Hello Platt Sat. July 18 you wrote > I can see now that Pirsig's attack on S/O intellect in ZAMM got watered > down in his subsequent writings. There's nothing I can find in ZAMM about > intellect being a manipulation of symbols or any such abstract > description. Not at all. In ZAMM, intellect is S/O, period, including all > its paradoxes, self-contradictions, infinite regresses, and uncertainties. > It was against this giant of accepted but flawed intellectualism that > Pirsig found an Achilles heel. Small wonder, then, that when the > Intellectual Level appeared in the MOQ, again described as defective, you > presumed it to be the same derelict creature Pirsig exposed in ZAMM. The > relief that exposure brought to you was, now that I think about it, the > same relief I felt. And, I too presumed the Intellectual Level in the MOQ > was the S/O intellect of ZAMM. There was no reason not to. But then > others started questioning the level and I got swept up in the tide. Silly > me.
This is the most exact summary of the quandary I've ever read, your description of the maze the MOQ has gone through to rid itself of SOM's tentacles is spot on. However, some tentacles still cling, the claim that the MOQ is an intellectual pattern is still valid it seems - the Quality/MOQ a variant of that - DMB is adamant here, he seems not to understand that seen from the highest "peak" neither the Quality/MOQ, or the Quality/Concept divisions are valid: MOQ IS REALITY, one doesn't get higher. However up there is no place to stay without suffering from .... (a word I did not find) the static range is our abode and at intellect its S/O can be used freely - must be used - only with its limitations kept in mind (sic) > Now I agree with you that any other interpretation of the Intellectual > Level effectively kills the great body of Pirsig's work and deprives him > of his revolutionary discovery. For if the MOQ is simply another in a long > line of static intellectual patterns, what good is it? As Marsha said, a > static intellectual pattern is like a score for a symphony. You can > experience either one, but there is a difference! I know it's not "comme il faut" to cast ourselves in such grand roles, however if (in a MOQ retrospect) Plato & Co. were the midwieves for the intellectual level's emergence from the social (Aretê) and the Sophists tried to prevent it, then we are helping the MOQ get free from intellect (in its SOM role) while the latter-day Sophists (DMB & Co.) work overtime to keep it back. I know that ZAMM sympathized with the Sophists, but - as said - in the light of the MOQ its proceedings get a different hue. Bodvar 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/
