LS SOM as MOQ intellectual level


Platt Holden (pholden@worldnet.att.net)
Fri, 13 Mar 1998 18:31:11 +0100


>From the beginning of the LS, Bo has maintained that the Intellectual level
is SOM (rationality, language, science). It's gradually seeped into my mind
that Bo is right about this. SOM is the current mental framework and means
of communication in which we operate from day to day, enabling us to "make
a living" and enjoy "the good life."

That this level has accomplished wondrous things no one can doubt. One need
only point to the technology supporting the Internet and the consequent
emergence of the LS to bow humbly before the power of S-0 intellect.

It' s inconceivable to me that at one time in human history the S-0 concept
of "me in here and you out there" simply didn't exist. Yet, from what we
can garner from the unwritten past, such seems to be the case. During that
prehistoric period, everything was "we," ruled by invisible gods who roamed
the environment dispensing good and evil as per their whim. The concept of
"I" as an individual person with some control, however meager, over one's
own destiny was nowhere to be found. I wonder who was the person who first
broached the idea of "I," and what horrible punishment the all powerful
group and their accompanying gods bestowed on her for such heresy.

The history of man since then could be summarized as the struggle of the I
against the We, the Intellect against Society, a mighty struggle that
continues to this day. Whether it's ethnic conflict in Bosnia or political
correctness in the U.S, the siren call of social quality (now heralded as
equality) lures individuals back into the SOM-rejecting social level of We.
(Witness the academic attacks on rationalism and those bad white European
males.)

Far from condemning SOM, the Metaphysics of Quality holds it to be the
highest level yet achieved. It is the SOM, the Intellectual Level, that
distinguishes between me in here and the mob out there and has bestowed on
me the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Thank you SOM for granting me freedom from social approval, from group
think, from the evils of Churchism, Statism and the growing appeal of
Oneworldism.

I also thank SOM for containing within itself the power to see its own
weaknesses, whether it be recognition of its self-contradictions or it's
discovery of the quantum world where S-0 is no longer a viable dichotomy.
It is these chinks in the otherwise admirable fortress of the SOM that
raise the issues addressed in the MoQ.

It is not the purpose of the MoQ to poke away at these chinks in hopes of
toppling the SOM edifice but rather to fill them in so one can understand
himself and the world more fully and clearly. The largest chink is, of
course, values. SOM explains a lot, but doesn't explain them. Unless that
hole is filled, SOM risks erosion and eventual dissolution, with humanity
falling back into the killing fields of the social level with its churches,
cults and sacrifice of self for the sake of an invisible God of the Public
Good.

To fill the hole may require a new level above SOM. I'm not sure about
this. After all, the MoQ is an SOM document based on SOM reasoning. Yet it
points to an attitude that's different from SOM, an attitude of "Push on
until you capture the beauty of the thing, because if it isn't beautiful,
you really haven't got it yet." Great scientists, dedicated SOMers, have
this attitude. They understand its importance. They may even realize that
without this element of quality, (the "unconditioned" as Anthony McWatt put
it), their endeavors within the SOM structure and the structure itself may
ultimately fail.

So I fully agree with Bo's insight that the SOM and the Intellectual Level
are one and the same. To support it, to protect it, to avoid losing it and
sinking back to "anything goes" irrationalism or a "because God says so"
mentality, we need to recognize its vulnerability to attacks from academic
philosophers, social do-gooders, spiritual evangelists and it's own
internal paradoxes. To that end, the MoQ is the best S-O answer I've found
yet.

Platt

Catch 49: Nothing is black or white.

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