[MD] Food for Thought

[Platt Holden]

Hi All, 

To me the social-intellectual distinction is simple. Social morality is 
dominated by people conforming to conventional wisdom. (Ex: Rigel, the 
English department at Bozeman. organized religion, the Pentagon, 
scientific consensus). Intellectual morality is dominated by 
nonconformist individual free thinkers. (Ex: Pirsig, Dusenberry, 
Einstein, Jefferson) Ninety-nine percent of the populace are conformist 
second-handers inhabiting the social level who rely on authorities 
(priests, gurus, professors, politicians) to tell them what and how to 
think. The truly free, creative thinkers - the brujos of the world -- 
who inhabit the intellectual level and the higher artistic level are 
historically rare, are considered by social level people to be 
eccentric contrarians, but are responsible for every creative step that 
has lifted mankind from the cave to the outer reaches of the solar 
system. As Pirsig wrote, "A tribe (the social level collective) can 
change its values only person by person, and SOMEONE has to be first." 
(Lila, 9) (Parens and emphasis added) The "someone" of course is an 
individual person responding to DQ, the "force of evolutionary 
creation." 

Regards,
Platt