[MD] Social Imposition ?

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Heather Perella <spiritualadirondack at yahoo.com>:

>      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.

My point all along has been that one monkey, an individual, started washing
her food. Others imitated. In any new endeavor, someone has to be first. As for
societies and cultures, I follow Pirsig's defintion. Frankly I'm not that
interested in the mating habits of bald eagles or monkey shines for that matter.

  


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