-----Messaggio Originale-----
Hi LS.
> Seen in the light of the MOQ, what is it that is described in the last
part
> of ZMM (The Greeks).
> Is it the emergence of SOM, the"coming of age" of the Intellectual level,
> or...?
I am happy that this argument has been chosen. I too was hesitating to vote
it, even if I suggested one mine topic. It is undoubtedly true that mine
topic and the Bo's one are similar, therefore I have just several things to
write. As you know, I have joined Lila Squad only last month, and up to now
I have not given information about me, unless I'm Italian. My full name is
Marco Bonarelli, I'm 35 and I live in Northern Italy, in a town not far from
Ravenna, Bologna and Venice. I have read several times ZMM and Lila in last
5 years, and every time I find something of new. You will find few quotes in
my letters, because up to now I have read only books in Italian language. I
have just found on the Net a e-text of ZMM and I can only insert quotes from
this.
My interest on the MOQ derives mainly from my past school training: a
classic one, with Latin, Greek and Story of the Philosophy. Moreover the
topic of the Quality stimulates my interest, because of my job as
responsable of the quality for software house. Another coincidence between
me and Pirsig is that I have studied also Chemistry for two years at Bologna
university.
But I do not want to bore all you with my life... as I said, the topic of
tis month is very interesting for me: it joins the Quality to the classic
world. Therefore it is time to begin...
=====> Why the Greeks?
Firstly it is important to understand why today, after more then 2500 years,
we must still argue about the thought of the Ancient Greeks. Greece has been
the parent of western thought. In few centuries the Greeks were able to
process the 90% of our actual thought. It is obvious that if you want to
write of Metaphysics you must confront yourself with the Greeks, and Pirsig
made it.
"One must first get over the idea that the time span between the last
caveman and the first Greek philosophers was short. The absence of any
history for this period sometimes gives this illusion. But before the Greek
philosophers arrived on the scene, for a period of at least five times all
our recorded history since the Greek philosophers, there existed
civilizations in an advanced state of development. They had villages and
cities, vehicles, houses, marketplaces, bounded fields, agricultural
implements and domestic animals, and led a life quite as rich and varied as
that in most rural areas of the world today. And like people in those areas
today they saw no reason to write it all down, or if they did, they wrote it
on materials that have never been found. Thus we know nothing about them.
The ``Dark Ages'' were merely the resumption of a natural way of life that
had been momentarily interrupted by the Greeks." (ZMM , chapter 29)
At the time of ZMM , MOQ did not exist... but, the topic is "Seen in the
light of the MOQ..." so we must talk about ZMM Pirsig , seen in the light of
LILA Pirsig.
=====> One step behind.
In order to understand the Greek thought in the light of the MOQ we must
make one step behind. The MOQ teaches that the history of the universe is
essentially an evolution. Pirsig aims its attention to the fight between the
levels, especially between social and inellectual. This fight exists today,
but it doesn't mean that it was always like this in the past.
When a new level rises, it's weak. The older levels instead are very strong
and could eliminate it. If it doesn't happen it is because the new level is
initially created by the lower in order to solve special problems. For
example, the social level initially is created by some biological pattern to
resolve biological problems, like the food or the house. The COMPETITION
between biological individuals makes to rise in some of them the Dynamic
Idea to create a social pattern. When a social pattern is very simple there
is no need of fight between social and biological levels: the bees are very
happy of their nest, and the wolves are happy too of their pack. When we
speak about the rituals of the social level we must think that many animals
live also in simple social patterns and the behavior of the individuals is
regulated through established roles. That establishment is their pattern and
all the knowledge they need is stored in fixed behaviors, the rituals.
It happened the same at the birth of the intellectual level: when the social
level created complex patterns, like tribes, cities or nations, the
problem of the COMPETITION (in form of war of conquest) between them raised
again, for the attainment of social assets like riches, lands, human
resources. The most of human social structures has found a better way to
face the social competition: the intellectual level. We must always remeber
that inellectual level is not thought, or mind. It is a new class of
patterns, originally created by the social level, and evolved along the
time. At the time time of it's birth, it was useful to the society that
created it, because it became stronger then the ones that did not develope
it. Initially the target was just to find solutions to win a war or to
improve the economy. Then innovative solutions were invented, like politics,
that rather tries to develop alliances. In this moment there was the birth
of the opinions, and a beginning of new competitions. The main target of the
intellectual patterns became therefore the search for the social agreement
about their theories, and the fight for democracy, trial by jury, freedom of
speech, freedom of the press derives from this point.
I think that we can distinguish a level by another on the basis of their
main values of his patterns: the main value of a biological pattern is to
live and replicate (LIFE); the main value of a social pattern is, initially,
to preserve individuals, then, to accumulate richness to the detriment of
other social competitors (ECONOMY); the main value of an intellectual
pattern is, initially, to lead the society by the use of mind and not by the
use of rituals, then, to fight for social agreement, creating an useful
system of thought (PHILOSOPHY). Now , we can debate if we must intend for
intellectual level his first form or his second, but this is not the month's
topic.
