From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 12 2004 - 21:24:24 BST
Greetings All,
>Ideally, all the activities you describe (using logic, fitting to
>empirical data, making economical statements, identifying "elegance") are
>done independently of social level values. A high value at the
>intellectual level is "objectivity, that is, freedom from society's
>influence.
Pirsig: The trouble with the objective approach, Dusenberry said, is that
you don't learn much that way... The only way to find out about Indians is
to care for them and win their love and respect.... There's this
pseudo-science myth that when your 'objective' you just disappear from the
face of the earth and see everything undistorted, as it really is, like God
from heaven. But that's rubbish. When a person's objective his attitude is
remote.
Although these are Dusenberry's words, Pirsig's view of Quality as
formulated in ZMM certainly embraces this position.
Pirsig: To understand what he was trying to do its necessary to see that
*part* of the landscape, *inseparable* from it, which *must* be understood,
is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the
landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all.
Pirsig: Actually, this who dilemma of subjectivity-objectivity, of
mind-matter, with relationship to Quality was unfair. That mind-matter
relationship has been an intellectual hang-up for centuries.
How can "objectivity", then, be a "high value" at the intellectual level?
Indeed, in discussing a person responsive to Quality, Pirsig states: What
I'm talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is "just fixing", in which
the idea of a duality of self and object doesn't dominate one's
consciousness. When one isn't dominated by feelings of separateness from
what he's working on, then one can be said to "care" about what he's doing.
That is what caring really is, a feeling of identification with what one's
doing. When one has this feeling [caring] then he also sees the inverse
side of caring, Quality itself.
Thus, I would think "caring" is a more apt "high value" term at the
intellectual level.
> By contrast, groups, almost by definition, never act
>independently of others.
>
> > Why would philosophy, mathematics, theology, geometry etc. be defined as
> > "individual patterns" instead of "intellectual patterns"?
>
>Because they were all once created by individuals responding to DQ. As
>Pirsig said, "A tribe can change its values only person by person and
>someone has to be first." The patterns you cite are also dealt with person
>by person, Pirsig being a fine example in the philosophy category.
>
>The main advantage to renaming the intellectual level the individual level
>is to reinforce the higher morality of the intellectual order of
>"democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press" (not
>to mention free enterprise) over conformist social order.
You mentioned in another post that theological issues were "stifling social
patterns" that negatively impacted the marketplace. You criticized (well,
more like shrugged off) the idea I suggested- that religion is an analogous
way to describe Quality, and forgoing the individual names and places, and
bringing the analogies theology suggests (asking "what is good?") into the
dialogue of economics- as outdated moral codes.
If you meant to suggest that names and places (my God/your God, etc) are
outdated social codes, I would agree (although I personally think that
ritual (an effective general mythology) may be conducive to psychological
health), and their seemingly universal analogy is what is important to
consider (as you say that theology is a response of individuals to DQ), I
would further agree.
If this is the case, why is bad to ask "what is good" (outside of monetary
measures) in business?
If you misspoke here, and theology is simply a stifling social layer, then
does this mean you agree with Nietzsche's "God is Dead" proclamation?
Arlo
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