[MD] MD 4th level - The more autonomous level

[Platt Holden]

Dear Arlo,

> I'm not sure why you continue to claim I favor (what the reviewer of this
> article calls) the "Great Mass" theory, in dichotomous opposition to your
> support of the "Great Man" theory. Throughout our discussion I've tried to
> show you how I value BOTH the individual and the collective, recognizing as
> Pirsig did that intellectual patterns emerge through social mediation, and
> that only individual beings can respond to DQ. You see these claims as
> contradictory, dialogically at war in some great Man-Collective struggle. I
> see them as complimentary, recognizing the mutual dependency for the
> emergence of all MOQ levels on the collectivization of individuals and the
> agency of individuals to act.

I do indeed see a great struggle between the individual and the 
collective. Whether it be collectives of communism or fascism, I've 
witnessed the horrors engineered by both in the 20th century. So when 
someone praises collectives for their good works and claims that this or 
that program must be enacted "for the public good," I instinctively 
revolt. I've seen too much killing for the collective's sake. For me the 
struggle between the individual vs. the collective is the struggle of you 
and me against Pirsig's killer Giant.    

> While you may have hoped to press me into support of the so-called "Great
> Mass" theory, I think the reviewer's summation best articulates my point,
> as well as proposes why your "Great Man" theory may be fundamentally
> incomplete.

That's why I referred the article to you. I knew you would be pleased by 
its conclusion.

> This balanced view suggests that Newton, for example, if born 100 years
> earlier would not have been able to develop "the theory of gravity". The
> ability to do so was (is) rooted in the potential, at any given
> socio-historical marker, in the cultural dialogue, in the cultural
> institutions, in short, in the mediating affordances of the culture. It is
> this that creates the potential, for individuals who appropriate the voice
> of the collective, to act. It constrains and affords individuals, but what
> Marx (and Bourdieu and Giddens, among others) have shown is that these
> contraints and affordances are not "general" among the population, but
> specificically related to socio-hierarchies within the culture. This is not
> to say there is no overlap in agency between say a carpenter and the
> hieress to fortune, but as social hierarchical standing spreads, agency
> between individuals becomes more and more dissimilar.
> 
> Thus the numbers of laborers who create new sciences (like microbiology)
> are the exceptions that prove the rule, because the affordances of their
> unique individual lives do not include great potential for this. This
> stands in contrast to the idea that "man is a free agent". He is, but not
> entirely. Man is only so free as to act within the constraints and
> affordances of his birth, which include global cultural structures (the
> Mythos), localized social structures (the economic value of his birthright)
> and uniquie biological structures (his physical attributes).

No one can deny that people are born with unequal attributes into unequal 
circumstances -- or as liberal's like to say, "Many are losers in life's 
lottery." All the more reason to support a social system that offers 
everyone the maximum freedom to fulfill his or her potential. I submit 
that the social system that best provides that freedom is one that 
recognizes the individual as a means to his own ends rather than as a 
means to ends of others. I know collectivists think individuals should  
live for the sake of others. But we have seen the horrors that leads to.

That's why I support the "Great Man" theory of history. It says to every 
child, "You too can be great." Isn't that the message you want to impart 
to the next generation?

Platt