From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 22:01:03 BST
Scott, Platt and all MOQists:
Scott answered Platt:
My "definition" comes from Owen Barfield's book *Saving the Experiences*,...
Barfield's book argues that this kind of thinking evolved out of an earlier
situation where the human being did not see himself as separated from the
perceived world -- indeed that what we call thoughts were then perceived as
coming from outside, and as connected to what we now call the object of
perception. ...
The reason for identifying this situation (the S/O divide) with the fourth
level (or Q-intellect) is that it is only when you have a subject (the
thinker feels that he is independent from the thought-about) is it possible
for there to be an independent level that can be in conflict with the social
level.
dmb says:
Right. "Did not see himself as separated from the percieved world." This
echoes what Powell says about the "name-form continuum", the "universe of
unity" inhabited by the ancient poets. Social level values are most
appropriate for this relatively undifferentiated mode of consciousness. It
also reminds me of something Sam quoted a while back. It seems that the
artists who painted those cave walls so long ago participated in this
unified mode of consciousness, and as such did not understand the images as
symbols of dipictions, but somehow inseparable from the real and actual.
(Perhaps this small point will dispell the notion that such painting
represent symbolic, and therefore intellectual, activity.) I'm not sure if
Barfield or Powell is talking about something that happened around 450 BC,
but I've encountered the same basic idea in lots of places. I think of the
social level mode of consciousness as essentially that of a conformist, not
so different than we see in people today. There was great intellegence and
passion and its not that people were somehow savage or ape-like, but things
like skepticism and doing your own thing just hadn't yet been invented.
Anyone who dared to try such a thing would soon be cut down, often quite
literally. But there is a simple little thing that happened around the time
Socrates lived; somebody dared to question the gods in public. That
oversimplifies it, but imagine all that it implies. A loosening of the grip
of the mythos. Analysis, criticism and improvement becomes possible where
there was once only the choice to assimilate or die. It like the individual
could stick his head up out of the social level waters and breathe through
lungs instead of gills for the first time. With this new ability to stand
back and look at one's thoughts and beliefs with some degree of skepticism
and distance comes the loss of the unified world of the ancient poets, but
something important is gained too; freedom.
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