MARCO TO ALL RATIONAL INTELLECTUALS
Namely: Platt, Horse, Erin, 3wDave, Roger, Scott, Jonathan
(this thread reminds me the old good threads on MF.... )
well, it seems I'm the only one suggesting Human Rights. Let me count on my
side just Wim, if he agrees, whose suggestion -ethics- is somewhat similar.
Actually ethics is a duty, while human rights are, exactly, rights. Two
faces of the same coin.
The majority seems to agree on logic, math, reason and so on. Well, can I
say I'm amazed?
Let me explain myself. Of course intellect builds rational maps of the lower
levels, so I agree that rationality helps coping with nature/universe/static
patterns... On the other hand, it seems to me that while rationality is of
great help in controlling inorganic and biological patterns, it's not as
well useful to use rationality to "triumph over society". This has always
been my interpretation of Lila: an objective and rational anthropology is a
disaster, as rationality can't grasp successfully the social realm, a.k.a.
culture.
The crucial chapters are, as often, 22th and 24th. Please, reread them
carefully. I did, yesterday night, for the nth time. My reading of them
brings me to another direction. Hope you can tell me where I'm wrong.
Indeed, Pirsig states that the early intellectuals claimed they had to be
independent from society as they were following an objective, rational
Truth, independent from any social tradition.
Examples:
(from ch. 22)
President Wilson, who says: «We must use our intelligence to stop future
war; social institutions can not be trusted to function morally by
themselves; they must be guided by intellect»
The Scopes - Darrow trial: «Scopes and Darrow were defending academic
freedom, but, more importantly, they were prosecuting the old static
religious patterns of the past. They gave intellectuals a warm feeling of
arriving somewhere they had been waiting to arrive for as long time»
Objectivity: «He saw that during the early decades of this century
anthropology's unassailable Olympian "objectivity" had had some very
partisan cultural roots of its own. It had been a political tool with which
to defeat the Victorians and their system of social values»
Cultural relativism: «The new cultural relativism became popular because it
was a ferocious instrument for the dominance of intellect over society»
I could go on....
But attention. This has been also, according to Pirsig, the defect this kind
of intellectual patterns have been bearing.
«What they [the intellectuals of early decades] say is absolute. This is
because intellectual follow science, which is objective. An objective
observer does not have relative opinions because he is nowhere within the
world he observes. [...] Now, with the added perspective of the twentieth
century provided by the Metaphysics of Quality, you could see its [of such
hogwash] origins. An American anthropologist could no more embrace
nonobjectivity than a Stalinist bureaucrat could play the stock market. And
for the same kind of ideological, conformist reasons. [...] Science [...]
has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science has no
provisions for morals. [...] was this the intellectual pattern it was going
to run society with?»
Jonathan's example of the Soviet scientists and all the possible diverse
expressions of intellect that hardly can find space and popularity within a
given social context - be it the Supreme Soviet, the Church of Reason or the
market - fits with Pirsig. A complete independence from society -in the name
of objective truth- is an illusion. A dangerous absurd one.
«A scientific, intellectual culture had become a culture of millions of
isolated people living and dying in little cells of psychic solitary
confinement, unable to talk to one another, really, and unable to judge one
another because scientifically speaking it is impossible to do so»
(from ch. 24)
«But what the larger intellectual structure of the Metaphysics of Quality
makes clear is that this political battle of science to free itself from
domination by social moral codes was in fact a *moral* battle! It was the
battle of a higher, intellectual level of evolution to keep itself from
being devoured by a lower, social level of evolution.
Once the political battle is resolved, then can go back and re-ask the
question, "Just exactly *how* independent *is* science, in *fact* from
society?" The answer it gives is, "not at all". A science in which social
patterns are of no account is unreal and absurd as a society in which
biological patterns are of no account. It's an impossibility».
Scientific patterns are unable to lead society.
«Morals can't function normally because morals have been declared
intellectually illegal by the subject-object metaphysics that dominates
present social thought. These subject-object patterns were never designed
for the job of governing society. They're not doing it. »
(Is this the triumph? .....hmmm)
Pirsig suggests the MOQ - "a larger intellectual structure" - as solution.
