From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 03 2002 - 02:27:19 GMT
Sam concluded an overview of the MOQ with...
A culture is a combination of social and intellectual patterns of value. The
twentieth century can be seen as a struggle between social patterns of value
with differing degrees of intellectual control. For the first time there are
now societies where intellectual patterns of value are able to flourish. The
big political question is whether the social patterns which sustain that
flourishing can also maintain themselves against the biological patterns
which threaten to devour them. That will probably be the struggle of the
twenty first century.
dMB says:
The 21st century has arrived and so far its alot like the 20th century, only
faster. I know, you're just speculating about the future, but I have to take
issue anyway. It closely resembles the piture Pirsig paints of our recent
history, but I think its off in a couple of important ways.
You depict the 20th century as "a struggle between social patterns of value
with differing degrees of intellectual control". Oh, so close. Pirsig
dipicts it as a struggle between third and fourth level, but you seem to
want to fudge this with a clash between differing social patterns. The
individuals involved in these conflicts are certainly composed of various
mixtures of these patterns. Each of is a forest. There are examples of
intellectually dominated people, of socially dominated people, and even of
biologically dominated people. Hopefully, we are each some combination of
all these. But in modern politics, the average collective level of
development is such that the battle is between social and intellectual
values. Intellectual values are not just frosting on the social patterns, at
least not anymore. That's how the Victorians saw it, though. They thought,
"intellectuals were supposed to decorate the social parade, not lead it."
Which leads to the next point so naturally that it hardly needs any further
explanation. You said, "for the first time...intellectual patterns are able
to flouish." Lead. Lead. LEAD! Not flourish! Lead! Direct. Control. Guide.
Sorry for yelling. I got carried away. The third and final objection...
Social patterns can handle biology. They accomplished that ages ago. Your,
"big political question" is same issue Pirsig raises. As you may recall, in
Lila this problem is described as intellect ganging up with biology to catch
the social level in a crossfire. (Isn't Tucker Carlson just adorable?) More
specifically this mistake is attributed to SOM's confusion about biology and
the flawed view of crime that results. This sounds simple, but please ponder
this; The flaw that puts the social in the crossfire is not the central
struggle, it is the cause of the central struggle. That is to say, if the
intellect properly understands social values and their role in handling
biology, the conflict is reduced. Reactionary politics are the manifestation
of social values in a desperately defensive mode, like narcissistic rage on
a collective level. See what I mean?
Thanks,
dmb
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