Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Sun, 22 Mar 1998 06:06:24 +0100
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 08:39:59 +0100
Magnus Berg wrote:
> Hi Kevin and welcome to the Lila Squad
> Kevin Sanchez wrote:
> > The organization of inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual static
> > values seemss comprehendsive and compatible with contemporary social ethics
> > but, I have a problem. I cannot see that the next level automatically
> > trumps the one before it.
> > For instance, in Lila, Pirsig states that an idea warrants the death of a
> > society. Yet, doesn't the quality of that idea effect that warrant? Is it
> > moral for us to all die for a low-quality idea? Was Hitler correct in
> > killing for his extremely low-quality ideas? This troubles me because the
> > humanistic ethics to which I subscribe seem slightly undermined by MoQ.
> > Comments?
MAGNUS
This will be an "accumulation" message so I will save
your entry for the end.
KEVIN!
You wrote in your first post:
> SOM is the intellectual level being overly static in an attempt to
> latch itself above social and biological concerns and urges. In the
> same way the Hippies confused dynamic quality with biological static
> quality, so did the intellectuals of Greece who began classical
> philosophy.
Welcome to our midst Kevin.
I am impressed by your understanding of Pirsig's work - and for
raising the troubling aspects also. But first: I take the opening of
your message as affirmative of the SOM-as-Intellect-of-MOQ idea.
Am I right?
You went on:
> The intellectual level need not be so static, if it only recognizes the place from
> which the hypothesises come from: dynamic quality. Furthermore,
> anyone who discounts the MoQ is probably doing such from the place
> of unacknowledged egoism of the intellectual level: the feeling that
> intellectualism triumphs all levels of value. Incidentially, by
> doing so they supress the dynamic quality necessary for
> intellectualism survival. This may be a repition of what has already
> been said: sorry.
This cannot be repeated too often. Intellect is brought to its senses
once its place in the Quality Quality context is secured.
Over to the problem you see with the upper level automatically
trumping the one below, of bad and good ideas, humanistic ethics....
etc. and the responses it evoked.
Pirsig's statement about ideas moral right to kill societies sounds
dramatic, but has nothing to do with killing of humans or physical
destruction. In your example of Hitler the social-value-dominated
Nazi regime was "killed" by intellect-value-dominated regimes
(democracy). The fact that it took place in the midst of
a political war (inter-social struggle) war has nothing to do with
the MOQ tenet. The Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were "killed"
as effectively, but with very little bloodshed. The most dramatic
"killing of societies" that now take place is the West's ideas
(democracy, freedom of speech, trial by jury etc.) threatening the
social-value-dominated Islam society. I just can't see how they can
resist, but see how the gut-feeling of social value (expressed as
devotion to religion) fights back. Terrorism is a typical weapon of
social resistance: individuals freely sacrificing themselves for the
common cause. We would perhaps say that their policy is a bad
"idea", but social value are not ideas - seen from that level.
Follow my thread below.
HUGO!
One point must be emphasized first: When you use the term "society"
it has a political significance - cultural perhaps. The "Social
Static value" of MOQ is extremely basic. It is the good of the many
at the cost of the individual. Full stop! As said above: a state or
country can be part of a intellect-dominated culture or a
social-dominated one, and Pirsig holds that only the Western culture
is fully intellectualised, i.e: its values pervades our outlook.
Consequently the "bad ideas" are almost invariably high social
value, but as there is no social "dimension" in the subject/object
word view it all get messed up as political ideologies and "bad"
ideas etc. The fist step is to make the double meaning of society
(low value to the intellectual level/high value to the social level)
visible, that is: recognition of the MOQ. Follow my thread below
Hugo.
KEITH!
I think what you wrote about the American Civil War touches the
point, but let me stay on this side of the Atlantic. Kevin says
that Nazism was an extremely bad idea, and it definitely was/is from
Intellect's side. However from society's side it was no IDEA - a
lower level does not "know" any level above itself - it was duty,
sacrifice, honour: good social values, which - when/if
Intellect goes to fast and looses foothold - is the next safe latch.
Intellect's individual freedom is better than Society's discipline,
but it is no free-floating entity, its base is the Social level.
FOR MAGNUS!
You catch this point in your reminder of the situation in Germany
in the aftermath of the First World War.
> Remember that the types of societies you are talking about is also based on an
> idea. This makes it possible to value the old and the new idea and make
> judgements based on that. At the depression times of the Hitler takeover,
> the idea that the society was based on wasn't valued too highly.
Pirsig sees WW1 as the watershed of the Intellect vs Society struggle
when the charging new intellect-spawned Communism (the original Marx
idea, not the dictatorship. See Andrew Russell's entry) and Democracy
brought dangerous instability to the shell-shocked Germans.
KEN!
Your "Human Good" may be equated with Intellectual value (as our
is the only species that has ventured (fully) beyond the Social
level). What "Universal Good" is a MU question. And yet, the value
levels below aren't less important and Kevin's humanistic ethics
is not possible without their stability. Matter and Life and Society
as static patterns SPoV we hardly need worry about, but Intellect's
interference with social value is - according to Pirsig - not
always beneficial.....for ITSELF!!!!. Social value is indestructible
but societies in our intellect-influenced sense can become too
"dynamic". This aspect of LILA is what brought him so many bad
reviews. Sorry Ken, I'm not arguing with you, I just had to round off
my sermon.
DONNY!
Your entry on this subject was in your own unequalled style and
needs a special treatment, but you make some highly accurate
observations. I enjoyed it truly. Kevin brought us back a few
notches, but it is always useful to look at the basics again.
Bo
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