[MD] Intellectual activity

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Hi SA,

[SA]
I have mentioned at times an individual level for the intellectual level.  Platt
has too.  I do not argue against the mythos over logos understanding. Therefore
the societal level evolves into the individual intellect.

[Arlo]
Sounds like Platt found a compatriot, or at least a sympatico. I'm on the other
side of the fence here, SA, and I'll explain the way I see it.

"Intellectual patterns" emerge over historical time out of collective activity
on the social level. The Law of Gravity, for example, has emerged out of the
historical-physics dialogue dating back centuries, with new voices adding,
mutating, shaping and reforming the pattern as it exists at any one "snapshot"
in time.

Now, I do agree that it is from the social level that the individual you
consider "you" emerges (apart from the biological patterns). Your "identity",
as it were, is a social construction, based on assimilations of the
linguaculture (which includes, of course, macro-cultural patterns (argument as
war) and micro-cultural patterns in every decreasing circles down to local
negotiations).

However, this "identity" represents the point of contact between social and
intellectual patterns. Intellectual patterns, then, infiltrate social patterns
through the "individual" (identity), and collective activity of these
"individuals" gives rise to intellectual patterns over historical time.

This challenge to the supremeity of the individual is met always with cries of..
well, you'll see. To some, one has to choose between either accepting the
Individual as Supreme, or casting the "individual" into the meaningless pit of
devaluation. Please note that I disagree, fundamentally, with this dichotomy.
Rather than focus on the individual or the collective, I prefer to find value
in their dialectical relation, and how from this dialectical relation, we see
evolution in both the intellectual and social levels of the MOQ. (Indeed, I'd
argue that it is nonsensical to even attempt to separate the "individual" from
the "collective". Who am we? We am me!)

[SA]
Yet, I also see it the other way around.  The individual depends on the societal
mythos to gain static definition to the intellectual level of each individual
person.

[Arlo]
This is similar to the dialectical relation between I and C. I find no arguement
with this. I suppose it comes down to what you define as an "intellectual
pattern" (an "individual" on the intellectual level). I define it as the
negotiated symbolic-metaphorical relations that emerge over historical time by
individuals engaged in collective activity. If you define an intellectual
pattern as "the identity that is SA", then we have different starting points.

[SA]
The intellect of any one individual person may view something very differently
than the rest of society and even bring certain changes to the societal mythos
- the brujo discussion by Pirsig.

[Arlo]
I agree. This is why I call linguaculture "structurating" and not deterministic
or causal. But, let's recall that the brujo was not arguing for reform, he was
peeping in windows and getting publically drunk. In this case, there is not
"agentic action" on the part of the brujo, it is only others, afterwards, who
reconsider his value and role, who become part of the cultural dialogue shaping
his culture, that begin, and foster, what emerges as social change. The brujo
does nothing alone. It is the collective, cultural dialogue adapting to
negotiated value differences, that "causes" the evolution of the social
patterns.

[SA]
I notice societal mythos defining the intellectual level.  Also, I notice the
intellectual individual defining the societal level.

[Arlo]
Again, similiar perhaps to what I call dialectical relatedness, but I'd word
this somewhat differently. The societal mythos interacts with the intellectual
level through "individuals", who themselves emerge out of collective social
activity, and through whom intellectual value penetrates social patterns.
"Identity", then is the point of contact between collective social activity and
historically-negotiated intellectual patterns.


Arlo