Hi Craig, I love the paradox in that quote, it's been quoted a few times. The fact that it starts with the word culture ....
And in fact it's very much the same point in an exchange with DMB earlier about the key distinguishing feature between the social and intellectual (which is not in doubt). The paradox is that having conceptualised a high quality intellectual idea / pattern, (using intellectual "freedom") it needs to be realized in the lower levels (or remain forever conceptual). That realization through the social level then depends on being able to "dominate" other social patterns using things that look less like "freedom" and more like "authority" backed by "force" and it starts to look more like a social pattern, even though it originated in intellect. The distinction between intellectual and social patterns is not in doubt BUT HOW a culture "manages" its socialization of its intellect whilst preserving the freedoms its intellect requires (ie governance) is the real issue. It is almost all about limitations to freedoms. (So much more important for us here and now than the speculative, cosmological and evolutionary navel gazing and nit-picking at the lower levels IMHO - which are important in documenting a coherent metaphysics and predicting future evolution - but not your next meal or next years laws and taxes.) So to answer you question it MUST be a balance (dynamic, cyclical balance) of 1 and 2, rather than choosing one or t'other. They cannot be exclusive. Ian On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 9:56 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > "...a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values > over social values is absolutely superior to one that does not." > (Pirsig, Lila, p.311) > > . > IMHO the 2 important questions that this quote raises are: > 1) would a free culture that supports the dominance of intellectual > values over social values be superior to an authoritarian culture > that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social values & > 2) would a free a culture be more likely than an authoritarian culture > to support the dominance of intellectual values over social values. > > Craig > > > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
