Certainly there are constraints to this vision (there HAS to be!) but there is also affordance. Some propose a MOQ that is simply "inorganic-biological-intellectual" with social being an "evil" force that interrupts or interferes with this process, a force to be overcome or removed from the equation. But this is not Pirsig's MOQ. It is impossible to develop values "separate from society". This is the "myth of independence" Pirsig mentions in LILA. The social level is the foundation of our intellect, not a corrupting element to be overcome. "Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They originate out of society." (LILA). Once one sees intellect as dialogic (derived from social participation), one can see that the lens we assimilate does indeed "direct our values without our direct knowledge" but that this is an unavoidable correlate to the vision we acquire. We cannot have vision without this lens, and so thinking about the constraints as somehow "bad" misses the process completely. As Pirsig says of Descartes' proclamation, "If Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct." (LILA) "Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived." (LILA) But the unavoidable cultural foundation of intellect does not mean we are simple social automatons. That is merely one view offered by the S/O fallacy. Man does have agency, but his agency does not run in opposition to these constraints, it is enabled by them. And this is the key to getting past this ridiculous S/O rhetoric of "lone man v. evil society". We are always, unavoidably, operating within a range of vision afforded and constrained by our lens. This lens may filter some things out, but it also enables us to see what we do see. One of the tremendous benefits to diversity is that we are given the opportunity to refocus our lens by seeing initially through a lens that is different from our own. This does not even have to be something so broad as the meeting of "east and west", but can involve encountering a sailing culture and suddenly being able to see the green flash of the sun. Because of man's agency, of course, even the meeting of two people is invariably a "clash of cultures" albeit often in very subtle ways (as opposed to the meeting of a western scientist with an aboriginal shaman). This gets into an idea of ever-decreasing circles in contrast to absolute dichotomies, and is (I believe) behind Pirsig's valuable recognition about what "we" are. "A culture of one. A culture is an evolved static pattern of quality capable of Dynamic change. That's what you are. That's the best definition of you that's ever been invented.You may think everything you say and everything you think is just you but actually the language you use and the values you have are the result of thousands of years of cultural evolution." (LILA) 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/
