[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 
 
> I assume that Stalin had a rationale for his behavior and therefore was
> participating in intellectual patterns. The truth or falsehood of his
> arguments for taking the action he did could be discussed.

I'm sure Stalin considered it true that he would be better off is 
dissidents were crushed. So what made his rationale bad? 

> In addition
> to participating in intellectual patterns, he also used his social
> authority to muster biological force. 

At least we agree that force is biological.

> Applying the moral hierarchy is not as simple as intellectual=good,
> social = bad. Stalin's silencing of dissenters is recognized to be
> immoral when considering the evolutionary hierarchy as a whole and
> deciding whether such behavior contributes to or hinders evolution of
> static patterns toward dynamic quality.

It seems you have applied the MOQ to come up with a simple "Stalin 
bad."

> Platt:
> 
> What does SOLWAQI stand for?
> 
> Steve:
> It doesn't stand for anything other than Platt's Philospophy of the
> Individual versus the Collective.
> 
> It's intended to remind you of Bo's attempt to improve the MOQ with
> SOLAQI where intellect is the subject/object distinction, which I see as
> just as WAQI as your idea.

If you want to play that game I'll call your interpretation of the MOQ 
SOLNUTI.
 
> Steve:
> I'm not convinced that the serial killer is just a biologically
> dominated person. I think he is insane. At any rate whether you think a
> serial killer is insane or not, how does SOLWAQI deal with insanity?

Like Pirsig.  
 
> In Pirsig's philosophy, an insane person is someone with illegal
> intellectual patterns. It is not an issue of being dominated by one
> level or another, it is a matter of bad intellectual patterns.

Only bad because society says so. 

> Your
> philosophy does not seem to allow for such things because for you
> intellect=good individual, society=evil collective.

Society=confrmity, individual = freedom. All else being equal, which is 
better? 

> > Steve:
> > Craftmanship is one of those words we use to refer to Quality. I don't
> > know that it belongs on any level.
> 
> Platt:
> Pirsig said the levels include everything.
> 
> Steve:
> What level is Quality on?
> 
> To the extent that craftmanship (and likewise, Quality) is a concept it
> is intellectual, but then so is shoddiness.

Which is better?

> > Self-discipline is part of the social-biological code, the one that
> > says that you shouldn't get drunk and pick up bar ladies.
> 
> Platt:
> Without a self (which Pirsig denies) there's no self-discipline. I say
> in the language of everyday life there is a self which belongs at the
> individual level as distinct from just being a cipher at the social
> level.
> 
> Steve:
> The question was not about whether there is a self in every day
> language. the question is about whether it is social morality that says
> we need to deny our biological urges and not get drunk and not pick up
> bar ladies or is it intellectual. I think you are taking a strange view
> of intellect to say that self-discipline is an intellectual issue, but I
> guess it goes without saying at this point that I think you are taking a
> strange view of intellect.

I'm pitting the free individual self against the collective conformist 
mob. That's intellect's conclusion of a higher morality, or as Pirsig 
said, " . . . the moral codes that established the supremacy of the 
intellectual order over the-social order." 

Regards,
Platt