====> Let's return to Greece.
At this point we can better understand the extraordinary experience of the
Greeks: at that time, about ten centuries B.C. the Greeks colonized wide
areas of the Mediterranean coasts, from Turkey to Spain. In every place
where they disembarked , they created a particular social structure, the
polis (city). Soon the competition between polis was strong and was created
a fertile situation for the birth of a new level. In parallel with that,
during approximately five centuries, the Greek thought anticipated great
part of our modern western thought. We can note that our thought has
employed approximately the same time from Renaissance to now. The Greeks
coined the word Philosopher, in order to mean someone who works at an
intellctual level, and takes care of his acquaintance (sophia). Initially
their business was indifferently about technique and metaphysics. Many polis
soon understood their usefulness. Especially Athens, promoted the birth of
many Schools. Such social configurations are the conjunction between the
social and the intellectual level.
===> SOM vs MOQ
We cannot know if , at that times, the division between MOQ and SOM were
already present. We cannot know if the Sophists, or Socrat, were the
defenders of the MOQ (I don't think so). All that we know about them,
(especially about the sophists) has been mainly reported by Plato, Aristotle
and their schools. They made them say what they want. Surely all the
schools created an own philosophy, that is an own intellectual pattern. I
believe that the philosophy of Aristotle has been the birth of the SOM. And
I think that until that time the intellectual level was only in his first
form: to find a philosophy good for leading a society. In that age Aristotle
won, and it was unavoidable: in that moment too many social problems were
not yet solved and the society needed useful intellectual patterns. The
theories of Aristotle (SOM) were more useful for the development of
technology; technology was useful in order to increase the riches of the
city; the city was useful in order to preserve the life of human beings.
This simple reasoning induced the society to proclaim the victory of SOM,
and try to cancel every shape of alternative thinking. And in the history of
philosophy Aristotle has always the last word. Along 2000 years, SOM,
created by Aristotle and developed by many other philosophers and religions,
ruled in western culture.
====> Today
Today we are again at the same point. The Native Americans have not invented
the idea of freedom: it was already latent in the western culture at least
from ancient Greece, and inside the Christian culture. What the Native
Amercans have supplied to us was the example, that has begun the reaction.
Now we are in the second form of inellectual level: theories are now
fighting not only to lead societies, but also for freedom.
And freedom of opinion and association helped the developement of many new
philosophies (intellectual patterns). In some of them is born the conviction
that SOM is inadequate. The MOQ is one possible answer. It will be able to
win if it will be able to obtain a sincere social consent. But until many
people in the world are enslaved of hard work, or, worse, of hunger, the
society will have to think about something else, and will entrust who
promises "objective" results. The MOQ has an advantage: it knows the
adversary. In order to win definitively, MOQ can fight SOM , by the use of
rhetoric or dialectic as "intellectual guns"; or must have a dynamic
intuition: to find and to create the fifth level, that will be will allow an
intellectual pattern to defeat the others. But this is an other story.
Post Scriptum.
I did not mention the eastern philosophy, fot two reasons: the fomer is yhat
the topic was about the Greeks, the latter is that our western world has not
been influenced a lot by eastern philosophy a lot. I'm sure that something
like I described about the evolution of intellectual level was happened
also in other places and other times, but the Greek's one is THE TIME and
THE PLACE.
As always, I'm sorry for my English. I hope to be able to complete soon a my
own contribution to the MOQ.ORG Forum just to make more clear my
interpretation of the evolution of Quality and the evolution of patterns
inside a level.
I would also give some answer:
Diana:
> If you haven' t already noticed we have two excellent new contributions
> to the Forum:
>
> On Quality 28 Aug ' 99....
>
> Creating an Organismic MOQ19 Aug ' 99....
I have read completely the second one and, slowly, I am reading the first.
I would have something to say about the Organismic MOQ...
To Cntryforce @ aol.com:
> believe the last part of the ZMM contains one of the most historically
> important showdowns in the history of American Literature, and indeed one
of
> the most historically important showdowns in the history of man.
>That may sound absurdly exaggerated...
I think it sounds exaggerated. Undoubtedly Pirsig has supplied an optimal
key to interpret the history of the western thinking, but it is not the only
one key. As an example, a book of a French philosopher has been useful to me
: Marc Sautet: Un CafË pour Socrate. It gave me another valid interpretation
of the western thought, correlating the thought of many philosophers to
their ability to produce riches... One of the instructions that I have drawn
from Pirsig is that I must not be fixed on static positions, and therefore I
must not be too sure of any theoretical position, MOQ comprised.
Ciao a tutti.
Marco.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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