[MD] The Individual Level

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
You would not expect an article in Wikepedia to make an overt connection of
Pirsig's intellectual level with individualism. But, the connection is solid,
firmly established by the Pirisg quote I furnished.

[Arlo]
Disagree. The quote establishes only that the literature of the time
"represented the struggle between social and intellectual forces" as the
"struggle of the noble, free-thinking individual against the crushing
oppression of evil social conformity". As a literary representation of a
metaphysical entity, I don't consider it anything more than the other ways this
metaphysical was represented, such as "abstract art, discordant music". Homer
"represented" arete with his heroic Odyssey, for example.

The "intellectual level" is NOT the "individual level". Individuals give rise to
the emergent intellectual level through social collective activity. "Ideas" are
historically dialogic. 

Indeed, a few sentences later Pirsig writes, "But having said this, the
Metaphysics of Quality goes on to say that science, the intellectual pattern
that has been appointed to take over society, has a defect in it."

"Science" is an intellectual pattern. Hardly "an individual", however
"individuals" working "collectively" give rise to "science". That is, "science"
(intellectual pattern) emerges from the collective activity of individuals
(social).

As Gene has said, and I think Case too, the collective is not the enemy of the
individual, the two are intertwined. Duty to society is not antithetical to
duty to self. As I said in my previous post, duty to excellence transcends
both, and sometimes is manifest as doing what is right for you, and other times
as what is right for society. The conflict exists only as a political
myth-monster. Nothing more.