[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

You missed both points. I'll try to be more clear.


Pirsig:
> > > 'After the beginning of history inorganic,
> biological, social and
> > > intellectual patterns are found existing
> together in the same person.
> > > I think the conflicts mentioned here are
> intellectual conflicts in
> > > which one side clings to an intellectual
> justification of existing
> > > social patterns and the other side
> intellectually opposes the existing
> > > social patterns. A social pattern which would be
> unaware of the next
> > > higher level would be found among prehistoric
> people and the higher
> > > primates when they exhibit social learning that
> is not genetically
> > > hard-wired but yet is not symbolic.'
> > 
> > Platt: ""Intellectual justification" implies
> thinking by individuals vs.
> > social patterns."
> > 
> > Steve: Pirsig is saying that whether one is
> verbally defending a social
> > pattern or an intellectual pattern he is still
> participating in
> > intellectual patterns.In other words, he doesn't
> want to say that only
> > people defending intellectual patterns are
> participating in intellectual
> > patterns whereas in your formulation, only those
> defending individuals
> > over the collective are individual level people.
> You and Pirsig are not
> > talking about the same thing.
> 

Platt replied:
> See your first sentence -- "whether one . . ." -- an
> individual. 

Steve:

Obviously  it is individuals doing the the defending
of either social or intellectual values. I can't
figure out why you think that is such an important,
profound, or clarifying idea that warrants changing
Pirsig's work.  There is no one who ever argued that
individuals are not the source of ideas.

Back to the quote...Pirsig is saying that one is
behaving intellectually even if he is defending social
values whereas in your reinterpretation you want to
say that one is behaving intellectually only if he is
defending intellectual values.

For your intellectual level to be compatible with
Pirsig's intellectual level you would have to say that
one is behaving "individually" as he defends "the
collective," and if so your "individual level" loses
all meaning as a set of values distinct from your
"collective values."

So even if you don't accept my insistence that
Pirsig's levels represent 4 distinct types of patterns
of value and instead stick to your idea of the levels
as types of people or as the moral codes that resolve
conflict bewteen the levels, changing the names
muddles rather than clarifies the levels because it
considers defending the collective as individual level
behavior.

Or you could just admit that what you are doing is not
clarifying Pirsig's work but changing it, and that
your individual level is not the same as RMP's
intellectual level.  Then you could give your system a
new name so it wouldn't be confused with the moq.

> > Platt: "As for my emphasis on the individual being
> just a "conservative
> > perspective," I thought it was liberals who
> champion individual rights
> > such as free speech, freedom of the press, trial
> by jury, etc. Where
> > have I gone wrong?"
> > 
> > Steve: I guess I can't see why else you would want
> to rename the
> > intellectual level other than to make capitalism
> appear intellectual and
> > socialism appear social level. I think Pirsig said
> something like the
> > moral superiority claim of socialism is in the
> fact that socialism is
> > the idea of an intellectually guided society
> whereas the moral
> > superiority claim of capitalism is it's openness
> to dynamic quality. I
> > guessed that you were putting your economic theory
> dispute with liberals
> > on a social versus intellectual plane when it is
> actually a
> > dynamic-static issue. But you can say best what
> you intent is. Why is it
> > so important to change Pirsig's names for the
> levels?
> 

Platt replied:
> I consider freedom (DQ) vs. totalitarianism (SQ) an
> important issue for 
> human happiness and evolution.

Steve:

Again you missed the point. Your replacement of
individual for intellectual and collective for social
is not a dynamic versus static issue. You are just
renaming the static levels.

My point is that support for your side of the economic
debate is actually one of dynamic versus static
whereas you seem to be trying to shift the terms to
better argue it on a static versus static level.  It
doesn't seem necessary to change the static levels to
make your case since Pirsig says that socialism as an
intellectually guided economy is more intellectual but
less dynamic than capitalism.

Regards,
Steve


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