Arlo said:
Can you (in the plural) think of a way to define or categorize the social level
that does NOT include the "human restriction" in the definition that would also
set this restriction? Personally, I think a good place to start looking at the
social-biological boundary is in the notion of "shared attention".
dmb says:
Let me expand on the analogy between the MOQ's levels and Freud's distinctions.
To paraphrase Wiki's explanation, the Super-ego is that part of the personality
structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that criticises and prohibits
his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. The Super-ego can be
thought of as a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of
guilt. Wiki's example of this naughty behavior, having extra-marital affairs,
fits quite neatly with Pirsig's assertion that the social level has done a
marvelous job putting restraints on biological quality. Where Wiki says, "the
Super-ego works in contradiction to the id" and "strives to act in a socially
appropriate manner", we can read it as saying that biological impulse "just
wants instant self-gratification" but the social level gives us a "sense of
right and wrong and guilt". The social level and the biological level are
opposed to each other in the same sense as the super-ego, which "
stands in opposition to the desires of the id because of their conflicting
objectives".
Not to complicate the matter, but "Freud's theory implies that the super-ego is
a symbolic internalisation of the father figure and cultural regulations.
...The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and
proscription from taboos". He has some very interesting ideas about how this
father figure was already forming in the lives of our pre-human ancestors. He
speculates that one of the things that set us apart from the other apes was the
ability and or willingness to subvert the natural order of things, which means
the biggest, baddest ape was in charge, was "the father" of the tribe. Way back
in the mists of time, the story goes, the younger apes banded together to
overcome some big ape-king who'd committed some big ape-injustice against them
- probably in a time of desperate want of food and such. So this gang of
upstart chimps conducted a mutiny, killed the king-ape and ate him. He
speculates that ritual cannibalism, such as we find in any christi
an church, comes from this original dirty deed. He thinks cannibalism and
patricide were the first taboos, engendered the first feelings of ape-guilt, if
you will.
Imagine that. Our central ritual has origins that almost pre-date the human
species itself. It's right on that cusp, you know?
I'm not pushing Freud here. It's just this sort of language and analysis gives
us a window into the ways in which human culture differs from the group
formations we find among other animals. It gives us another, analogous way to
think about the social level's relationship to the biological level - which is
dependent and emergent and yet it is also oppositional. In that sense, the
social level is defined as beyond biological and that more or less implies a
human restriction.
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