[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Case said:
How does "marriage" differ from reproductive behavior? "Marriage" is only 
one cultural expression of reproductive behavior. The fact that humans can 
express reproductive behavior in a social context, in such a variety of 
forms, points to the plasticity of human thought. But the necessity to have 
it expressed and in fact the limitations on the range of expression are pure 
biology. The ritual elaboration and intellectual trapping we surround it 
with are all for show. Our practices and our reverence for them are sheer 
conceit.

dmb says:
All for show? Sheer conceit? This, I think, is exactly the kind of 
ingratitude Pirsig refers to here...

"Society exists primarily to free people from these biological chains. It 
has done that job so stunningly well intellectual forget the fact and turn 
upon society with a shameful ingratitude for what society has done.    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." (307-8)

And this ignorance grows out of a flawed metaphysical premise...

"A subject-object metaphysics lumps biological man and cultural man together 
as aspects of a single molecular unit." (310)

Case said:
The social structures you are talking about are pure intellect. All that 
regulation of biology stuff happens throughout the animal kingdom. Why do 
you think our way is superior? What does intellectualizing the process add 
to its success?

dmb says:
"The mythology by which they (the Puritans) explained this original sin 
seems no longer useful in a scientific world, but when we look at the things 
in their contemporary society they identified with this original sin we see 
something remarkable. Drinking, dancing, sex, playing the fiddle, NASCAR, 
gambling, idleness: these are BIOLOGICAL pleasures. Early Puritan moral were 
largely a suppression of biological quality. In the MOQ the old Puritan 
dogma is gone but its practical moral pronouncements are explaind in a way 
that makes sense.  ...What the MOQ concludes is that the old Puritan and 
Victorian social codes should not be followed blindly, but should not be 
attacked blindly either. They should be dusted off and reexamined, fairly 
and impartially, to see what they were trying to accomplish and what they 
actually DID accomplish toward building a stronger society." (308-9) Okay, I 
added the bit about NASCAR, but the emphasis is Pirsig's in the original.

The theological baggage and the divine sanction that goes with it is the 
show, the conceit you're complaining about, I think. Pirsig is saying that 
the role and the function of the social level moral codes  doesn't depend on 
mythology with which it arrived. We can preserve that role and function even 
while we eject the nonsense God-talk that supported it in pre-Modern times. 
In other words, an intellectually guided society should preserve these codes 
because they work and they make sense, not because God said so or whatever.

dmb said:
...We all know how animals talk on that level cause we are animals and we do 
it every day.

Case replied:
See that wasn't so hard now was it?

dmb says:
Hard? Not at all. If I've failed to mention this notion it is only because I 
think its obvious enough to go without saying. Have I given you some reason 
to think otherwise?

Case said to dmb:
...But where do you think language came from? It evolved. It provides 
selective advantage. If it didn't it wouldn't emerge...

dmb says:
Yes, of course. I'm a bit baffled as to why you think I need to be informed 
as to the theory of evolution. Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I 
think you can assume that I'm scientifically literate, that I understand 
what common sense is among educated Westerners. Plus the MOQ is all about 
evolution.

Case said:
...Chimpanzee social behavior is not just grunting and kicking ass. It is 
fairly sophisticated in its emotional content and range of expression from 
rage to ecstasy. ... Your view of prehistoric societies is very limited.

dmb says:
Yes, I know. Animals have rich emotional lives, chimps are truly amazing and 
primitive people are just as smart as we are. My view of primary cultures is 
largely informed by Joseph Campbell, especially his Masks of God series, 
which is reccommended in Lila as an excellect way to learn what social level 
values are all about. The first book in that series, Primitive Mythology, is 
the one most relevant to this issue, as one could guess from the title. 
There is a rather amazing story about chimps dancing in a circle together. 
Gave me chills to imagine creatures on the cusp of an evolutionary leap, 
like those apes in 2001 except the violence was replaced by something like 
joy. The view you are defending here, like I said, is sane and reasonable 
and is common sensical. But this is what the MOQ attacks. You're also 
defending the flaw in our rationality, the one that has unleashed so much 
strife over the last century. This the where the neo-Victorian reaction 
comes from, its what caused the hippies to fail and degenerate, its what 
angers the Islamic world, it behind the rise of fundamentalism and fascism 
and nihilism and relativism. It has created a huge mess!

Its like you're trying to bring me up to speed with respect to the standard 
scientific world view and I'm telling you that this is no mystery to me. I'm 
telling you that this view is the problem. I mean, my failure to embrace 
your biological assertions is not due to the fact that I'm defending 
creationism or attacking the scientific method. This is the MOQ's attack on 
SOM, most especially with respect the role of social level values in 
suppressing biological quality.

And that's why my interest in Kate Beckinsale and Rachel McAdams is strictly 
philosophical. I'm trying to work out a non-theoogical version of the 
trinity in which the three of us are one. Hubba, hubba.

_________________________________________________________________
WIN up to $10,000 in cash or prizes – enter the Microsoft Office Live 
Sweepstakes http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/aub0050001581mrt/direct/01/