John said to Dan:
...you can't have a culture, without individuals. Any more than you can have
any social pattern without biological being and support. An ongoing matter of
discussion, the way the levels interact. Platt has hung his hat on the idea
that the 4th level is the Individual level and I think the point could be made
that pure intellect is pure individualism.
dmb says:
Oh, you're getting this idea from Platt. It's a wrench in the gears for anyone
trying to sort out the levels and it's not true, according to developmental
psychologists and philosophers. Individuality is an achievement of development
and nobody gets there without first being a social creature. So that Ayn
Randian, Maggie Thatcher idea that there is no such thing as society, only
individuals, is a very unsound idea. It's a common-sense notion but it's not
right. It also happens to be one of those old-fashioned ideas that political
conservatives depend upon and fiercely defend. In many, many polemical rants,
the conservative pits the individualism against the various forms of socialism
or liberalism, which are characterized as "collectivist" ideologies. Please
notice how this reverses Pirsig's descriptions so that programs for
intellectual control are now painted as the enemy and the old social values are
thereby protected from egghead interference.
Sigh. But you're not going to absorb a word of that, are you John? I guess
"individuality' means you don't really care what other people think and ideas
just mean whatever you want them to mean.
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