From: Horse (horse@darkstar.uk.net)
Date: Tue Jun 29 2004 - 01:24:04 BST
Hi Dan
Good to hear from you and thanks for taking the time to reply.
On 28 Jun 2004 at 12:34, Dan Glover wrote:
> Hello everyone
>
> >From: "Horse" <horse@darkstar.uk.net>
> >Hi Dan
> >
> >On 27 Jun 2004 at 2:09, Dan Glover wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Horse
> > >
> > > According to dictionary.com "race" comes from Old Italian "razza" which
> > > means "lineage." Where did we come from? Certainly there's nothing
> > > offensive in asking that. It's simply biology and something no one can change.
> > > Race becomes offensive when we do as you say and begin catagorizing according
> > > to skin color, I agree. That we can change.
> > As I said in another post at the biological level there are only biological
> > patterns of value and there is not a race, gene or chromosone in sight.
> > Race appears to be a social level phenomenom - but, as Rog used to say, I
> > could be wrong.
> > My question would be how does race manifest itself at the biological level
> > in the absence of either a social or intellectual level.
> >
>
> Hi Horse
>
> In reading RMP's Subjects, Objects, Data and Values paper I see where he
> says that the senses are the starting point of reality, not the social or
> intellectual levels. Also, in LILA'S CHILD, Mr. Pirsig defines life as
> "matter that is being configured by DNA." (Thank you to Struan Hellier for
> suggesting this change, which Mr. Pirsig agrees with.) So I assume DNA is a
> biological pattern of value. I'm not sure why genes and chromosones aren't
> also biological patterns. Could you expand on this a little futher please.
Isn't DNA (along with genes and chromosones) an intellectual pattern of value. At the
biological level these things do not exist. DNA is a name for a biological pattern of value
just as Carbon is a name for an inorganic pattern of value.
I suppose terms like Carbon or DNA or Race are part intellectual patterns and part
social patterns of value - we could probably call them cultural patterns maybe (just a
thought).
I think of the idea of race in the same way that Pirsig illustrates the idea of Victorians in
chapter 21 of Lila:
"If he were going to be precise in talking about the Victorians he would have to be
careful not to imply he was talking about a specific group of people. "Victorian", as he
used the term, is a pattern of social values that was dominant in a social period between
the American Civil war and World War 1, not a biological pattern."
As I said above I think these and similar terms are part intellectual and part social. As
Pisig says in Lila Chapter 12:
"As the atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended in language". Our
intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived"
and Pirsig also asserts that culture is a combination of social and intellectual patterns of
value.
Does this answer your question? If not I'll try and expand a bit more although I'm still
groping around a bit with some aspects of these ideas.
See ya
Horse
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