From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Wed Nov 13 2002 - 11:27:03 GMT
Hello Marco,
Thank you for some stimulating feedback. I think we do have some
perspectives in common!
I'd like to 1) give a few comments on your post, 2) describe my present
understanding of 'individual', and 3) make some concluding remarks about my
'campaign'.
1.1 Pirsig is explicit in rejecting anything non-human as an example of
'social level' activity. In Lila's Child :"In the MOQ all organisms are
objective. They exist in the material world. All societies are subjective.
They exist in the mental world. Again, the distinction is very sharp. For
example, the "President of the U.S." is a social pattern. No objective
scientific instrument can distinguish a President of the U.S. from anyone
else.... This is a stretch that seems to destroy the meaning of the word
"society." One could say "an atom is a society of electrons and protons,"
but that weakens the meaning of the word without gaining anything....Using
the MOQ description of biology as objective and society as subjective, it is
clear that sheep are biological. A herd of sheep is also biological.... One
can also call ants and bees "social" insects, but for purposes of precision
in the MOQ, social patterns should be defined as human and subjective.
Unlike cells and bees and ants, they cannot be detected with an objective
scientific instrument. For example, there is no objective scientific
instrument that can distinguish between a king and commoner, because the
difference is social." Whether this is the best way to think through the MoQ
is an interesting question (can the 'social' elements in a beehive be
detected by a 'scientific' instrument? In a way that human social behaviour
cannot?).
1.2 Society and the fourth level both fall under the 'subjective' heading of
SOM thinking, and Pirsig defines 'culture' as a combination of third and
fourth level values.
1.3 I strongly agree with you that development of individuality depends upon
a supportive social environment, and that such a society is positive sum.
1.4 Your comment about your motorcycle was richly suggestive. Do you feel
that if all of these 'external' attachments were removed (all your
possessions were stolen), and then all your 'internal' attachments were also
removed (eg sense of self-esteem/dignity) there would be anything left?
1.5 I also agree that the individual is a 'threshold' (the "machine-language
interface") between the third and fourth levels.
1.6 Re the physicists, in traditional Christian teaching, love is the
highest form of knowledge. If you do not love, you cannot (fully) know.
1.7 If you put ethics in with art and science then you get the Platonic
triad of 'the good, the true and the beautiful'.
1.8 You say: "The great artist, while following his own passions, is able to
communicate "something" to the others. And actually he becomes "great" only
when the others get "something"." That, in a different idiom, is a beautiful
expression of what I am trying to articulate in my talk about 'tradition' -
the tradition is the repository of the great communications of the past, and
is (to a large but not exclusive degree) determinative of what counts as a
'great communication' now.
1.9 My proposed new term for the fourth level was 'eudaimonic', but I agree
that it is more important to first agree on what the fourth level consists
in, and then to consider what the appropriate name for it would be.
2.
As I say, I think we have a significant degree of agreement on the nature of
'individual'. I didn't articulate that fully above, because what I want to
do here is outline something which incorporates those agreements. It should
be clear where our views overlap, and, indeed (just as interesting), where
they differ.
'Individual', in the sense of 'that which functions on the fourth level' is
a particular term of art. It does not mean simply 'solitary unit', which is
the 'scalable' concept, and which can, therefore, describe something at each
level. To distinguish it, let us capitalise the term, so 'individual' just
means the (scalably applicable) 'solitary unit' which functions at each
level (and is normally used as an adjective); 'Individual' means the
threshold entity between the third and fourth levels. I have elsewhere
called this the 'choosing unit', but Wim in particular dislikes that
language. This Individual is produced by social level patterns, but cannot
be reduced to them. In that, it is equivalent to similar entities that
function between other levels.
Pirsig writes (again in Lila's Child): "The word "I" like the word "self" is
one of the trickiest words in any metaphysics. Sometimes it is an object, a
human body; sometimes it is a subject, a human mind. I believe there are
number of philosophic systems, notably Ayn Rand's "Objectivism," that call
the "I" or "individual" the central reality. Buddhists say it is an
illusion. So do scientists. The MOQ says it is a collection of static
patterns capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality. I think that if you
identify the "I" with the intellect and nothing else you are taking an
unusual position that may need some defending." [BTW Traditional
Christianity says that the self cannot be possessed and is ultimately
unknowable. Similar, but different.]
