From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Aug 16 2003 - 22:33:45 BST
Scott and all:
Scott said:
I've been toying with a three-level system, where the social and
intellectual are collapsed into one level, called the semiotic level. The
general idea is that all social patterns are semiotic (it is the badge that
signals that this biological organism is a cop and can arrest you according
to some other signs called laws, etc.), and of course, all normal
intellectual activity consists of playing language games, each of which has
to be -- per Wittgenstein -- a social game. So that leaves two things to
deal with: the fact that higher animals engage in semiotic activity as well,
and of course, what happens to social/intellectual conflicts.
dmb says:
The social and intellectual collapsed into one level? Why? SOM already does
that and, according to Pirsig, that confusion is one of its biggest flaws.
To try to put this flaw back in the name of semiotics seems to contradict
some of Pirsig's most important assertions. From chapter 21...
"Phaedrus thought the metaphysics of substance fails to illuminate the gulf
between ourselves and the Victorians because it regards both society AND
intellect as possessions of biology. ... In a substance metaphysiccs,
consequently, the distinction between society and intellect is sort of like
a distinction between what's in the right pocket and what's in the left
pocket of biological man. In a value metaphysics, on the other hand, society
and intellect are patterns of value. They're real they're independent. ... A
value metaphysics makes it possible to see that there's a conflict between
intellect and society that's just as fierce as the conflict between society
and biology or the conflict between biology and death. Biology beat death
billions of years ago. Society beat biology thousands of years ago. But
intellect and society are still fighting it out, and that is the key to an
understanding of both the Victorians and the twentieth century. What
distinguishes the pattern of values called Victorian from the postWWI period
that followed it is, according to the MOQ, a cataclysmic shift in levels of
static values; an earthquake of such enormous consequence that we are still
stunned by it, so stunned that we haven't yet figured out what has happened
to us. The advent of both democratic and communistic socialism and the
fascist reaction to them has been the consequence of the earthquake. The
whole 'Lost Generation' of the 20th century which continues, as lost as
ever, through generation after generation, is a consequnce of it. The 20th
century collapse of morals is a result of it. Further consequances are on
their way."
From chapter 24:
"By the end of the 60's the intellectualism of the 20's found itself in an
impossible trap. If it continued to advocate more freedom from Victorian
social restraint, all it would get is more hippies, who were really just
carrying its anti-Victorianism to an extreme. If, on the other hand, it
advacated constructive social conformity in oppositon to the hippies, all it
would get was more Victorians, in the form of the reactionary right."
dmb says:
Its important to maintain the distinction between social and intellectual
values to keep the MOQ's structure and coherence in tact. The MOQ hardly
makes sense without it. And perhaps it is just as important to keep it so
that we can use this system as an explanatory tool. The MOQ describes a
conflict of values that explains our history and the current political
battles. Maybe its because I'm a news junkie and earned my degree in
history, but I think Pirsig's descriptions of this conflict explain current
events like nothing else can. This is why I find the suggestions of adding
or fusing levels to be so very objectionable.
Thanks,
dmb
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