Marco and Group.
Excellent exchange Marco. Point taken about the about the SOL,
but I think we have done a quantum jump in understanding the
"lineaments" of the MOQ through these last posts.You have
misgivings about my downgrading the social giant - and that's fair
enough, but at least the intellectual "giant" is exposed. But better
start with the beginning. You wrote:
>> My intellect can understand...etc
Here we go again.The mind-intellect that "understands" this and
that. If the MOQ rejects the mind-matter metaphysics why make Q-
intellect into a replica of SOM's mind? Unless you buy the idea
that Q-intellect is the subject/object (mind/matter) dualism itself?
But you don't.
It is your social value that appreciates ...."the advantages of life
immersed in the Giant". Q-intellect sees nothing but bad things
when regarding "society". Remember, a level's enemy is the one
below itself and the intellect-society relationship is no exception.
Intellect opposes social value at all possible opportunities.
East Germany means communism. A bad giant you call it, but
compared to the Nazism it replaced it wasn't that bad - much of the
same. More about communism later.
>> I'm sorry.....
Perhaps you did not call it a giant, but I maintain that in our
intellect-centered outlook we deny any social VALUE. It's always
the poor individual suffering from the evil system, portraying society
as a juggernaut to which the individual is sacrificed. All journalists
worth their pay see themselves as Woodwards and Bernsteins
constantly exposing plots by authorities manipulating people.
All right, intellect is a higher value level, but my point is that unless
intellect ALSO is seen as a giant, we are at its disposal. MOQ's
enormous achievement is to see intellect as another static value
level dependent upon its base society.
>> LONG SINCE? Less...etc
Intellectual value isn't the most sought for item for those living in
mud-huts? To a Chinese coolie, communism was progress
regardless of it denying him "freedom of speech". Only when the
social patterns have reached an advanced stage do they allow
intellectual value. Society becomes bad when it tries to suppress a
budding intellectual layer. Before that stage it's all good.
>> You have never felt oppressed...
You are right in noting intellect's influence over Western culture (I
use 'culture' instead of 'societies' to try to keep social value apart
from particular communities). Our existence is dominated by the
society vs intellect struggle, and yes, I am old enough to remember
the second WW and you are right about a possible alliance with
social value.
This is a horribly important point, but only MOQ allows us to see
this danger and avoid it. That is the whole point. The hippies did
see existence from a purely SOM/intellect p.o.v and in it there's no
such "plot".
>> SOLAQI...etc
Yes, I cast the MOQ in a role as a budding new level, at least the
first stirrings of one. This is its attraction: The first chance ever to
see subject-object logic as MERELY one level of evolution, not
reality itself as it pretends to be. It gives me a feeling of freedom I
have never felt before.
And it's no complication, rather an enormous simplification from all
the mind-matter paradoxes. Something like Copernicus must have
felt when he saw the Ptolemaian wheels and crystal spheres
dissolve.
>> Do you want my pet .....
First of all. Pirsig's idea is that the intellectual level came to
dominate Western culture after WW1, but if its "coming of age" is
what is described in ZAMM and its emergence is - as Pirsig hints
to - around Homer's time (or Wavedave's Abraham or Jaynes'
"Bicameral" idea) it's not exactly from yesterday. One of us (Denis.
Que's que tu faire?) has claimed that language itself was the social
"tool" that became intellect.
Right, SOM (or intellect) was born during the social era - as a
social tool - but grew to become the intellectual level. Now the
quality idea is born in the intellectual era, as an advanced
intellectual tool, and will eventually outgrow its parent level to
become a value of its own some day. But rest completely assured,
this vision of the MOQ isn't accepted - not by this small group - not
by Pirsig himself - so it's no imminent danger.
> I can't find....etc
You invite me to discuss the SOL and then shut up? It's hard not
sounding like a Bible seller because I can see no future for the
MOQ without this development. What can transcend the
intellectual level seen as a mental realm where ideas reside?
Where SOM is one idea and QUALITY is another idea? I'm not
dogmatic so if you can convince me I am all "ears"
Thanks for reading this far.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
