Ian said: Exactly Marsha, "isms" for for people stuck in social level patterns
Cause Marsha said: Marxism? Capitalism? They're both stinky. And besides there's that old saying, "garbage in, garbage out". The Intellectual Level needs to look beyond the past for something that considers the seventh generation. dmb says: I really don't think we should pretend to be above "isms" and I think it is extremely unhelpful to pretend there is no difference or that they all belong on the social level. There are quite a few "isms" discussed in LILA and the political conflicts that make up the last century (or so) of our history is used to explain the difference between the third and fourth levels. Yes, it is true. Conversations on this topic too often come down to some kind of ideological stand-off but I really don't think this makes both sides equal. Haven't you ever noticed how conservatives have to ignore or distort what Pirsig says about politics, as in the recent case of Ayn Rand and her individualism? Take the Scopes trial of 1925, for example, which pitted evolution against religion in our public schools. This debate continues to this day and it is certainly a conflict of "isms". Here's a key section from chapter 22 of LILA... "But when that trial is seen as a conflict of social and intellectual values its meaning emerges. Scopes and Darrow were defending academic freedom but, more importantly, they were prosecuting the old static religious patterns of the past. They gave intellectuals a warm feeling of arriving somewhere they had been waiting to arrive for a long time. Church bigots, pillars of society who for centuries had viciously attacked and defamed intellectuals who disagreed with them, were now getting some of it back. The hurricane of social forces released by the overthrow of society by intellect was most strongly felt in Europe, particularly Germany, where the effects of World War 1 were the most devastating. Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control of society, were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of intellect. Nowhere were the intellectuals more intense in their determination to overthrow the old order. Nowhere did the old order become more intent on finding ways to destroy the excesses of the new intellectualism. Phaedrus thought that no other historical or political analysis explains the enormity of these forces as clearly as does the MOQ. The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. This conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of intellectualism. His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His exaltation of the German volk was fueled by it. His fanatic persecution of any kind of intellectual freedom was driven by it. In the United Sates the economic and social upheaval was not so great as in Europe, but Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, nevertheless, become the center of a lesser storm between social and intellectual forces. The New Deal was many things, but at the center of it all was the belief that intellectual planning by the government was necessary for society to regain its health." dmb continues: Pirsig makes reference to a whole lot of other example in this chapter (as well as chapter 24 and scattered throughout the book). For Chris and our other European friends, the New Deal is classic American liberalism and the conservative movement - along with the boys from the Chicago school of ecomonics - has been taking it apart bit by bit for decades. They've been propping up third-world dictators like Pinochet and its only getting worse by the day. (Again, you gotta get "Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein) The YouTube video about the atheist soldier who is suing the army for being a christian organization would only be the most recent example of how the social-intellectual conflict shows up in the news on a daily basis. I don't know if the situation at the US Air Force Academy makes national or international news but around here it counts as local news and we've been hearing about it for years. (The academy is in Colorado Springs, where many leading fundamentalist leaders are headquartered.) Apparently, the students are pressured to "get saved", to convert to fundamentalism and those who resist are made to suffer for it. Add that to a thousand other assaults on intellectual values. Oh, and did you hear? They gutted the fourth amendment the other day. Russ Feingold and a few other brave souls are the other ones who objected. I mean, really, this is no time to pretend that "isms" don't matter. Wake up and smell the fascism. Please. Before its too late. Seriously, dmb _________________________________________________________________ Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_video_072008 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/
