[MD] Social Imposition ?

[david buchanan]

Ian said and/or quoted someone who said:
"The quality of an intellectual pattern is inversley proportional to the 
level of effort (needed to be) imposed by society to maintain that pattern, 
(but is proportional to how widespread it is believed by free thinkers)." 
...Discuss.

dmb says:
The amount of enforcement used to maintain a set of beliefs isn't a good way 
to judge the quality of belief. In some cases, it might even be totally 
irrelevant. It will tell you lots about the values of the enforcer, but not 
the quality of his values. I already addressed this in the "Food for 
Thought" thread, where I pointed out that biological values need to be 
addressed by way of physical "communication", but that this method is 
immoral when directed at the content of belief, as was the case in the 
Inquistion of the McCarthy period. On the level of intellect, logic and 
empiricial evidence and such are the "forces" to be reckoned with. The 
stability of intellectual structures is held together by an entirely 
different set of values just like a glass of water is held together by a 
different level of values than the level that holds a nation together. You 
see?

It seems that your question is misleading in the extreme, Ian. The notion 
that society uses its kind of authority to maintain beliefs pretty well 
describes the source of our historical nightmares. Everything from the 
Inquistion to the witch burning to the rise of fascism and fundamentalism in 
our own time is a result of the confusion between social authority and 
intellectual legitimacy. I mean, you seem to be using one of the major 
problematic misconceptions as a basis to judge the distinction that is 
supposed to address that same misconception. Again, have the key in your 
hand but you're putting it in upside down or something. I think 
intellectually guided societies will be less authoritarian and a happier 
place for free thinkers, but the merit of an idea will be determined by its 
ability to comply with intellectual values like rationality and agreement 
with experience and NOT by how well it comforms to social traditions or 
customs. Intellect doesn't play by those rules except when she's in the 
hands of an immoral sell-out type or otherwise distorted. See, its not that 
the intellectual level is amoral per se, its just that SOM has generated 
some confusion about that. As Pirsig says, the intellectual level has its 
own set of morals to be concerned with, its just that unconcerned with those 
social level moral codes, the ones that are aimed at meeting the demands of 
biology.

But, if I may take your point to simply mean that good ideas don't need to 
be crammed down people's throats, we agree. Who wouldn't agree with that?

Please, gents, consider this principle of oppostion. The details of this 
basic idea could be discussed forever, but at this point I'll just ask you 
to consider the basic idea itself. I'm only saying that the relationship 
between the 3rd and 4th levels is analogous to the relationship between the 
2nd and 3rd. (As well as the relationship between the 1st and 2nd.) In each 
case, the newer level is discrete in terms of its independence of purpose 
and rests upon its parent in a taming, controlling, mollifying way in order 
to achieve that new purpose. I think this principle is the best way to get 
at the distinction between social and intellectual values.

I think it might help to avoid the complications that come from introducing 
other sorts of distinctions. Science and religion, collective and 
individual, belief and object of belief all strike me as pretty good ways to 
confuse the issue rather than clear it up. Some people think creationism is 
bad science while others think its not science at all and religion isn't 
necessarily stupid or anti-intellectual. I would defy anyone here to 
conceive of any thing in the universe that is not BOTH an individual and 
also part of larger, collective entity. In fact, I hereby nominate that for 
the "most useless distinction of the year" award. Long story short, I think 
its good to examine the idea or belief in question. What does mean? What is 
its function? What sort of things hold it together and what sort of things 
does it hold together? What its the point and purpose? Answers to these 
sorts of questions will tell you what level of values you're dealing with. 
And of course with something as complex as a person or a culture, or even 
the concepts of God, we'd have to break it down a bit to something more 
specific. With things like people and nations, we can only talk about 
averages and centers of gravity and make some generalizations. But that's 
worth doing too, i think.

dmb

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