Diana and Foci.
On 2 Apr you wrote:
> MF,
> >Phaedrus seem to be saying that by and large the Europeans valued order more
> >highly than freedom the Indians the reverse.
> >Is this an accurate portrayal ? but more importantly just what is freedom?
> >How does the MoQ provide for it ? How it the same, different, than other
> >philosophies? etc.
> >in other words......
> >What are the qualities of freedom?
> Freedom doesn't mean anything, except something better than what there was
> before.
Agree!
> I think we all accept that America gave the world freedom from the
> social level.
>From a lofty MOQ p.o.v. the freedom from social value started with
the Intellectual level, but I agree in a practical way.
> But I would not say that this has anything to do with some
> kind of universal moral solution.
Well, I find this a revelation as it explains the "evil" riddle, but again
pragmatically OK!
> In fact it's only really freedom to those
> people who have a social level to begin with (as Pirsig points out in his
> analysis of inner city black culture). To countries still fighting the
> battle between social and biological, intellectual freedom only allows the
> biological level to take control.
Complete agreement!
> FREEDOM FROM THE SOCIAL LEVEL VS THE FREEDOM OF THE SOCIAL LEVEL
> Remember Rwanda, where the parliamentary system that the West promoted was
> a factor in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis by Hutu militias.
> In response to pressure from Western governments, the Rwandan regime
> established a multi-party system and transformed itself into a coalition
> government. Yet the new political parties became nothing more than masks
> for ethnic groups that organised murderous militias, and the coalition
> nature of the new government helped to prepare the context for the events
> that led to the genocide in 1994. Evil individuals were certainly
> responsible for the mass murder. But they operated within a fatally flawed
> system.
One reservation here.You are absolutely right in describing the
effect of pressing intellectual values prematurely on to third world
countries, but I really don't think the Rwanda conflict is purely
society vs biology. Biology is something more fundamental - killing
for "food" like animals or wanton "blood lust", or rape. Shortly one
individual exploiting other individuals for purely selfish reasons, not
for any group/tribal/ethnic/ideological causes. At that point we are
inside the social level, but social values aren't necessarily a
bulwark against humans killing humans. A "society" (in the Q
sense) is good for its members but completely callous regarding
its enemies.
But this much said, you have a point: Having got the "licence to
kill" from the group, the individual may display biological lust: killing
for cat-mouse pleasure, raping ...anything. As with the Nazis when
the single camp commandant might be a sadist getting an outlet
for his personal quirks.
> Remember those pictures? Whole villages wiped out, charred bodies in mass
> graves, children with their arms and legs hacked off. That's the biological
> level, and it needs a social level to control it and that's something that
> intellectual freedom just can't do. What Rwanda needs is freedom from the
> biological level, ie a social level.
I don't think that social value is completely absent regarding
mankind, but there are lesser societies: families (mafia) clans and
there are greater: countries, nations, empires and unions of
nations, but here the Intellect is so overwhelming that the
underlying "cosa nostra" is invisible. But you are right, Rwanda
needs a "Rwanda" cause: not Hutu or Tutsi cause...and then
slowly more intellectual values.
> In the tribal societies of Kurdistan and Afghanistan the United States
> encouraged versions of democracy in the 1990s. The security vacuums that
> followed were filled by Saddam Hussein for a time in Kurdistan and by
> Islamic tyranny in much of Afghanistan. So much for Huckleberry Finn. In
> sub-Saharan Africa democracy has weakened institutions and services in some
> states, and elections have been manipulated to restore dictatorship in
> others. In Bosnia democracy legitimised the worst war crimes in Europe
> since the Nazi era. And I could go on.
Excellent analysis. Intellect can only be implemented if the region
has reached the country/nation phase.
> Consider these democracies and then consider undemocratic Singapore. Thirty
> years ago, it was a mosquito-ridden bog filled with slum quarters that
> frequently lacked both plumbing and electricity. Today it is a prosperous,
> hi-tech, meritocratic city. Its citizens have a high standard of living, a
> relatively just and effective legal system, a clean and safe environment
> and education and opportunity for all. Don't liberation from illiteracy,
> filth, poverty and crime count as human rights too? Morally Singapore is
> dubious, but what about practically?
Splendid example regarding non-democratic yet highly developed
states. We are shocked by their punishment, but its safe for those
who have other experiences and prefer it that way. This is social
value's sunny side - the shadow side is atrocities.
Excactly!
> Singapore has the conditions now for democracy. The social institutions are
> in place, the population is literate and cosmopolitan and can vote based on
> informed decisions on politics and economics. Equality emerges successfully
> only after other social and economic achievements.
100% agreement.
> It just isn't reasonable is to put a gun to the head of the developing
> world and say: "Behave as if you had experienced the Western Enlightenment.
> Behave as if 95 percent of your population were literate. Behave as if you
> had a middle class and an effective police force and there were no bloody
> ethnic or regional disputes ready to explode in your society."
Agreement unto hysteria!
> Simply pushing for American-style freedom and equality without bothering
> about the consequences, is what Pirsig calls "cost-free morality" -- you
> shout about something because it sounds like the moral high ground and
> everyone will think you're a nice guy. And you can say what you like
> because if you're wrong it won't matter, because nobody is going to come to
> _your_ house and murder _your_ family.
Likewise!
> In countries where tribal conflict is high, where literacy is low and
> institutions of government and social infrastructure are weak or
> non-existent, the most pressing need is to *establish* these social
> patterns, not to break them down.
> The notion of freedom vs order doesn't make sense because sometimes order
> IS freedom.
This is just RIGHT!!!!
> The more I think about it the more I wish Pirsig hadn't bothered with the
> whole Indian vs European thing at all.
I tend to agree, but as I try to convey in my reply to David 3WD,
the first part of LILA is a story of how the MOQ came to. The Indian
vs European path showed itself futile ...only the dynamic freedom
from all stable patterns remains ... as you say below.
> Later on in LILA he talks of
> freedom, dynamic quality and mysticism as all being the one thing, which I
> agree with. But to equate freedom per se with one particular kind of
> freedom, ie freedom from the social level, is dangerously misleading and it
> contradicts the rest of the book. In the Zuni story the brujo is arguably
> introducing more order to his society in the form of submission to white
> laws. Yet Pirsig says this is dynamic and that dynamic quality is "freedom
> itself".
Dynamic quality is at the bottom, or top or surrounding, as the
driving force behind the evolution. I don't really see this as an
inconsistency in the MOQ.
> Plus it is the dynamic good of the brujo's "vague sense of
> betterness", not the Indians' distrust of society, that Pirsig takes as his
> primary example of dynamic vs static.
Yes, he does and we must not be too demanding. His great
achievement is to have conceived the Quality Metaphysics at all.
It's up to us to build on it, something you certainly have done in
this splendid post Diana.
Bo
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