Ian, responding to Bodvar having made this a separate thread. You're right, this is a biggy. Ian
Andre: Bodvar argues ( I do not want to miss represent you) that there is something not quite right at the intellectual level (to put it mildly). Here I just want to throw in my bit so please bear with me. If the intellectual level is 'confined' to the 'skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular experience and which behave according to rules of their own' (this points indeed to math, logic, computer programming etc) but my question is: 'What are we then intellectualising about? what the fuck (pardon me) is going on here? Are we intellectualising about intellectualising or are we intellectualising about learning to understand inorganic, organic and social PoV's?...and at the intellectual level trying to dominate/control these? Where is the connection? Looking at it from this point of view, every level 'below' the intellectual is, through this process 'objectified' (and by this I mean, made into a thing, an object). Isn't this process the very thing Pirsig had identified as being the cause of this modern day rust-belt? 'These subject-object patterns (he refers to SOM as the 'paralysing intellectual system) were never designed for the job of governing society. They're not doing it....It's this intellectual pattern of amoral 'objectivity' that is to blame because it has undermined the static social values necessary to prevent deterioration (Lila p312). Is this pointing to a 'split' (if you like) in the intellectual approach? A different way of thinking when confronted with 'objects' (SOM land) and 'subjects (MoQ land)? And Pirsig condemming SOM's 'approach' and instead proposing the MoQ 'approach'( i.e do think about all patterns as morality in a moral way)?? If YES, then why reduce the intellectual level to be restricted to the manipulation of abstract symbols which, as I argue (has the, perhaps, unintended consequences/side effects of/ SOM effects!) treating all 'lower levels' as (moral) objects? ( e.g. human beings turned into patients, consumers, economic units? I realise this occurs at the social level but can you follow what I am getting at?) . What is wrong with my reasoning that leads to this conclusion? If the MoQ posits that socialism is morally better than capitalism because it is an 'intellectually guided society', and I see everywhere around me people being treated as objects (by this system called socialism) ...this idea...not killing them (well,,they do but that occurs everywhere else as well and is , here, beside the point) ..stifling them...not allowing them to express themselves as human beings. Is this what the MoQ proposes? I doubt it very much. But here lies, for me, a big discrepancy which, as far as my reading goes, re the intellectual level, is not resolved and I may add reinforces Bodvar's SOL theory. For what it is worth. Andre 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/
