[MD] Social Imposition ?

[david buchanan]

Arlo and all MOQin' social impositers:

Arlo said:
...We have our "immediate esthetic experiences", or our "pre-intellectual 
experience", or "Zen moments", or what will you, but as soon as we get into 
logos or mythos we are (and I know you HATE this word) mediated by language. 
As I just quoted to Ian, "Our intellectual description of nature is always 
culturally derived" (LILA). This quote continues, "Nature tells us only what 
our culture predisposes us to hear. The selection of which inorganic 
patterns to observe and which to ignore is made on the basis of social 
patterns of value, or when it is not, on the basis of biological patterns of 
value." (LILA)

dmb says:
Right. This concise presentation, I think, shows where Pirsig differs from 
the notion of scientific objectivity and from the postmodern notion that its 
language all the way down. It seems that there are no serious objections to 
the first critique, but it seems that some confusion on the matter persists 
because the second critique is not seen. See, if its language all the way 
down, then there is no difference between social and intellectual static 
quality. As Ian recently observed, for example, there is no difference 
between them because they're both cultural. (This is the assertion that 
prompted Arlo to quote from LILA as a response.) But I think Pirsig takes 
the postmodern insight about how language determines the shape of our 
reality without taking it to extremes. I like to pick on Rorty because he so 
clearly represents this extreme. I think that his sort of perspective is 
intellectually paralyzing insofar as nothing like a social/intellectual 
distinction can be maintained. This perspective, it seems to me, has 
infected our debate and has caused lots of confusion. I think this is the 
perspective that won't allow any such distinctions. The more extreme 
versions of postmodernism could, I suppose, fit with Pirsig's thinking if he 
hadn't written Lila. But there, despite his insistance that "our 
intellectual descriptions of nature is always culturally derived", he also 
insists there is a line to be drawn between there.

Arlo explained Giddens and said:
Interestingly, the distiction between discursive and practical knowledge is 
given by Jones and Karsten as "practical consciousness embodied in what 
actors know "about how to 'go on' in the multiplicity of contexts of social 
life" (Giddens, 1983) and at the discursive level, at which they are able to 
provide explanations for them". Now tell me that does not map pretty neatly 
as "social level-practical knowledge, intellectual level-discursive 
knowledge".

dmb says:
Cha Ching! Yes, I see a parallel to Pirsig's distinctions in this as well. 
The handshaking example springs to mind. Like everything else, we could 
subject this custom to an intellectual analysis but practially speaking, 
even if you're real good at it, there is no intellectual compotent. Even 
with language itself, I think we can make a distinction between practical 
use and abstract explantions about that use. I suppose Case is getting at 
this in his notion that the written language is different than the spoken 
word. Its not that I wish to confuse matters, but maybe this difference can 
be seen in the ancient pyramids of Egypt. The written language we find 
carved in that monumental architecture is not yet very abstract. The symbols 
they used were pictographs, direct analogues from nature so that the word 
for "bird" still had a connection to actual birds, etc. But as we moved into 
a phonic alphabet that sort of connection was severed and language became 
increasingly abstract and was thereby render more freely manipulable. This 
allows more room for things like imagination and speculation and invention 
and all sorts of new capacities. I guess it all just means that the 
difference between talking and thinking about talking is not as 
inconsequential and the Rortys would like to suggest.

Arlo said:
The authors (at wikipedia) also provide this quote from Giddens, which I 
want to emphasize as a fairly good phrasing of "collectivism". "[T]he 
production or constitution of society is a skilled accomplishment of its 
members, but one that does not take place under conditions that are either 
wholly intended or wholly comprehended by them." I think this goes very well 
with Pirsig's sentiment, "The metaphysics of substance makes it difficult to 
see the Giant. It makes it customary to think of a city like New York as a 
"work of man," but what man invented it? What group of men invented it? Who 
sat around and thought up how it should all go together?"

dmb says:
I agree and see the parallel here too. It goes with the Pirsigian idea that 
religion invented man rather than the other way around, that we don't 
practice the rituals because we believe in God but rather we believe in God 
because we practice the rituals, that we don't have values so much as values 
have us. As one of my coffee mugs says, stories create people create stories 
create people create stories create people - and round and round she goes. 
This is a sort of "collectivism" that supports the notion, "Thou art that". 
Contrary to what the Randy Capitalists might says, this is not a commie plot 
and it has nothing to do with politics. Its a statement about the nature of 
who and what we are.

Appreciate your efforts here, Arlo

Kissy, kissy. (On your LEFT cheek, of course)

dmb

_________________________________________________________________
Type your favorite song.  Get a customized station.  Try MSN Radio powered 
by Pandora. http://radio.msn.com/?icid=T002MSN03A07001