Of all the levels, the one that seems to create the most confusion or appear
most obscure is
the intellectual level. What exactly is it? What are its values? What are
its goals? How does
it manifest itself? Why should intellectual level values prevail over social
level values? Are
intelligence and intellectual value the same thing.
In short, define the intellectual level.
----
Hi
It was many years ago but I remember the incident as clearly as if it
happened yesterday. In my youth I had a fondness for driving around in my
old Ford pickup truck with no particular destination in mind, and on
occasion would meet up with friends who might be moving some large object or
another and they would ask my help, which I always provided.
One time I saw an old boy I used to know called Sea Biscuit (don't ask why
for that is a story in itself) walking along the road, so I stopped and
picked him up. He needed to get a canoe back to its rightful owner after
borrowing it (unbeknownst to said owner) the night before. Being on a
drunken binge with several friends as Biscuit happened to be, they ended up
floating down the river some 20 miles or so before dragging it out in
another friend's yard who lived hard by the river. Now Biscuit was fretting
what the law might have to say to him if he didn't get that canoe back,
pronto.
So we drove on down and placed that canoe in the back of my pickup. But the
end stuck way out as it was a good 16 feet long. We certainly don't want the
law to be pulling us over before we get the canoe back safely. I looked down
at the ground at my feet and there lay a red piece of cloth just the right
size to tie onto the end of the canoe sticking out the back of the truck. So
I picked it up and tied it on.
Later Biscuit couldn't get over how I just reached down and picked up that
red piece of cloth right when we needed it. I didn't really think on it all
that much for that kind of thing always happened to me anyway. But Biscuit
went on and on about it.
Cut forward thirty years or so. Last week I am fishing with my sons. We
drive out to our favorite spot in an old pickup truck and on arriving,
remember there are two new tires in the back of the truck and so decide to
lock them up front in the cab, just in case. Well, that was fine but my
oldest son forgot to take the keys out of the ignition before locking the
doors.
We are twenty miles from nowhere and there is not a piece of wire to be
found in the back of the truck. I "know" there must be wire around someplace
close, though. I look down the path to our fishing spot and lying in front
of it, to keep vehicles from driving down it, are a number of railroad ties
wired together. It takes a little doing but I manage to weasel a wire loose
and in no time I have the truck opened up.
I cannot define how it happens but both these examples are intellect at
work, in my estimation. Intellect's values and goals are what we need at any
particular moment to be free of any particular static problem, or gumption
trap. Intellect manifests as observation and experience goaling towards
freedom. Social patterns of value, on the other hand, goal towards
constraints and any freedom comes with a price to be paid.
The Dynamic/static relationship expounded on by Robert Pirsig recognizes
freedom as the highest good. And while there are many paths to freedom,
intellect brings into view the best path. For instance, when the keys were
locked in the truck, my oldest son suggested prying open the door but I told
him the door would be broken then. He laughed and said he had bungy straps
to hold it shut. That path was open to us but it entailed the destruction of
key mechanisms holding the door together. We might liken that scenario to
the old USSR jailing intellectuals who dared to speak out against the State.
By locking away the brightest and most revolutionary thinkers, the USSR
destroyed key mechanisms in its society which held it together.
The intellect points to the best path. Intelligence and intellect are the
same and yet the former simply points human. There is something more than
intelligence in reality and it is in no way confined to human beings. What
that something is I cannot really say. It's that undefined moment of
illumination when the past and future become now and the best way simply
appears before us, daring us not to take it. The birds building their nests
and the spiders spinning their webs simply know the best way to go about
their business. Who can say how? That is intellect at work. Intelligence, on
the other hand, has an assumption of a human quality which we sometimes
attempt to attribute to non-human entities. In essence, intellect and
intelligence are the same.
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