«Phaedrus thought that a Metaphysics of Quality could be a replacement for
the paralyzing intellectual system that is allowing all this destruction to
go unchecked».
AND HERE IS THE CRUCIAL POINT.
And Pirsig states also VERY CLEARLY:
«In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no meaning.
There is no such things as "human rights". [...] There are subjects and
objects and nothing else.
This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can be
straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what is meant
by "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs.-society, the
moral right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech;
freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by
consent-these "human rights" are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According
to the Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a
sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis».
(Platt, reread it 20 times before going on!)
Platt asked what I'm meaning when I talk of Human Rights. You see, Platt,
I'm just referring to that Pirsig's statement. Surely I'm not a rational
intellectual of the 50's believing that human rights are subjective and
therefore non-existing. Maybe you Platt, saying they are a "sentimental
soup" are in the same group with those loser scientist intellectuals the MOQ
claims are wrong. They believe that human rights are a sentimental soup. The
MOQ says exactly the opposite.
So, here is the answer 3wDave was searching, or not?
Dave:
«Why did Pirsig not tie some name like these to this level? Or did he
somewhere and I miss it? But if he didn't what are some of the
possibilities? The best candidate?»
Why? IMO because he had to write the book to explain the answer. Like in a
mystery tale, the solution comes at the end.....
Up to now, I think I've explained Pirsig's point. Then, let me go on saying
why, IMO, rationality is not about freeing intellect from society. Platt
evoked "totalitarian society". In the same chapters Pirsig clearly says that
Nazism and Fascism have been social reaction to intellectual freedom.
(ch. 22)
«This [society vs. intellect] conflict explains the driving force behind
Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming
glorification of social authority an hatred of intellectualism»
So, a consideration. For what I know, Germans have been very logic and
rational inventing V2 rockets, jet airplanes, "enigma" code, color films and
other technological things. And also organizing extermination camps. And
wasn't Heisenberg a honored scientist in Germany during those times? So, how
do we classify this utilization of rationality that was completely
subjugated by 3rd level?
Can we say that rationality is the tool intellect uses to "triumph over
society"? No, rationality is NOT ENOUGH. Rationality has been invented by
society, and it has been widely used at the social level, as well as science
and technology and religion and art.
(ch. 24)
«The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an ultimate
meaning of the universe [...] It's historical purpose has been to help a
society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies».
Saying that rationality is the form of morality that gives intellect
"control over society" and makes intellect "triumph over society" (wasn't it
the matter of the discussion?) is changing the tool for the purpose. Human
rights are the tools! They say " Dear society, you CAN'T completely force
intellect to work for your own sake". Rationality is not a tool: it is the
intellectual pattern that it is to be liberated!!! Because, in the hands of
society, science is very dangerous.
By the way, just rereading chapter 22 I've found this passage, that IMO
closes the debate about where does Pirsig would classify art.
«In the chaos of social patterns a wild new intellectual experimentation
could now take place. Abstract art, discordant music, Freudian
psychoanalysis... »
It seems to me that art fits perfectly in the intellectual level, or not?
In the end, I want to use Platt's own words to test my position.
"Intellect and art do not flourish in a totalitarian societies where what
you say, write or paint can get you a one way trip to rat infested cell"
Exactly. So let me be logic and state that:
a- Pirsig says that totalitarian societies like Nazism and Fascism are the
hardest expression of the defense of social patterns.
b- Pirsig's MOQ is about sketching the MOQ as a broader metaphysics
(intellectual pattern of value) which is able to unify rationality and art
(read SODAV on that)
c- You yourself, Platt, are putting art and intellect on the same side
against totalitarian societies.
....ERGO.....
d- The day you will live under the rule of a totalitarian regime, your right
to paint what you want to paint, as well as to say what you want to say and
think what you what to think, without getting a trip to an infested cell or
being burned on an electric chair, will be defended in the name of Human
Rights, despite the fact that YOU (not Pirsig) dismiss them as a
"sentimental soup of sentiments". Hope for you that day will never come. In
that case, hope you will at least thank those intellectuals who eventually
will fight for your Human Rights.
Ciao,
Marco
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