John said to Andre:
Intellectual patterns do not compete with social patterns and never have.
Andre replied:
This just about summarizes your entire paragraph John and it's an indication of
a very confused understanding of the MoQ. How you can reach such a conclusion
is beyond me. And you maintain that you have a good understanding of the MoQ?
As Phaedrus, reflecting on what Rigel threw at him at breakfast, exclaims in
almost desperation:
"Where has he been during this whole century? That's what this whole century's
been about, this struggle between intellectual and social patterns. That's the
theme song of the twentieth century" (LILA p168).
dmb says:
Right, I also selected and presented several pieces of textual evidence that
show quite clearly that John is simply wrong about this. What's really sad is
that John doesn't care what the evidence says. He's going to stick to his guns
regardless. This is a profoundly anti-intellectual attitude and so is the idea
that social and intellectual values do not conflict. I think his deliberate
blurring of these lines is just self-serving nonsense. I guess John wants to
obscure the difference because these lines are so unflattering to his politics
and religion. It also allows him to misconstrue reason and evidence as mere
social authority, to misconstrue intellectual values as merely political moves
that can have no legitimate authority over John's thinking. He wants to
undermine the distinction because intellectual values are getting in his way,
so to speak.
And then he wonders why he doesn't get any respect? In a philosophy forum?
Yikes.
John said:
.... Note then that the highest is not competitive with all the others nor
antagonistic toward those "below"'.
Andre replied:
...look at the MoQ's take on evolutionary theory. As Pirsig argues: 'Morality
is not a simple set of rules. It's a very complex struggle of conflicting
patterns of values'...'This has been a century of fantastic intellectual growth
and fantastic social destruction. The only question is how long this process
can keep on' (LILA p 169). And you are suggesting that all is milk and honey
between Lila, Rigel and Phaedrus? C'mon John. I'm sorry but my impression is
that you are very, very confused about Pirsig's MoQ.
dmb says:
Right, John's claims about the lack of conflict defies the MOQ's evolutionary
morality in general and it cuts against the dramatic conflicts between the
characters, which are supposed to illustrate these conflicts on personal level.
It defies the political history of the 20th century, which is a political
conflict we can find every day in every newspaper. I mean, you gotta stick your
head down deep into the sand if you want to miss that much evidence. So deep
that all I can see are the soles of his shoes.
IGNORING THE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE in a philosophical debate certainly fits the
definition of "unreasonable". It's dishonest and/or deeply incompetent.
"Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over society, were
confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social
control of intellect. ... The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which
have overwhelm this century, is explained by a conflict of levels of
evolution." -- Robert Pirsig, Lila
"The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this
century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. This conflict
explains the driving force behind Hitler [Mussolini invented fascism and was
literally Hitler's partner in crime] not as an insane search for power but as
an all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of
intellectualism. His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His
hatred of communists was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His exaltation of the
German volk was fueled by it. His fanatic persecution of any kind of
intellectual freedom was driven by it. In the United States the economic and
social upheaval was not so great as in Europe, but Franklin Roosevelt and the
New Deal, nevertheless, became the center of a lesser storm between social and
intellectual forces." -- Robert Pirsig, Lila
"It was this issue of intellect versus society that made the Scopes trial of
1925 such a journalistic sensation. In that trial a Tennessee schoolteacher,
John Scopes, was charged with illegally teaching Darwinian evolution. ... his
lawyer, Clarence Darrow was just taking easy shots at a toothless tiger. Only
religious fanatics and ignorant Tennessee hillbillies opposed the teaching of
Evolution. When that trial is seen as a conflict of social and intellectual
values its meaning emerges. Scopes and Darrow were defending academic freedom
but, more importantly, they were prosecuting the old static religious patterns
of the past. They gave intellectuals a warm feeling of arriving somewhere they
had been waiting to arrive for a long time. Church bigots, pillars of society
who for centuries had viciously attacked and defamed intellectual who disagreed
with them, were now getting some of it back." -- Robert Pirsig, Lila 273
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