Jaap said, > P.S. Maybe money can be described as a mechanism > employed by the social > level to suppress some elements of the biological > level ?
I think he is pretty much correct on this aspect of money. To some extent money became a substitute for our biological needs, instead of worrying about getting food or shelter we harnessed that energy into gaining money in a capitalist society, the ultimate evolution of society. This is one of the major ways in which sociey was able to use biological needs as a tool to create cooperation and conformity to its system. One must participate in the system and maximize productivity in order to survive. In this way it also represses some biological desires which are undesirable to society. In ZMM Pirsig says we should "do what you want." However, I believe in Lila he partially retracts this statement by saying that some of the talk of the sixties came out of an attempt to free our biological repression, which is immoral. Repression is necessary in society, society will not allow for people to simply do what they want. Money allows society a control over people's biological wants by forcing them to be consistent and productive, to conform to societal values. Having evolved to an intellectual level, many people have felt that money was no longer necessary. The socialist utopian ideal said people could do what they want, that repression was not necessary for society. Although it is hard to say if their society is possible, this idea can really be seen as part of its necessary attack on society. The failing of the intellectual level is that it tries to free our biological instincts even though the social level was necessarily created to repress these biological instincts. When these biological desires are released at the expense of society, this is degenerative and immoral. The real question is, as an individual, why does money still have such a grip on us, even when we intellectually accept that money is unimportant. I too have this desire to accumulate large amounts of money, even though I understand that it will really buy me nothing of high value, so I end up simply hoarding. In some ways money is part of society's mythos. In ZMM Phaedrus encountered tremendous problems in moving out of our intellectual mythos. The "good" of money is something so deeply built into our societal structures and ourselves that it takes incredible individual Dynamic movement to escape from it, more than just an intellectual understanding of its worthlessness at a certain point. To a large extent I think it also comes from the fact that we are still members of society, we all have some desire for social conformity or acceptance. In Lila Rigel said, "Other people matter." As the spokesman for the societal level, and by no coincidence a wealthy lawyer, Rigel speaks of the necessity of social relationships. In Lila Phaedrus also speaks of his isolation and loneliness at times, how he can't communicate with Lila. This shows that even those who recognize society as a lower level still long for meaningful relationships. Whether our existing societal structure helps to provide them is another question entirely, but regardless our longing for contact with others helps to reinforce the social good as our good, as an intrinsic good. Thus we still have a deep attatchement to money that is hard to shake. Thanks, Kirk MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_focus/ MF Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_focus follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/mf/subscribe.html
