From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Fri Apr 16 2004 - 02:05:21 BST
Hi Platt, Sam,
I think that the misunderstanding that suggests eudamonia level for Sam
and individual level for Platt is conceiving of the levels as types of people
rather than types of patterns of value. The levels do help us understand
people, but the fact that they do not adequately describe the sort of person
who makes conscious value choices among static patterns of all four types for
his purposes, i.e. an MOQ-informed autonomous individual, is not a limitatiom
of the MOQ levels but rather a limitation of trying to use the levels as
categories for people. (I agree that an autonomous individual does not
necessarily fit the label of intellectual, just as many intellectuals are
stuck in SOM and have no understanding of the evolutionary position of
intellect relative to social and biological patterns.)
Eudamonia and individual describe people, whereas Pirsig's intellectual
level is a collection of patterns of value of a particluar type. When you
think of the levels as types of patterns where intellectual patterns are
simply patterns of thinking, then there is no need to do any renaming. There
is no better word than intellectual to describe the sort of pattern that
Pirsig refers to by the fourth level. I hope that the problems that each of
you found with the term intellectual will lead you to reconsider how you have
been thinking about what Pirsig means by level. As Ayn Rand would tell you,
when you encounter a contradiction, check your assumptions. There are no
contradictions.
Regards,
Steve Peterson
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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