From: Gert-Jan Peeters (gjpeeters@home.nl)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 19:19:52 BST
GJ:
I work in a school.. The children in my class are ten years old. The
celebrity-contest gets more serious forms. The difference between being
populair and being unpopulair is getting bigger by the day. And it is
strengthning the social wall that will be unable to climb or break for some
of the children very soon. Telling them pirsigs levels and not to be seduced
to play this popularity game hasn't anny affect if it is done by an adult..
In a few years some of them might be very unhappy because of this.
But there are children that don't enter this celebrity-arena and are winners
because of that.. I tell them this. But I don't know if they feel the same.
Can someone stand above the celebrity-game?
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 3:00 AM
Subject: MD Celebrity.
> Bo and all MOQists:
>
> I'm writing a movie about a hero who wins the girl and gets his own talk
> show... :-)
>
> From the end of chapter 20:
> "Phaedrus remembered now that it had bothered him a little that in
> the Odyssey, Homer seemed at times to be equating quality with
> celebrity . Perhaps in Homer's time, when evolution had not yet
> transcended the social level into the intellectual, the two were
> the same.
>
> BO said:
> ..................................... Homer was Greek and experts
> believe him to have lived a thousand years BC and Pirsig says that
> evolution had NOT YET ...etc Celebrity - a social value - was
> regarded as the highest good. Another few centuries and the
> transition took place.
>
> dmb adds:
> I'm with you on the timing. I think its clear that a profound evolutionary
> leap in human consciousness was taking place in the days of Socrates and
> Buddha. Homer was already as old to them as Shakespere is to us. The
> Babylonian and Egyptian cultures were already ancient, as old to them as
> they are to us. Born as the offspring of all that magnificent achievement,
> something new came into the world.
>
> BO said:
> Pirsig says that quality and celebrity WAS equal in the age when
> Society was "the leading edge" of existence.(he only mentions
> "celebrity", there were other). In the more remote past when Biology
> was top notch IT was reality itself. Right now Intellect is at the front
> and its value is perceived as Reality (regardless of how we define its
> value).
>
> dmb says:
> I wouldn't go quite so far as to say they were equal, but almost. How does
> Pirsig put it? "Celebrity is to social patterns as sex is to biological
> patterns." "But in a value-structured universe celebrity comes roaring to
> the front of reality as a huge fundamental parameter. It becomes an
> organizing force of the whole social level of evolution. Without this
> celbrity force, advanced complex human societies might be impossible. Even
> simple ones."
>
> That is also from the end of chapter 20. Interestingly, I think, the
passage
> immediately following the quote that started it all goes....
>
> "The pyramids were celebrity devices. All the statues, the palaces, the
> robes, and jewels of social authority: those are just celebrity devices.
The
> feathers of Indian headdress. Children being told they would be struck
blind
> if they ever accidentally looked at the emperor. All the Sirs and Lords
and
> Reverends and Doctors of European address, those are celebrity symbols.
All
> the badges and trophies, all the blue ribbons, all the promotions up the
> business ladder, all the elections to "high office", all the compliments
and
> flattery of tea parties and cocktail parties are celebrity enhancements.
All
> the feuding and battling for prestige among academics and scientists. All
> the offense at "insults". All the "face" of the Orient. Celebrity.
> Celebrity. Even a policeman's uniform is a kind of celebrity device.
...High
> school. High school was REALLY a place for celbrity. That's what had all
> those Jocks out playing football every afternoon. That's what the pom-pom
> girls were all about. It was celebrity."
>
> Its worth pointing out that Pirsig is a celebrity himself, and is in New
> York, a celebrity of a city, to talk with celebrity Robert Redford about a
> movie deal. As if to drive the point home, they meet at hotel located in
the
> part of New York where lots of famous people live and takes a room high up
> close to the top. Our society is still organized by the celebrity factor,
> just not exclusively any longer.
>
> Tanks.
> dmb
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward -
http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jul 13 2003 - 19:20:14 BST