From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jul 26 2004 - 15:19:22 BST
DMB, Paul, Mel, All:
> Platt said:
> Perhaps our debate is a reflection of this "fight," with you championing
> the social patterns in the name of the public good and I holding out for
> the freedom of the individual to succeed or fail on his own using such
> intellectual powers as he is able to muster to make decisions for himself
> and enjoy or suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.
>
> Paul replied:
> ...I think the personal or individual success (or failure) that you
> "hold out for" also occurs at other levels, so cannot be a defining part of
> the intellectual level. In my experience, the most dominant measure of
> personal success is wealth - a social level phenomena. ..Anyway, in my
> understanding of the MOQ, subordinating intellectual patterns to a
> primarily social level goal of individual success is immoral.
>
> dmb says:
> I agree with Paul. Platt has it backwards and is "subordinating
> intellectual patterns to a primarily social level goal" whether he realizes
> that or not.
Both DMB and Paul narrowly define success as fame and fortune. I doubt if
they would apply that definition to themselves as individuals, but rather
use the term's primary meaning of "favorable or desired outcome." In fact,
I'll bet they would agree that their own individual success is more along
the lines of Annotation 198:
"Zen argues that is through stillness, not action, than a man (individual)
can realize himself, in the sense of actualizing his potentialities and
developing his personality towards the ideal state of harmonious
integration of his powers."
Once the weakness of DMB's premise that success is a social pattern is
made clear, the rest of his critique of my position regarding the individual level
disintegrates into little more than an anti-Randian rant.
> Paul said to Platt:
> I think your equation of "the individual" with the intellectual level
> completely changes the MOQ's ontological framework, and consequently its
> moral framework. What I'm unclear about, based on recent posts, is whether
> you make the equation because you believe it provides a better explanation
> of experience or because it supports your political beliefs.
>
> dmb says:
> Right. Platt's political beliefs are contrary to Pirsig's descriptions on
> only every point. Ask what he thinks of the New Deal, for example, and I
> imagine he's paint it as a collective effort and thus as a social level
> construct.
The New Deal was an SOM intellectual pattern designed to guide social
patterns. It was a disaster because (as Pirsig explains) it had a defect
in it. It had no provision for morals.
> Ask what he thinks about the pursuit of wealth and fame and I
> imagine he'd say that such a choice is made by the individual and is
> therefore an intellectual choice.
Fame and fortune are social level values. An individual can intellectually
choose biological values, social values or intellectual values to pursue.
His intentions are often intellectual, that is, he can rationalize his
behavior, like gamblers and criminals do. But it's his behavior that
determines what value level applies.
> Platt said:
> Individual success might best be thought of as adopting a new
> interpretation of reality as described in Pirsig's works.
>
> Paul replied:
> I don't disagree. As I said in a previous post, intellectual success
> would be measured by such things as the clarity, precision, magnitude
> and elegance of one's ideas - and if that were the dominant measure of
> individual success, I suggest we would be living in a very different world.
>
> dmb says:
> Wouldn't it be great if we lived in that world? Philosophers would be
> greeted by mobs of screaming fans. Beautiful women would throw scented
> panties and hotel room keys at lecturing historians. Joan Rivers would go
> gah-gah over the latest designer pocket-protectors as physicists stolled
> down the red carpet. Anthropology professors would be stalked for photos
> and autographs. All the heros in the movies would be like Robert Redford in
> THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and mathematicians would be hired as models for
> fashion magazines. What a wonderful world that would be. It all makes me
> wonder what color the sky is in Platt's world?
DMB's leftist politics comes into full view. Academics are his heroes. In
a recent survey of Ivy League school employees who made donations to the
campaigns of Bush and Kerry, 92 percent were to Kerry.
I agree with William F. Buckley, no slouch when it comes to intellectual
prowess:
"The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists,
cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house."
Pirsig is no fan of "intellectuals" either. Just one quick quote will
suffice:
"In the battle of society against biology, the new twentieth-century
intellectuals have taken biology's side." (Lila, 24)
I will give the new twentieth-century intellectuals credit for one thing,
however. As Pirsig describes the new dominance of intellect over society
in the twenties:
"Literature emphasized the struggle of the noble, free-thinking individual
against the crushing oppression of evil social conformity." (Lila, 22)
Which bolsters my argument that the intellectual level might well be
thought of as the individual level--at war with social level "conformity."
Best,
Platt
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