From: Michael Hamilton (thethemichael@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 18 2005 - 11:04:53 GMT
Hello MD'ers,
I've left an appaling number of good responses hanging in the air for
the last couple of weeks, due to what I can only describe as a bad
case of "MD fatigue". In the light of Mark's recent challenge, this
seems like as good a time as any to re-enter the fray.
So... hi Matt!
> Mike said:
> The difference is that mainline interpretations claim that S/O is merely one
> 4th level pattern among many, which necessitates a somewhat contrived
> definition of the 4th level. SOL claims that subjectivity (Scott used the
> word "autonomy" recently, which may be a less ambiguous alternative) is the
> necessary condition for 4th level activity. Autonomy is required before
> Quality can rise to the 4th level.
>
> Matt:
> Well okay, but I'm still not sure how deviant that suggestion is (partly
> because of the rampant equivocation between different meanings of Subject
> and Object that Pirsig began and Bo continued and Scott has been trying to
> point out). It seems to me one of emphasis (one that possibly does have
> consequences that a mainline interp has neglected) because I'm not sure that
> the usual interpretation couldn't account for it or that people haven't.
>
> If we take Pirsig's deconstruction of SOM to be the refusal to make it
> fundamental, then we can see the S/O distinction to be another distinction
> that may or may not be useful at any given time, just as the Dynamic/static
> distinction may or may not be useful at any given time. While acknowledging
> that we shouldn't make any particular distinction fundamental (in the sense
> of reducing everything to it), you do want to point out that the S/O
> distinction makes the Dynamic/static possible, i.e. that the creation of
> autonomy makes intellectual distinctions possible. I think the second way
> of putting it is better because people could just as easily show the
> Dynamic/static distinction makes the S/O possible. The reason for that is
> because if you are clever enough, you can make any distinction look like it
> comes out of some other one--one more fundamental than the other.
Mike:
Okay, then let's agree that "the creation of autonomy makes
intellectual distinctions possible". But, aren't we using "autonomy"
to mean something very much like an S/O[2] distinction? You seem to
tacitly acknowledge this later on ["...one could both say that, in one
sense (the sense of autonomy), the creation of the differentiation
between subject
and object created the intellectual level _and_..."]
Matt:
> But switching to the notion of autonomy making the intellectual level
> possible focuses our attention differently. And putting it this way helps
> show that Pirsig has more than enough room in his set-up for it. You'll
> remember that Pirsig redescribes subjects and objects as referencing the
> intellectual and social level and biological and inorganic level
> respectively. By doing this Pirsig is telling an evolutionary story about
> what makes further things possible, much as you're doing. In this sense,
> Pirsig is saying that objects make subjects possible (which is highly
> misleading, but you see my point).
Mike:
So we agree that labelling levels 1 and 2 "objective" and 3 and 4
"subjective", is unacceptable? (except possibly as a disposable finger
to point at this evolutionary story)
Matt:
> The "subject" evolved out of "objects"
> and I think a good distinguishing characteristic for what demarcates a
> subject as opposed to an object may be autonomy.
Mike:
I'm fairly sure that you're using "subject" and "object" as an
analogy, to be taken with a large pinch of salt, but in any case I
want to re-phrase this more accurately, as "the individual intellect
evolved out of the group mind". This re-phrasing makes it patently
obvious that the distinguishing characteristic is autonomy.
Matt:
> In this case, one could
> say something like individual autonomy from social patterns made the
> intellectual level possible, made the creation of distinctions like S/O and
> D/s possible. So, on this reading, one could both say that, in one sense
> (the sense of autonomy), the creation of the differentiation between subject
> and object created the intellectual level _and_ that the subject/object
> distinction is one distinction among many that may or may not be useful at
> any given moment.
Mike:
Looks like we may have a compromise!
Matt:
> So maybe its good to reemphasize autonomy (something Sam Norton has been in
> the business of), but I'm not sure it is a dramatic deviation. A more
> dramatic deviation might be what Sam and I have been advocating, something
> like the dissolution of the difference between the social and intellectual
> level, followed by a replacement fourth level with something like what Sam
> might call "eudaimonia" (or human flourishing) or I might call "politics" or
> "democracy" or "the public/private distinction."
Mike:
Shockingly, I hadn't bothered to read Sam's essay on the "eudaimonic
MOQ" until you sent this. Reading it was another thing that had me
shut up for the last couple of weeks. I'm now fairly convinced that
autonomy is more fundamental to the 4th level than "intellect" per se,
but I also think that autonomy is more fundamental to the 4th level
than eudaimonia, as well, although perhaps this is what you mean by
"emphasizing the shift"?
Matt:
> Our suggestions have a lot
> to do with autonomy, but we're screwing with the framework more to emphasize
> the shift (well, that and we don't think you _can_ make a discrete
> distinction between what Pirsig calls the social and intellectual level).
Mike:
So you don't think we can have a discrete distinction between mythos
and logos? For the moment, I still have high hopes that such a
distinction can be linked to autonomy, or S/O[2].
Regards,
Mike
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