From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Apr 17 2004 - 09:49:25 BST
Hi Platt,
Delighted that you find some merit in my essay! I'm not sure that 'individual' will, in the long
run, prove to be adequate as a name for the fourth level, but let's see what people think. It's
certainly less cumbersome than 'eudaimonic'.
I'll come back to the point about emotions later (and some other elements) but I just wanted to pick
up on this:
> If Sam says Christianity is separate from the MOQ I think he's wrong.
> Religions are social patterns. But, even if Sam is wrong about that it
> doesn't mean he's wrong about everything in his interpretation of the MOQ.
What I meant by saying that 'Christianity is separate from the MoQ' has two parts, the first a point
about the status of mythology, the second a practical point about the status of a metaphysics.
I see mythologies as social level patterns; that is, they are what all the higher level patterns
(whether called intellect or something else) depend upon. This I see as a 'truth' of the MoQ. I
don't see the MoQ arguing for one particular set of mythologies against another - but perhaps I'm
wrong about that. In other words, I don't see the MoQ as saying that Buddhism is better than
Christianity or Islam *as such*. I think that it gives a vocabulary with which to critique
mythologies, which I would resolve down to saying something like 'does this mythology enable the
fourth level to flourish or not' (so: which side of the 'war' is it?). Roughly speaking I see the
MoQ as the equivalent of an Aristotelean metaphysics, in that it is something that can be integrated
with different religions or with none, in just the same way that Aristotle was taken up and accepted
within both Christianity and Islam. But I don't see any of the 'higher' religions as being *of
necessity* restrictive of the fourth level. But a case could be made.
The second point is about what a metaphysics is, vis a vis what a religion is. You said that
'religions are social patterns'. I disagree. Religions I see in the same way as Pirsig sees culture
more generally, that is, as being a mix of third and fourth level patterns. More broadly, I see a
religion as a way of life, which encompasses all of life, ie which includes the intellect but is
more comprehensive. Thus, to say that Christianity is separate from the MoQ is only to say that a
metaphysics only applies to one area of life (ie our understanding). To broaden the impact of the
MoQ into wider areas (eg how to relate to each other) is, I feel, to turn it into a religion -
something which a number of contributors here do seem to do, but one which I think is impossible.
This underlies my problem with calling the fourth level 'intellect', for it seems to presuppose a
Platonic doctrine of spiritual ascent, which fosters that religious/metaphysical confusion. But I've
said enough about that for now.
Cheers
Sam
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