[MD] Social Ants?

[Platt Holden]

Hi Horse et al:

What seems to be missing in the discussion of the levels is any 
reference to or acknowledgment of morals. IMO, the entire thrust and 
indeed the value of Pirsig's MOQ is that the world is a moral order, 
not an order based on complexity, chaos, nodes, networks, systems or 
other descriptions and theories subscribed to by materialists. While 
there's nothing wrong per se in discussing other ideas of how the world 
operates and evolves, it seems to me that unless moral values play a 
dominate role, the conversation veers off track from the new paradigm 
Pirsig has presented to us:

"In this plain of understanding static PATTERNS OF VALUE are divided 
into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social 
patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all 
there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics-Inorganic, 
Biological, Social and Intellectual--nothing is left out. No "thing," 
that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any 
encyclopedia, is absent.

"But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive. 
They all operate at the same time and in ways that are almost 
independent of each other.

"This classification of patterns is not very original, but the 
Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual. 
It says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very 
little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a 
lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the 
contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in OPPOSITION to the 
lower level, DOMINATING it, CONTROLLING it where possible for its own 
purposes." (Emphasis added)

It is the battle of the moral codes within each levels that is key to 
understanding the MOQ. As Pirsig said, the battle between the social 
and intellectual levels is still going on in America today and the 
winner has yet to be declared -- the social morality of political 
correctness, multiculturism, diversity and affirmative action vs. the 
individual morality of freedom and personal responsibility.

Regards,
Platt