Let's start a new chain. I'm getting lost in the current ones.
First, I want to clear the air. David Buchanan, I took a cheap shot at you in a recent post. That was wrong, poor quality, and I own the error. I have apologized to you privately, and I now do so publicly. Please forgive me. I will try not to do that again to you or anyone else. Now, on to the next topic. I have been exchanging private communications with John Carl, and he especially liked the following one. Just as a reminder, philosophy isn't a chess game for me. I'm not into it to score points or out-argue anyone. I'm vitally invested in it, and I'm really trying to figure out how things really work and how we can live lives of Quality. One of my issues with MOQ has been the relationship of intellectual patterns to social patterns. Another has been the issue of "betterness" within the intellectual level. Not all intellectual patterns are high quality just because they are a notch above social patterns, so they're not always more "moral" than high-quality social patterns. So it should be all right to be opposed to some intellectual patterns. To that end. >From my email to John Carl: Prevailing sentiment on MD has it that you are "anti-intellectual". (They say "anti-intellectual" as though it's a bad thing. J) I don't know how one would come to that conclusion from your posts, but if you are, indeed, anti-intellectual in some respects, you are in good company. Here are some of my notes on the topic of intellect from Lila. These quotes show that Pirsig's metaphysics wasn't about exalting intellect above all else; it was about fixing intellect. But still it seems that the MD forum is still mucking about in an intellect that has fallen into disrepair. Page 275 - Intellectualism had been a respected servant of Victorian society but now became the master. It asserted authority over spiritual values and not just social ones. Page 279 - The intellectuals blamed crime on social repression of biological nature rather than on biological nature itself. Thus, the intellectuals affirmed criminals as well as ideas. Page 305 - Intellectual patterns that were supposed to be in charge and lead things were paralyzed by their own internal construction. Page 306 - "It's this intellectual pattern of amoral 'objectivity' that is to blame for the social deterioration of America." It doesn't distinguish between Galileo fighting social repression and a common criminal fighting social repression. Page 308 - "What the Metaphysics of Quality indicates is that the twentieth century intellectual faith in man's basic goodness as spontaneous and natural is disastrously naive. The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without coercion cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual good of all is a devastating fiction." Page 309 - The intellectuals of the 60's sympathized with lawlessness because they perceived social codes as the common enemy. "But the Metaphysics of Quality concludes that this sympathy was really stupid." Respectfully, John L. McConnell Home: 407-857-2004 Cell: 321-438-6301 Email: [email protected] 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
