On 22-11-00 Bo wrote: You put great emphasis on the Intellect-Biology "conspiracy" and that's an important tenet of the MOQ, but the way Pirsig presents it in LILA it isn't so much a concern for biological value as it helps in Intellect's struggle with Society. "My enemy's enemy is my friend". RED: Hi Bo! I completely agree with what you say here, it was never my intention to suggest otherwise! Earlier from RED: > i think intellect only has a > problem with suicide when it is simply an act against organic or > intellectual values. Bo wrote: A deep one this. Let me just repeat the fact that we humans are (of) all levels and change dynamically between them, but the levels are static. So the moment we accept ..."suicide for the preservation of society" we are society-focussed, but when Intellect- focused we wont grant Society any rights over the individual � even if he/she is a criminal. RED: You make a very interesting point, but are the levels really static? Maybe from an abstract point of view they are but maybe we should be more concerned with how we perceive the levels? The perceived levels are certainly not static, they change all the time depending on which newspaper article we read, what book we read, what we see today etc. etc. I think it�s an important point to consider! Aside from that, I don�t think that the intellect not being concerned when a criminal kills himself is the intellect granting rights over the individual. As we have already agreed, the intellect is not concerned with society, the intellect is concerned with organic actions not compromising intellectual values, and intellectually it makes sense to sacrifice the few to guarantee to organic values of the many. RED wrote on the 21st: If an intellectual law is passed that is harmful > to society (for example the release of a serial criminal back into the > community) then how can this law be classed as being the act OF > society? Bo replied: OK. What I said about law being social sounds a bit categorical, but as said: Each level is static and "ignore" its dependency upon the parent level. However, the MOQ says that there IS dependency and now we see the pattern: Intellect abhors (social) law "man is born free ...etc) but it cannot escape its social roots and the result is it has to influence the juridical system to achieve its goals. RED: Again, I don�t think intellect abhors social law. It�s my opinion that intellect doesn�t care about social law, instead it looks at the situation that acted as stimuli for the social law and re-examines it. That said, I do agree with; �but it cannot escape its social roots and the result is it has to influence the juridical system to achieve its goals.� Comment. I think we are saying the same thing here, and maybe I�m just nitpicking on whether intellect cares about social law or not. RED commented on 21st Nov: > the lawyers for the defence however will argue > that the murderer had an emotional motive and is repentant and should > be allowed to live i the community when he is released and > rehabilitated. in this example, we have the society law arguing for > the concerns of society and on the other side, we have the defence > lawyers arguing for the concerns of the individual and the intellect. Bo replied: Right, but doesn't this really prove my point? The prosecution acts on behalf of Society - the LAW - and the defence acts on behalf of Intellect - the individual - and uses all available psycho-lingo to sway the jury and judge who are of all levels and pliable. RED: I think you use of language here is clever as it has the subtle undercurrent suggesting that the defense lawyers are wrong! :o) On one side you could argue that they �uses all available psycho-lingo to sway the jury and judge who are of all levels and pliable.� On the other hand you could say, that the defense �presents a detailed case of the defendants emotional and psychological shortfalls to highlight why the defendant committed the crime.� If you assume society to be right, then of course it proves your point, as you have already discredited the intellects views! But you shouldn�t assume that, you should listen to both sides with an open mind and accept that perhaps what the defense is saying is correct!! Bo wrote: No crime is undefendable - it seems. If the act is evil enough it is madness and if mad one is sick, and a victim of a disease is innocent. You don't blame one for contracting smallpox. I could have gone on about this, but I think we agree? RED: Yes, I think so. BO wrote: An aside: Here in Norway it's been a "campaign" to make mental disease more acceptable: It's SO common, but people are SO prejudicial the pundits wails, but fail to see why this is so. I have written a few newspaper articles about it to show the MOQ explanation, but it's hopeless; Pirsig? The Metaphysics of Quality?? The explanation is this Society/Intellect conflict, but it only exists in the MOQ. The professionals are "intellect" when on job concerned about moral exemption, but turn into Society as soon as they leave the job, and when a little girl (f.ex) is raped and killed they are just shocked and cry for revenge. How can the affliction that makes an individual "amoral" ever become accepted? They may as well ask for the moon. But in the SOM there is no way to see this ...so it still goes on. RED: Yet another interesting point Bo, and one that has concerned me for a while now. I don�t think the problem is that you are using MOQ and nobody else know of this, I think it is more a case that you are arguing a point that people don�t want to hear! The majority of people don�t see a mentally ill person, they see two different things: 1, they see something they don�t understand, and societies view point of this is to throw it out of society (the professionals you talk about are trying to reverse this attitude.) 2, they see the crimes that are committed by the few mentally unwell people that do actually harm others and this creates the social outrage that the professionals get caught up in (this is virtually impossible to get rid of, without getting rid of society altogether). I think what you are trying to do is to get people to understand the things they don�t but the trouble you have is that society will always want to get rid of something that is a threat to it, and while there are mentally unwell people out there that commit terrible crimes, society will tarnish them all with the same brush. You could be arguing with solidly researched scientific data backing up your case and people would still not listen, not because they aren�t aware of the facts, but rather because they don�t want to be made aware of them. Before you can reason with a member of society, you have to remove there fear and that�s an extremely difficult thing to do. I wish you luck with your campaign. Thank you for such well thought out responses, I am enjoying our exchanges very much! Kind regards Richard. 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