LS Re: ???????


Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:51:54 +0100


Kevin, Keith, Squad

I like your explanation [below] of this difficult issue, Keith! But I think
we are left with part of Kevin's problem: If we agree that the judging of
ideas is to take place on the intellectual level, and that society should
allow for intellectual freedom, what can we say of the feed-back from the
intellectual level to the social? How are the good ideas to work in society?
I am intuitively deeply sceptic towards revolutionary ideas, that is, ideas
of a utopia, of a completely different society which we can jump to in no
time. When it comes to societies (as well :-) I am an evolutionist. You can
imagine a utopia in some detail, but you cannot foresee where such a jump
is going to end; and I think history provides examples of this danger, in
some social revolutions. Yet some social revolutions were both necessary
and as succesful as can be, I guess, - but perhaps these were not that
utopian?

Has MoQ anything to say on how ideas can work in/on society? Can we find
useful analogies at the other boundaries?

Hugo

________________________Keith:_______________________________
>Here's a paragraph I wrote in a philosophy paper in college that somewhat
>addresses your question.
>
>"One might object that the Metaphysics of Quality would allow even a bad
>idea to overthrow a society, and that this objection would defeat
>evolutionary ethics. It is unmistakably true that on Pirsig's account the
>ideas, 'peanut butter is the foundation of morality', and 'whites are
>superior to blacks', each have the same force in justifying the overthrow
>of a society which represses them as the notion of 'human equality' had in
>the Civil War. However, the salient point which must be understood is this:
>It is the job of the intellect, not of society, to determine which ideas
>are good and which are bad. Any society which represses ideas is
>fundamentally immoral."
>
>Wishing I had time to write something new,
>Keith
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