dmb, dmb says: > It seems pretty clear to me that your claim about the Giant is based on a > misunderstanding of a philosopher that is not Pirsig.
J: Let's just clarify what you mean by "misunderstanding". To my way of thinking, altho influenced by a philosopher not Pirsig, a misunderstanding is a mis-interpretation and an interpretation is always between two things, from one to the other, in this case, interpreting to my own thought - which I certainly know better than you - from another philosopher, whom you won't even name, so it's hard to see how you could be a good judge of my understanding of him. He's not William James and he's not Robert Pirsig and he's not Bill Sykes. If you have a claim to be a judge of any other philosopher, I've never noticed. dmb: > Your claim about SOM running the Giant confuses and conflates Pirsig's > distinctions between the social and intellectual levels. J: It's not my fault dave. Experience confuses and conflates the distinction between social patterns and intellectual. We abstract and discuss them analytically but in direct experiential reality, they blend and conflate and confuse. People confuse bars for church and vice versa all the time. There is no way to separate them in actual experience. It's helpful to conceptualize and analyze, but don't confuse these concepts with any but a relative value. In fact, that's good advice in general and the MoQ reeks with it so I have a hard time understanding how you don't get that. Freed the from the Absolution of the Cosmos you Absolutize your Self. tsk. But maybe I'm projecting cuz in fact, we all do it. But hold these truths lightly, with grace and humor and all will be well. dmb: > And, considering your repeated evasions and deflections of my criticism, > your claim to "welcome closer analysis of that idea" seems to be as genuine > as a three-dollar bill. > > J: Most of my evasion and deflection stemmed from your insinuations and statements that I'm not mentally capable of understanding the MoQ. It would be stupid of me to defend myself from such charges. It's stupid to make them but that's another story. As to your corrections of my concepts, I've listened and made changes in my words. Defining the Giant isn't easy and it took some time to settle upon common understanding. But nothing will make me change my mind and say that looking closer at the relationship between the Giant and SOM is a bad idea. Unless you've been discussing that a whole bunch and are all bored with the topic, I'd like to keep pressing it dmb: > SOM refers to "our present construction of systematic thought itself, > rationality itself," and these "modes of rationality are not moving society > forward into a better world" because "the need for food, clothing and > shelter ..no longer overwhelms everything else". J: Moving society forward means dynamically toward a better life, but SOM as a metaphysical framework persists statically through the ebb and flow of material success. We have depressions and upheavals that periodically keep the needs of food, clothing and shelter a persistently-minded struggle. I'd say that's what our philosophy is set up to reinforce and it's impregnable, nothing will ever change it. That's what a Giant means, it's too big for any puny human to overcome. dmb: "It [SOM] begins to be seen for what it really is...emotionally hollow, > esthetically meaningless and spiritually empty." Social level values like > fame and fortune are unrelated to our forms of rationality. J: You go wrong when the quotation marks end - "unrelated" is entirely wrong and way to absolute. Fame and fortune are the arbiters of successful rational patterns. Rational patterns of the 4th level alone, outlive the lives of individual men and are always shared by some community of thought beyond 1. Of course they are related. The academy is a society of intellectuals, take away the social context and there is no such thing as an intellectual pattern. What? You think the law of gravity is just out there floating around in space? That's asinine. dmb: > These are discrete and sometimes conflicting levels of values. J: And they never, ever harmonize or have no influence on each other? These "levels of Values"? Your world isn't based on Quality, it's based on Antagonism. dmb: > This distinction is on full display in the history of the 20th century, as > Pirsig explains in some detail. Fascism and fundamentalism are essentially > reactionary, anti-intellectual movements. J: Mussolini was anti-intellectual? Seemed to me he was bent upon eliminating earlier mythic foolishness that impeded progress. Much like yourself. And I don't recall fundamentalism being a big deal back when Pirsig wrote Lila. Much less ZAMM. Show me the reference and I'll kiss your arse. But even so, Pirsig didn't mean by intellectual or non-intellectual "movements", 4th level patterns working alone, completely discrete from 3rd level. You can't have society without biology and you can't have intellect without a social basis. dmb: > Likewise, the intellectual level values have been opposed to such social > level authority since the days of Plato. I mean, this distinction is hardly > unique to Pirsig and so defying it for no apparent reason (theist motives, > maybe?) strikes me as bizarre and super > confusing. > > J: Not understanding the cooperation of the levels strikes ME as bizarre and super confusing. Anti-theistic motives maybe? Because what is a harmonious whole but a pantheistic conception? And what is a pantheistic conception but another name for God? John 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
