[Marsha]
I cannot say what you describe is done without deliberation and
purpose, but they are not focused on the improvement of the Social
Level, which is a part of the MOQ definition of the Intellectual
Level's function.
[Arlo]
I think there are many examples of deliberate and purposeful social
activities whose aim is to improve the overall social condition. When
early humans began to cultivate food crops, rather than relying on
foraging, the overall social conditions of humans improved
considerably. When a new baseball stadium is built it may improve the
social situation of that city in many ways, from increasing trade and
tourism, to restaurant revenues, to giving families a place to bond
on sunny summer afternoon.
That is, there is organic change from within the social level, it is
not something "fixed" and reliant on intellectual patterns for
change. Of course, intellectual patterns can exert a tremendous force
on social patterns, changing them drastically. But if you trace the
history of social evolution from earliest tribes of humans to, say,
the pre-Socratic civilizations, you see a steady and purposeful
evolution towards improvement in social conditions.
It is for this reason I say we are not talking about
deliberate/non-deliberate or free/non-free distinctions, but
differing levels of evolution in which deliberation and freedom are
integral parts of each, just as automatism and conformity are
integral parts of each. Too many, I think, are looking for
descriptive differences between the levels (individual/collective,
free/conformitive, deliberate/automatic,
DQ-responsive/DQ-nonresponsive) when, to me, these are all part of
every level, its just that the range of agency increasing
exponentially as one moves up the levels.
When humans transitioned from biological to social beings, their
range of agency was vastly increased. The range of opportunity for
action, deliberate and purposeful actions, made the constrictions of
the biological level appear to be a prison. However, this appearance
masked the fact that the transition from inorganic to biological
beingness also vastly increased the range of agency for biological
creatures. The freedom of the biological level made the inorganic
look to be the prison. On all of these levels, however, the beings
within are given a wider range of freedoms than the previous. And so
it is not a matter of "this level is free, that level is conforming",
but "this level extends the repertoire of wo/man's agency
exponentially". Conformity, or as I prefer "habituated activity", is
evidenced as much on the intellectual level as on the social level.
Indeed, the entire thrust of Pirsig's criticism in ZMM is on Western
Intellectual Conformity, the static patterns that have produced
habituated intellectual activity that reifies S/O duality.
It is the same with the individual-collective descriptors. All levels
contain "individuals in collective activity". There is no one level
of "the individual" and another of "the collective". All levels,
depending on the context of one's focus, are the activity of
"individuals in collective activity". This describes the inorganic as
well the intellectual levels.
Yes, saw the spider on caffeine. Very illuminating. Or were you
referring to the spoof video with the spider on crack?
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