[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Arlo Bensinger]

All,

I, too, find the intellectual-social distinction problematic. I had always 
interpreted what Pirsig was trying to say using the "mythos over logos" 
segment from ZMM. In this, intellect (or logos) is given a more emergent 
relationship to social (mythos), where Pirsig even addresses the 
structurating aspects of the mythos on the logos.

"The term logos, the root word of "logic," refers to the sum total of our 
rational understanding of the world. Mythos is the sum total of the early 
historic and prehistoric myths which preceded the logos. The mythos 
includes not only the Greek myths but the Old Testament, the Vedic Hymns 
and the early legends of all cultures which have contributed to our present 
world understanding. The mythos-over-logos argument states that our 
rationality is shaped by these legends, that our knowledge today is in 
relation to these legends as a tree is in relation to the little shrub it 
once was. One can gain great insights into the complex overall structure of 
the tree by studying the much simpler shape of the shrub. There's no 
difference in kind or even difference in identity, only a difference in size."

This appeals to me because, as in Lila, Pirsig makes it clear the the 
"Cartesian "Me", this autonomous little homunculus who sits behind our 
eyeballs looking out through them in order to pass judgment on the affairs 
of the world, is just completely ridiculous." (Also demonstrated in the 
passage, "The intellectual level of patterns, in the historic process of 
freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the church, has tended 
to invent a myth of independence from the social level for its own benefit. 
Science and reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective world, 
never from the social world. The world of objects imposes itself upon the 
mind with no social mediation whatsoever.").

The problem with the logos-mythos distinction is exactly what Matt 
describes. The two appear so interwoven that true distinction is 
impossible, especially when one considers that everything "is just an 
analogy". Both the mythos and the logos, as social and intellectual 
activity, depend on language (or "linguaculture") as its primary static 
agent. For all intents and purposes, then, I consider the intellect-social 
split to be practical yet also imprecise. That is, it is useful for many 
analytic purposes, but collapses when examined closely. Just as one would 
expect from an analogy.

It is clear that in the MOQ Pirsig is going for Reason over Tradition (as 
Matt remarks), in the same way Peirce discusses his hierarchy of belief 
fixation (tenacity, authority, a priori, scientific methodology). It is 
also clear that this Reason is only as good as the Tradition from which it 
emerges. Democracy is only as good as the values that lead people to vote. 
A democracy can elect a "Hamas", or it can elect a Lincoln. Consumption is 
only as good as the values which govern it, one can get "miners" or one can 
get "gardeners". This is the point made over and over again in ZMM and 
Lila. But this tying of Reason to Tradition, where one could even argue 
that Reason BECOMES Tradition as Tradition BECOMES Reason, makes it 
difficult (for me) to place Reason as an entirely separate, and superior, 
level.

I don't have an firm idea on how this can be resolved. But I do know that I 
disagree that the intellectual level should be considered as the 
"individual" level. The "individual" and the "collective", as I've said a 
few times recently, are as interwoven as "intellect" and "social". It is 
only in Western SOM that the "individual" is seen as removed, detached, 
impartial or somehow a lone wolf battling the forces of collectivization. 
To me, pairing the individual and the social as somehow opposed (even if 
the opposition is not a Holy War, as Platt makes it), simply succombs to 
SOMist thought. In my thinking, I place BOTH the "individual" and the 
"collective" as inseparable, dialogic constructs of the social level.

I've thought a few times that a conflation of the social-intellectual and a 
recasting Pirsig's "Code of Art" as the fourth level would be more 
appropriate. But this has its own problematic considerations.

Arlo