From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Sun Nov 27 2005 - 17:44:59 GMT
Hi Matt
Go along with that up to a point, the philosophy of the Enlightenment
is no doubt highly political, but that just goes to show how political
a thing knowledge and our understanding of it is, equally you cannot
leave art out of these changes, the birth of the artist hero, and then
the scientist hero. Along with this went a certain repression of religion
that is useful for ceretain interests and remains alsoa possible means
to challenge those interests. Same thing goes for the social uses of
reason and instrumentatlism and the post-modern challenge to these
'authorities'. I think our values need expression publicly and that
the failure to tackle cruelty condemns present arrangements. We have
also underestimated obstacles to freedom created by mass society and
new forms of conformity. A new impetus towards enlightenment seems
necessary.
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: MD Re: Quality, subjectivity and the 4th level
> David,
>
> David said:
> Surprised at your idea of referring to the 4th level as related to
> democracy. Is this an exclusive claim? Certainly would expect democracy
> as an idea that follows on from individualism/autonomy and so emerging
> only once 4th level takes off.
>
> Matt:
> Exclusive? I don't know what you mean. I haven't figured out the best
> catchword for what I'm pointing at, but just in the last week I've thrown
> out democracy, politics, privacy, and the public/private split. I think I
> used self-creation once, and that's why I lean towards Sam's "eudaimonia,"
> or human flourishing. "Individualism" is okay, but I think it leaves
> something out, namely the idea that some people don't want to be out just
> for themselves, but want to be with other people. "Autonomy" I probably
> dislike because it carries too much Kantian baggage.
>
> The general idea I'd like to point at is that a major shift in cultural
> evolution occured in Greece, and then became completed in 18th century
> Europe. This shift didn't have anything much to do with philosophy, it
> had to do with politics. The way I see it, self-creation is something
> that is really only possible for those who are relatively leisured. Way
> before Greece the only people who were able to conduct activities of
> self-creation were kings and other despotic, divinized rulers. But the
> increase in leisure in Greece, made possible by the rise in commercial
> trade, led to more people being able to sit around and do something with
> their aloneness ("what one does with their aloneness" being Whitehead's
> definition of religion). This in turn, roughly, led to more people
> wanting control of the government.
>
> While the idea of democracy was created in Greece, it certainly didn't
> look like our democracy. But the seeds were sown there for a new form of
> life. If there is any truth in the once common epithet "the Dark Ages,"
> its not that we lost philosophy and science for a thousand years (which is
> more or less a lie), but that we lost democracy. When the Enlightenment
> resurrected that idea and extended it even further, I think the promise of
> Greece was fulfilled. So far as I can see the typical Enlightenment
> utopia of maximum freedom and minimum cruelty is still the promise of
> modern society. When the idea of letting people pursue whatever projects
> they wanted in the privacy of their own home, as long as those projects
> didn't infringe on other people, came to fruition I think a major
> achievement had been created.
>
> Matt
>
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