The static patterns can be described, and science is starting to show how.
This is what I take from Damasio's work (see my post of 7/6/01, 'Emotions
revisited'); from that post, Damasio "sees the constantly refreshed picture
of the internal body state as the original source for a sense of self: 'our
experiences have a consistent perspective' rooted in 'a relatively stable,
endlessly repeated biological state'. Damasio writes, 'I see self and the
subjectivity it begets as necessary for consciousness in general'. This is
confirmed by his studies of anasognosiacs, who, uniquely amongst mental
patients, are unable to reflect upon their illness - indeed, unless told,
many patients are unaware that there is something wrong at all. No
anasognosiac is capable of saying 'Something has happened to me' - their
capacity for self representation has been removed."
The sense of self originates in a biologically generated mental construct,
doubtless one that is shaped by the boundary of the skin (SOM thinking
anyone?), and it is also - to my mind - undoubtedly something that is shared
by other animals.
At the social level, what changes for humans is the development of language.
Language allows a new form of self-representation to develop, so that there
is generated a 'social self'. This I believe to be the individual at the
social level. It is what is commonly described as the 'ego'. What
distinguishes this social self from the biological origins is the
sensitivity to social values; so, for example, the social self pays close
regard to questions of social hierarchy, pride, authority, law. The social
self is satisfied with social excellences - fame, wealth and power. The
organising principle of the social level, ie of the aggregation of 'social
selves' is, as Pirsig describes in Lila, the celebrity principle.
Celebrities are those who both exemplify and reinforce social values. [That
the modern West takes such delight in 'destroying' celebrities is perhaps
indicative of the profound disordering of our social level values.]
I think the social level is the realm of mythology; that is, the
'self-understanding' of the social self is constructed through narrative,
and those guiding narratives are embedded in an ultimately mythological
framework. The 'hero's journey' may be the means by which more complex
societies achieve fully functioning social units, ie integrated social
selves. It could also be the origin of the 'threshold' Individual, who
became able to transcend that social level. [An interesting question: is
Jung's 'individuation' purely a description of what happens on the third
level, or does the fourth level description of mythology, ie in Jungian
analysis, allow a parallel individuation for the fourth level?]
My own view is that Wittgenstein's understanding of language is an attempt
to refocus our understandings away from the fourth level use of language
back onto its third level nature. What Wittgenstein calls 'forms of life' or
'language games' are _precisely_ social level activities.
It is - by definition - impossible for the 'social self' to question the
social values which form it, which construct it. There is no ground for
questioning social values from within. The fourth level is built upon the
dynamic breakthrough (which has doubtless happened countless times) of a
social self starting to question its own nature and its own values.
Wim thinks historical investigations don't establish anything, and he may be
right. I think they're fun though. Homer describes the Trojan war, and he is
clearly using ancient 'sources' in his language. One intriguing fact: all
the descriptions of battles in Homer assume a 'Greek' perspective, ie they
all place the Greek armies on the left of the battlefield. Yet Homer gives -
clearly - an informed understanding of Hector and the Trojans. Homer can see
both sides of the conflict; that's what makes him a genius. He also
questions the social values - he is operating at the fourth level.
Whereas language is what enables (and bounds?) the third level; something
different enables the fourth level.
For a social self to begin to question the society which has formed that
self, a number of things are required. As you say, the division of labour -
and therefore leisure time - is required. Some store of knowledge is
required (ritual as the 'public library', significant developments forward
with poetry and oral history, then with drama and the public stage (derived
from or a form of worship?), then with writing, now the internet?). Also
required, I think, is the existence of some sort of conflict or tension, as
described by the clash between different cultures. This must not simply be
about 'biological' values, eg conflict over territory or resources, but at
the level of guiding mythologies, the 'gods'.
