[MD] St. Bodvar's perplexion

[skutvik at online.no]

Andre and Group

Mon June 28

Bodvar to Horse, Andre and Arlo:
> > I asked Krimel to explain the connection here, but he suddenly and
> > quite unexpectedly fell silent so now I ask you gentlemen to explain
> > what anti-moqishness there is in my statement? Particularly because it
> > is expressed by Pirsig in LILA. No need to be shy guys.

Andre:
> I will not speak for the other gentlemen Bodvar but I was signature to the
> remark. You deserve an explanation so let me be the one for you to retort
> to and aim at, just so you think about what you aim at and where!
 
> You, making yourself the mouth piece of (your) intellect; when talking
> about cultures that have not yet 'reached' the intellectual level (as
> you put it) the tone you adopt is condescending, dismissive, prejudiced
> and biased in favour of those cultures 'that have' ( according to your
> reasoning). Have you ever considered that those 'socially dominated
> cultures' do have intellectuals that do NOT represent the Bin Ladens of
> this world and are struggling and suffering because of this ( witness
> the last elections in Teheran [for example] with mass public
> demonstrations against this regime that enforces social value
> domination at the cost of intellectual discourse. Many have been killed
> and gawd knows how many imprisoned.) 

So this is your complaint. It sounded like something else the other day 
when you, Horse and Arlo so gleefully praised Krimel's "gem", hardly 
any sympathy with the Muslims.

However, what started it all was Mary saying something about super-
intelligent computers soon starting to use US for their purpose, this 
made me say  that all levels use computer intelligence to forward their 
cause, Bin Laden to forward his social one. I wonder what's wrong with 
that? According to Pirsig.: 

     Biological quality is necessary to the survival of life. But when 
    it threatens to dominate and destroy society, biological quality 
    becomes evil itself, the 'Great Satan' of twentieth-century 
    Western culture. One reason why fundamentalist Moslem 
    cultures have become so fanatic in their hatred of the West is 
    that it has released the biological forces of evil that Islam has 
    fought for centuries to control.

This says  that as soon as a level is established it sees the one below 
as evil itself. Intellect is all obsessed with quelling social value and (in 
the Campus section) Pirsig speaks about intellect joined force with 
biology to quell social value. And the above means that he sees 
"fundamentalist Moslem cultures as a social-focussed and obsessed 
with quelling biological value. Logical Dr Broersen? 

About Iran, if you by "intellectual" mean "learned" they surely are well 
versed in the Koran and in mathematics and computer programming 
languages for that matter, but they fear intellectual value (democracy, 
free speech, independent judicial system ...etc.) like the plague. I dare 
the statement that a devout  Muslim CAN'T be of the intellectual level, 
that's fire and water. You  seem unable to snap out of the intellect= 
intelligence fallacy, i.e. that social level dwellers are dummies, but 
that's all wrong, intelligence is not the issue.

> Pol Pot wiped out millions of intellectuals...literally. Are you going to
> condemn Cambodia in its current struggle towards national recovery? ( I
> have been asked to help in this process by the way and am considering).

The Cambodians are Buddhists and that is a different story, can't go 
into all this now.     

> Bodvar, you generalize. The MOQ is a beginning view and a beginning
> understanding. Mr. Pirsig realizes this and, on many points, is very
> subtle. Secondly, you seem to condemn (by analogy) every culture not
> dominated by intellectual patterns of value. Within this context I want
> to suggest that you have lost sight of Quality. 

Spare me, it's you who don't understand the level context. For instance 
the LILA quote above begins this way

    Today we are living in an intellectual and technological 
    paradise and a moral and social nightmare because the 
    intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to become free of 
    the social level, has ignored the social level's role in keeping 
    the biological level under control. Intellectuals have failed to 
    understand the ocean of biological quality that is constantly  
    being suppressed by social order. Biological quality is 
    necessary to the survival of life. 

It's no condemnation rather the opposite, the social-bio struggle is  
necessary for intellect's own existence and intellect must not 
overwhelm social value lest it saws over the branch it sits on. 

> There are many ways of 'reaching', experiencing Quality. You appear to
> suggest there is only one way: through the realization of your SOL.

True, all levels are Quality levels and "ways of reaching/experiencing 
Quality" and the SOL says nothing contrary to that. But your "camp" on 
the other hand says that the levels aren't Q-levels, but something 
secondhand taking place "in an intellect" which  isn't a Q-level, but 
some somish mind-like, idea-container parody. Check with your Horse.     

Bodvar