rasheed:
i'm new to the group and have been lurking for about a week.. hoping for
something like this to pop up, as opposed to the SOM-based IP bickering I've
seen....
since i'm new i didn't get to see the post you are responding to, but what
you wrote below inspires me greatly. i'm going to fly off on an (apparent)
tangent for a minute and bring this all together. i found the combination
of david bohm's _Thought as a System_ combined with pirsig's _Lila_ to be a
_very_ potent mixture. in the transcript of an early 90s dialogue, bohm
unifies the system of thought across all current fragmented boundaries; that
is, he claims that thought is a unified field of cognition, emotion, body,
reflex, and artifact. by defining this supersystem, he shows how all of
them merge into the other to produce a coherent whole.. thus obliterating
the SOM in this area of analysis. thought becomes a complex series of
reflexes, or patterns, that become stronger with absorbed energy or time.
sounds a lot like static patterns of value, no?
by bohm's potent unification of the thought system across all of its
components, it is possible with pirsig's MoQ to show how these reflexes are
static patterns repeating across four distinct levels... amazing stuff.
bringing the tangent back slightly, bohm spins a well-known krishnamurti
thread about the observer and the observed.. the subject and the
object..the I and the me image (SOM applied to the "self"). the I image is
most associated with limitless potential, chaotic, and undefineable -- seen
strongly in children. the me image is most associated with defined
boundaries (though constantly shifting) and limited capability.
returning completely from the tangent to what you wrote, this "me" image is
painted with static patterns of value of all levels and they are transmitted
through the system of thought. not that there was anything immoral about
these patterns at the time some of them were created. however, _many_
people are starting to intuitively wake up to the need for these patterns to
evolve, or in pirsig's language, dynamic quality is pointing toward another
evolution. on a deeper level, the intellectual pattern of "Subject Object
Metaphysics" is starting to become immoral as applied to the "self" and this
can be sensed throughout the thought system. as applied to the self: "to
engineer meaning out of meaningless mental fabric is to sew my own noose".
the fact that this pattern has been used to extract one of the mightiest
pattern of value (money) to allow us to paint our "me" images with other
patterns of value (knowledge, degrees, trademarked clothing, etc. etc.) is
coming clearly into focus.
by combining pirsig and bohm, we can now see the dynamics of thought
producing a social pattern that traps a biological pattern (such as
advertising)... or a biological pattern influencing a social pattern that
traps an intellectual pattern that cuts off DQ (extreme immorality). i want
to leave this thread hanging as it is late and i'd like to hear other's
thoughts on this.
----- Original Message -----
From: <HisSheedness@aol.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 2100 Shaoul
Subject: Re: MD HELP - Consumerism, homogonisation and the degregation of
quality
| evolve, you've got something there in that last post. a lot of those
| statistics are mind-blowing and i think they force people to stop at look
at
| themselves as people and as a society. growing up in the us, i had the
same
| materialistic views forced upon me... my dad is a doctor, my parents want
me
| to be one too, otherwise, 'how can i support a family?' i was lucky to
have
| one of the greatest world history teachers ever when i was 14 (3 years
ago),
| who helped me see through empty consumerism and the american capitalism
| philosophy of 'get what you can, step on whoever you need to step on to
get
| there.' one thing he pointed out about the advertising industry is that
they
| try to weaken you as a person. eg, one hair growth pill with a voice
| announcing: 'so... you're bald. why don't you just give up your manhood?'
| then, when they break you down, they offer the solution, which is of
course
| the hair growth pill. there's another similar one for females about
sagging
| breasts, with the line, 'dont forget your responsibilites you have for
your
| husband.' and im sure you can see where that one goes. anyway, i told my
| friends to give me a nice kick in the throat if they ever see me wearing
| abercrombie and fitch or gap any of the other manifestations of the pop
| culture coup. people will oppose school uniforms here as if they were
| fighting for their life, but they can go ahead and wear some ridiculous
| looking old navy vest or shoes that rise a foot above the ground, only
| because other people have them. the only way to rise above pop culture is
to
| cultivate a sense of self-worth, which is a difficult commodity to come by
| with so much advertising, and a virtue by all means. today we have fast
| everything- cars, computers, microwaves. we initially dont want these
| things, but when society offers them to us, we shrug our shoulders and
say,
| 'why not?' and then pretty soon we can't live without them. all that
| materialism and restiveness breaks down the mind by simply giving it less
| time to spend in contemplation and by breaking down the attention span.
|
| and, like you said, schools concentrate on teaching kids math and science,
| the two areas that have the most jobs. this started in the 50s, during
the
| cold war, when president eisenhower was afraid of war with the soviets.
he
| wanted more engineers who knew how to build bombs and scientists to
advance
| technology to beat those stinkin' russians in the space race and
everything
| else. so, he started gifted programs and gave math and science the most
| prestige, and the trend hasnt changed. think of how it would be different
if
| a president instead decided upon art, music, or philosophy to hold the
most
| esteem in schools? these things help people discover the self, but are
| usually the handmaidens of math and modern science, the stuff of the 'real
| world.'
|
| anyway, just another statistic for everyone: americans waste more food
than
| any other country on earth and recycle the least. thanks for broaching
this
| topic, evolve, and keep thinking, no matter how much society pressures you
| not to do so.
|
| rasheed
|
|
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