[MD] Social Imposition ?

[Heather Perella]

     Platt, I'm noticing one difficulty in our
discussion.

     [Platt]
> In the MOQ, the social level is about humans only.
> It includes the institution of
> marriage but is not defined by a married couple.

     
     The "...institution of marriage..." is cultural. 
"married couple" or just couple or mates would define
a society, now, all the rituals involved is social,
too.  Except in human society rituals involve cultural
aspects.  Thus, the bald eagles, I believe, mate for
life.  They may have rituals to attract the other
mate, but this is still social, not cultural.  If
Pirsig is defining social level as strictly cultural
level, then we still have the arguments about other
primates passing on information to others and their
young in the making of certain tools.  This
information is not instinctively known, other primates
of the same species for example have termite mounds in
their area, but don't use them, as others in another
area do use them and make tools to extract the
termites.  Washing food in Japan by a certain primate
has been documented from the very beginning, which it
only began to happen in a certain tourist area
recently.  It began with one trying it, then that one
taught the others how to do it, and now many others do
this activity and teach their young.  So, what I see
is kinds of cultures, and this culture is lead by SOM
for instance.  Pirsig's MoQ encourages an
intellectual, somebody with quality thought, to lead a
society, not a popular dude or dudet.

sorry for responding twice to the same post, but I
realized this difficulty after I sent the last one,
SA  

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