testingthis
On 2/28/14 12:17 PM, "david" <dmbucha...@hotmail.com> wrote: > "Is society going to dominate intellect or is intellect going to dominate > society? And if society wins, what's going to be left of intellect? And if > intellect wins what's going to be left of society?" > > "Intellect is not an extension of society any more than society is an > extension of biology. Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at > war with society, seeking to subjugate society." > > "Once intellect has been let out of the bottle of social restraint, it is > almost impossible to put it back in again. And it is immoral to try. A > society that tries to restrain the truth for its own purposes is a lower form > of evolution than a truth that restrains society for its own purposes." > > "When the social climate changes from preposterous social restraint of all > intellect to a relative abandonment of all social patterns, the result is a > hurricane of social forces. That hurricane is the history of the twentieth > century." > > "..the day Socrates died to establish the independence of intellectual > patterns from their social origins. Or the day Descartes decided to start > with himself as an ultimate source of reality. These were days of > evolutionary transformation." > > John said to dmb: > I just want to make a point that seems silly, because it's so obvious, but the > patterns only compete within an individual's mental choices. Once they are > put into action, they are all, at least somewhat, social. Social patterns > only compete with intellectual patterns when they pull an individual attention > toward one direction or another. If that person decides to be more > intellect-oriented, he's going to have to find a society, in order for that > intellect to have any reality. Thus all competition is necessarily social in > nature, and intellect does not get involved in taking sides. ... > > > dmb says: > You keep repeating this idea that individuals are intellectual while society > is social. This causes all kinds of confusion and it's obviously not true. Any > philosophical discussion is demonstrative proof that intellectual values are a > collective property, belong to the whole society. One of Pirsig prime examples > of intellectual values is the Bill of Rights, as matter of fact. Obviously, > the nation's highest laws are all about society and yet they are not "social" > values. The question for our time is which level of values is going to be in > charge and taking sides is the whole point in an evolutionary morality! Pirsig > says repeatedly that intellectual values should be in charge - because they're > more moral. While it's true that this conflict also exist within individuals, > the political conflict between social and intellectual values plays itself out > as a contest between a society run by wealth and power and society based on > rights and social justice. He's talking about the intense rivalry between > fascism and communism in Europe and in the USA this is a milder form of right > vs left; fundamentalists and free market conservatives vs New Deal liberals. > The latter form of liberalism emerged about 100 years ago, just as Pirsig > says. > > "The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this > century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. ..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. The New Deal was many > things, but at the center of it all was the belief that intellectual planning > by the government was necessary for society to regainits health." (Pirsig, > Lila) > > From the Stanford Encyclopedia article on Liberalism... > > "What has come to be known as new¹, revisionist¹, welfare state¹, or > perhaps best, social justice¹, liberalism challenges this intimate connection > between personal liberty and a private property based market order. Three > factors help explain the rise of this revisionist theory. First, the new > liberalism arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a > period in which the ability of a free market to sustain what Lord Beveridge > called a prosperous equilibrium¹ was being questioned. Believing that a > private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes > argued, get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came > to doubt that it was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society. Here > the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith > in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic > life was increasing. This was partly due to the experiences of the First World > War, in which government attempts at economic planning seemed to succeed; more > importantly, this reevaluation of the state was spurred by the democratization > of western states, and the conviction that, for the first time, elected > officials could truly be, in J.A. Hobson's phrase representatives of the > community¹. [...]The third factor underlying the development of the new > liberalism was probably the most fundamental: a growing conviction that, so > far from being the guardian of every other right¹, property rights generated > an unjust inequality of power that led to a less-than-equal liberty > (typically, positive liberty¹) for the working class. This theme is central > to what is usually called liberalism¹ in American politics, combining a > strong endorsement of civil and personal liberties with, at best, an > indifference, and often enough an antipathy, to private ownership." > > "...if he had to pick one day when the shift from social domination of > intellect to intellectual domination of society took place, he would pick > November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, the end of World War I. And if he had to > pick one person who symbolized this shift more than any other, he would have > picked President Woodrow Wilson. The picture of him Phædrus would have > selected is one in which Wilson rides through New York City in an open touring > car, doffing the magnificent silk hat that symbolized his high rank in > Victorian society. For a cutline he would select something from Wilson's > penetrating speeches that symbolized his high rank in the intellectual > community: We must use our intelligenceto stop future war; social institutions > can not be trusted to function morally by themselves; they must be guided by > intellect. Wilson belonged in both worlds, Victorian society and the new > intellectual world of the twentieth century: the only university professor > ever to be elected president of the United States." (Pirsig, Lila) > > > > > 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