To return to historical examples, the society of fifth century Athens meets
these criteria. So too does the community of Israel when held captive in
Babylon. In each case, a creative move forward was achieved, and, most
importantly, the existence of writing meant that some degree of static
latching could occur. The slow accumulation of these static latches form, I
believe, the rich soil or humus within which the Individual can flower.
In my view, the culture of Athens was particularly conducive to the
fostering of 'Individuals', and the great breakthrough was made (or, rather,
codified) by Aristotle with the language of 'excellences' (arete or virtue).
For what Aristotle describes is a scale of values which is independent of
the social level, but which are constitutive of the Individual. The great
political questions of the fourth level are now generated, which have the
form 'around which ultimate principle or absolute should we organise our
virtues'. What is the guiding value? What is Quality?
The Individual sense of self is not bounded by social values, but by fourth
level values, which I call 'eudaimonic'. They concentrate on the flourishing
of the single person, they do not concentrate on the flourishing of the
society of which that individual is a part. (Of course, if that flourishing
is at the expense of the social level which supports it, it is
self-destructive.)
A society which supports 'human rights' is a society that has been modified
by the fourth level in order to allow the fourth level to flourish.
The fourth level scale of values is diverse and creative. It is not
restricted to rational or intellectual development; it includes all that
falls under 'the good, the true and the beautiful', but also things which
may, at first sight, not seem naturally covered by these things. It would
include an athlete beating their personal best time; it would include the
'relational' values of friendship, marriage and parenthood. And so on.
This Individual can still be perceived as a static pattern of values: a
unity formed of biological, social and intellectual 'selves', with
associated excellences at each level - physically healthy, socially
responsible, someone who displays the unique flourishing of their own nature
in whatever realm is appropriate, of the arts, the sciences, the humanities
or something different again. There is much here which might satisfy the
'Ubermensch' of Nietzche - but I haven't got stuck into him yet.
It might seem as if this is the 'pinnacle', but I would say it is not. For
at each stage of the process of development (and it is a development which
is reproduced in every individual's own life-story) there is a 'lure' of
quality, which draws the individual forward. Or as Augustine famously put
it, 'Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O God.'
I see the mystical journey as a growth through these levels; I think, for
example, that St John of the Cross' descriptions of the 'Dark Night' map
quite nicely (although NOT exactly) onto this. For the 'Active purification
of the senses' is the establishment (first) of mastery by the social self
above the biological self, and then of the Individual self above the social
self (so the intellect is dominant); the 'Active purification of the Spirit'
is then the dismantling of the Individual self, where the intellect realises
its own redundancy and limited nature (ie that it cannot grasp God; note
that 'intellect' is here understood in the richer sense). This is the
'apophatic' moment. If this is completed, then there follows a 'Passive
night' in which the individual must simply wait for the action of grace on
the soul, at which point the individual becomes a sharer in the action of
the Trinity and an agent of God in the world (ie a perfect vehicle for the
transmission and generation of Quality).
3.
My 'campaign' is perhaps misconceived. As you point out (and others have) it
is more important to agree on what the fourth level consists in, than to
first give it a name. However, I do think it needs renaming - but that
argument can wait.
Yet I find it interesting that almost nobody has defended the understanding
of intellect which Pirsig has explicitly committed himself to (ie the
'narrow' sense). Even David, who I think disagrees with me most violently,
restricts himself to a criticism of my proposals and not to a defence of
Pirsig's interpretation. I think the violence of David's reaction arises
from his misperception of me as a reactionary fundamentalist, but no doubt
all will become clear in time :-)
And yet Pirsig's understanding is inadequate, in my view, because it is a)
morally repugnant (what is the worst thing that we can describe about 9/11?)
and b) philosophically incoherent (what is the 'choosing unit' or 'machine
language interface' for the Intellect?). I note with great interest that no
one has even tried to defend Pirsig on the second element.
I don't think this invalidates the MoQ as a whole, it just means that we
need to move on from the presentation of the MoQ outlined in Lila, and
indeed in Lila's Child. Which, in fact, I think would delight Pirsig more
than anything else we could possibly do. His 'child' might then start to
grow up, and walk on its own two feet.
Sam
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