From: "Horse" <horse@wasted.demon.nl>
To: lilasquad@moq.org
Date sent: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 01:45:09 +0100
Subject: LS PROGRAM: Power and the MOQ
Send reply to: lilasquad@moq.org
Hi People
Apologies for the previous version - something went wrong with my
emailer.
We've had some interesting excursions into some of the different
aspects of power, but we seem to be drifting gradually away from the
original topic. Fair enough! Power is a broad topic.
When I posted this months starter I'd just been reading some articles
about M.A.I. (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) which, in short,
is a new slant on the (generally) western nations hobby of screwing
the Third World. There's plenty of information about MAI and its
opponents on the 'net but what it seems to boil down to is TNC's
(TransNational Corporations - new name, same villains) removing all
obstacles to the righteous path of profit - those obstacles being
people, environment, governments etc. Diana wrote:
On 6 Apr 99, at 12:41, Diana McPartlin wrote:
> ... but actually the intellect is the only
> thing that can overthrow the social level so it's actually very
> powerful. The social level works by playing on the human tendency
> to go along with the crowd and fit in. If people start switching their
> brains on and asking too many questions then the social level
which, fortunately, is exactly what happened. After co-ordinated (and
unco-ordinated) action by various groups and individuals MAI has
been dropped - for the time being.
This, for me, illustrates an interesting situation for the MOQ in
relation to a particular form of Power. On the one hand, it was surely
individuals who initially sat up and took notice of the impending
disaster for the planet posed by the MAI, but on the other hand it
took the power of many to stop it. Individuals had to organize into
powerful and directed social groups in order to impede the progress
of other powerful and directed social groups. But directed by whom
and who's fighting who and how. This seems to me to illustrate a
general case of opposing intellectual factions fighting it out using the
social level as its means of domination and distribution. In the same
post Diana wrote:
On 6 Apr 99, at 12:41, Diana McPartlin wrote:
> When you understand the social
> level as Pirsig paints it you can see that this social "giant" that's
> controlling all of us doesn't just live in "them". Sure it manifests
> itself more in some people than others, but basically it's all of us.
> The media and the pr industry are not populated by evil people,
> they're just human and it is human nature to go along with the
> crowd and that's all they do. If you want to solve a problem you
> need to understand precisely what that problem is and how it came
> about and the MOQ does help us understand social power.
There are the followers and the initiators on both sides but for the
'Dark Side' of the 'Giant' to dominate it requires intellect to work in
its favour to provide it with the means to channel its progress.
Someone has to initiate the ideologies involved - it's hardly a group
effort in the initial stages. Someone must come up with a 'Neat Idea'
and want to share it.
The MOQ seems to tell us that it is moral for intellect to utilize
society for its own purposes, but when those purposes are the
domination or destruction of other parts of the intellectual level is it
still moral? The moral relationship of intellect and society becomes
more complex than the simplistic way it seems to appear in Pirsigs
description when additional power relationships are thrown into the
pot. When ideologies (intellectual value) and their champions
compete with other ideologies for intellectual domination there is,
almost always, a social element involved. In response to the TNC's
where are the opposing social giants and their intellectual
champions? Governments? Forget it!! The UN? Not a chance!
Interestingly enough the MAI battle has polarised a whole bunch of
organizations, some well known others not so well known. The Red
Cross, Oxfam, WWF (World Wildlife Fund), Friends of the Earth, the
Third World Network are among them.
In the starter post for this months subject Pirsig was quoted from Lila
as saying:
"Until the First World War the Victorian social codes dominated.
>From the First World War until the Second World War the
intellectuals dominated unchallenged.From the Second World War
until the seventies the intellectuals continued to dominate, but with
an increasing challenge - call it the 'Hippie revolution,' - which failed.
And from the early seventies on there has been a slow confused
mindless drift back to a kind of pseudoVictorian moral posture
accompanied by an unprecedented growth in crime"
R.M.Pirsig Lila Ch.24 P.353 Pub. Black Swan
which may not be the whole story. The TNC's started to gain strength
in the Victorian era with their foundation of Victorian social codes
and continued to gain power unabated until sometime around the
early 70's when people became increasingly aware of the
environmental and social damage being caused. Are we witnessing
the gradual rise of opposing 'Giants' in response to the well
established order? And where is the intellectual value involved?
Horse
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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