LS SOM and the intellect.

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Thu Sep 02 1999 - 22:35:08 BST


Bodvar and the gang:

I'm so happy that this topic won. It's a fascinating way to look at the
differences between social and intellectual values and I suspect this
discussion will increase everyone's understanding of the MOQ. It's going
to be a rich month, don't you think?

The following quote is from chapter 22 of Lila and is on page 277 in the
Bantam HB edition.

"Now, it should be stated at this point that the MOQ supports this
dominance of intellect over society. It says intellect is a higher level
of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level than
society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for a
society to destroy an idea. But having said this, the MOQ goes on to say
that science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take
over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object
science has no provision for morals. Subject-Object science is only
concerned with facts."

This quote seems to get at the heart of the matter. I think it is pretty
clear that Pirsig is saying SOM is a defective intellectual pattern. And
it seems safe to say that his MOQ is designed to correct that defect. If
SOM is considered equal to the intellectual level itself, then it
becomes inescapable and so the MOQ would be quite pointless. Notice how
he says its a defective intellectual "pattern" that's been appointed and
he does not refer to SOM as a "level". It seems to me that there are
many different intellectual patterns within the intellectual level, just
as there are many different languanges and cultures within the social
level, just as there are many species within the biological level. See
what I mean?

How and why did these intellectual patterns go wrong? What can be done
to correct the mistake? I think Pirsig's books are an attempt to answer
those questions. It was a long road from Socrates to Armistice Day in
1918 and a wrong turn or two has brought us to our present situation.
The defect occured somewhere between the Greek emergence and the modern
take-over. (Descartes represents a major fork in the road.) But the
defective patterns are dominant, but not absolutely, and there have been
contrary voices all along the way. And I think what Pirsig has done is
gathered the minority views from history to show the alternatives,
chiefly the Sophists, but also some of the better scientists, some
Romantics and the Mystics. I mean there are non-SOM thinkers in the
West, aren't there?

The defective SOM patterns were appointed because of complex historical
reasons. As I understand it, the Scientific Revolution over reacted to
the Church, which insisted on nearly totalitarian social conformity. So
the intellectual level was polluted by a political battle. Science threw
the baby out with the bath water and got rid of morals altogether. SOM
Science pretends social values can be disregarded entirely and has
thereby created a huge blind spot for itself. It pretends to be
independent, but it is connected to society, just as society is
connected to biology.

Thanks for your time, DMB

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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