[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Dan,

Dan said:
And there is no question that the intellectual level is a useful 
concept in the MOQ. This seems to be just word play though; if not, please clarify your point.

Steve:
I don’t know what you mean. What is just word play?

Steve:
>The question is whether it makes sense to think that
>what Pirsig really meant by the individual level is
>the intellectual level.

Dan:
But that answer's quite obvious, isn't it? Platt has been making sense of it all along. 

Steve:
I’ve been saying that Platt is making no sense.

Dan:
Perhaps it all depends on what the context and definition of "it" is...

Steve:
If “it” is the intellectual level, then there is no context that I’m aware of where Platt’s “individual level” is the same thing.


Dan:
In the language of everyday life, the MOQ begins with experience. Who is "it" that experiences?

Steve:
In the MOQ that SOM idea is subordinate to Quality, the dynamic-static split, and the moral hierarchy of static patterns. It does not define the intellectual level, it is a part of it.


Steve:
>Can you provide any support for saying that it
>actually is useful or clarifying or at all accurate to
>say that the intellectual level is the same as Platt's
>individual level?

Dan:
I can provide support that the MOQ says that the individual is composed of all four levels plus undefined Dynamic Quality. 

Steve:
That is why the individual is not Pirsig’s fourth level. Only part of the individual is contained in the set of all patterns of thought known as the intellectual level, so the intellectual level is not the individual. 


Dan:
In that context, the language of everyday life, useful 
conventions are those that work. If it doesn't work, don't use it. 
Would you agree?

Steve:
Absolutely, and Platt’s individual level does not work as an interpretation of Pirsig. It is Platt’s own philosophy which may work for him but should not be passed off as ideas about the MOQ.

Steve:
>I've been trying to make the point
>that Platt is saying something very different than
>Pirsig with his Philosophy of the Individual versus
>Society.

Dan:
What Robert Pirsig and Platt are saying is not mutually exclusive. But that wasn't my point. You already know what the intellectual level is. Why bicker over petty generalities? The MOQ offers much grander vistas.

Steve:
I wonder if you really know what Platt is saying if you think that his philosophy is not inconsistent with the MOQ.

Platt’s individual level as he defines it is about the Victorian code of craftsmanship and labor, honor, self-discipline, honesty, thrift, optimism, self-reliance, hard work, personal responsibility, self-discipline, individual initiative, commitment to excellence, 
delayed gratification, honor of achievement—I’m not making this up. These are all things that Platt says define the individual level for Platt. Also, the individual level is further defined by Platt as being in opposition to environmentalism, tolerance, multiculturalism, and anything else that annoys Platt about liberals. Basically, Platt’s SOLWAQI amounts to a list of things he likes and doesn’t like.

I do know what the intellectual level is as Pirsig defines it, as I am sure you do as well. As I hope you now see, these aren’t just petty generalities. These are specific inconsistencies with every one of Pirsig’s many definitions of the intellectual level.


Dan said to Ant:
“a human being is "self" aware but only after growing to a certain age, biologically, socially, and intellectually. What does this mean? It appears that only when we intellectualize the self, do we become self-aware. Would you agree?

Steve:
I agree. “The self” is an intellectual pattern, contained within the set of all patterns of thought known as the intellectual level. The individual is not the definition of the intellectual level. The intellectual level contains part of the individual.

Dan:
To "kill" the individual is to kill the idea of the 
individual. Therefore, it appears that the concept of the individual and the individual cannot stand apart. Would you agree?

Steve:
Agree. But, In the MOQ that SOM idea is subordinate to Quality, the dynamic-static split, and the moral hierarchy of static patterns.

Regards,
Steve


 		
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