From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sun Jul 06 2003 - 11:29:17 BST
Hi Platt, All,
Platt to Rick:
> I really like your metaphor of "organs" of the Giant and agree with your
> broader definition to include free markets, governments, agriculture, etc.
> "The sum total of all social patterns" is a pretty good definition of
> "culture" except that a culture also includes intellectual patterns as
> Pirsig points out in Note 47 in Lila's Child, "A culture should be defined
> as social patterns plus intellectual patterns." Without doubt, my previous
> definition of the Giant and the "Gods" needed broadening.
>
> Since cultures, defined as "the sum total of ways of living built up by a
> group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another"
> (Random House, unabridged) were obviously in place long before the rise of
> the intellectual level (Pirsig often refers to primitive cultures),
> intellectual patterns (manipulation of symbols) must have also been around
> since prehistoric man although much less a factor than the dominant social
> level pattern. The cave paintings at Lascaux prove the point.
Steve:
Suppose for the sake of argument that there was a time that social patterns
existed while intellectual patterns had not yet evolved. Then at that time
culture or "the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human
beings and transmitted from one generation to another" did not include
intellectual patterns.
I don't see the contradiction in using this definition of culture while
supposing that social patterns emerged before intellectual patterns which
seems to suggest to you that the social level and the intellectual level
evolved simultaneously. Why could there not be a sum total of ways of
living without there being any intellectual patterns at some point in
history? Pirsig's definition of culture as "social patterns plus
intellectual patterns" applies to *our* time when both types of patterns
exist rather than for all eternity. Before intellectual patterns emerged we
can think of culture as only including social patterns or as also including
intellectual patterns as a null set without contradiction to Pirsig or the
dictionary definition.
Thinking of social and intellectual patterns as emerging simultaneously, you
lose the hierarchical nature of the levels. Again I ask you, how could you
say that the intellectual level is a higher level than the social level if
both types of patterns emerged at the same time?
Platt:
> In spite of a having small brain as a minor organ, the Giant remains
> firmly ensconced within the social level, as do all cultures prior to the
> Aristotle. After that, intellectual patterns gradually became dominant
> (after a Dark Ages interlude), eventually becoming so dominant as to be a
> level of their own.
Steve:
Here was your answer, I suppose (the dominance thing), but I can't see how
it follows that intellectual patterns become a level when they become
dominant. You seem to be stuck in thinking about the levels as types of
people rather than types of patterns of value. To me it is more clear to
think of the intellectual level as a type of pattern, and to think that the
intellectual level existed as soon as the first intellectual pattern of
value existed rather than when the first intellectual person existed.
Would you apply such a dominance argument to say when the biological
level emerged? Do you think of the biological level as not existing until
it "became dominant" over people as well? That would obviously make no
sense. You'll run into even greater trouble with inorganic dominance.
Though it's useful to think about whether a person is dominated by
biological, social, or intellectual values, I think it's usually more
appropriate to our discussions to be clear about the levels themselves as
types of patterns of value rather than types of people or to at least
distinguish these two ways of talking about MOQ levels.
I think confusion has resulted because Pirsig himself switches back and
forth between a looser "types of people" way of describing the levels and a
more technical and specific "types of patterns of value" way of talking
about the levels.
In the Conflicts and Discretion thread we see another example of this
confusion...
> Rick wrote 25 Jun 2003 09:58:41 -0400:
> 'I can't help but note that in the MoQ, the patterns of different levels are
> supposed to be in conflict to a certain
> extent.'
WIM
> I always find it confused that in 'Lila' different levels are BOTH presented
> as discrete AND as conflicting.
> Pirsig seems to make a start ending that confusion in 'Lila's Child' with
> annotation 52 (published version):
> 'I think the conflicts mentioned here are intellectual conflicts in which
> one side clings to an intellectual justification of existing social patterns
> and the other side intellectually opposes the existing social patterns.'
Steve:
Here he's talking about conflict as that between socially and intellectually
dominated people rather than between two different types of patterns of
value and distinguishing these two different ways of talking about the
levels.
I would add to Pirsig's clarification that the "types of patterns/types of
people" distinction applies to the biological level as well as the social
and intellectual levels. For example, when the criminal explains why he
feels justified in stealing he is participating in intellectual patterns of
value (all the values associated with high quality rationalizing) while
explaining why he participates in the biological pattern of stealing.
Technically the criminal is not himself a biological pattern of value though
he could be referred to as a biologically dominated person.
Though Pirsig is quite aware of this technical distinction, he would often
do the equivalent of simply referring to the criminal as 'biological' rather
than the cumbersome but more precise reference to 'the biological value of
taking whatever it is one wants without regard to laws or customs.' Doing
so was appropriate for his novel but is less appropriate for a discussion
where we hope to analyze and apply the MOQ.
Enough for now. I've been emphasizing types of patterns of value for some
time and haven't gotten much response. I hope you will consider the "types
of patterns/types of people" distinction in reading Lila and that you will
choose to talk about patterns of value rather than types of people when
clarity is needed. I think it would clear up a lot of disagreement in this
discussion group.
Thanks,
Steve
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