[MD] Intellectual activity

[Heather Perella]

Hello Arlo, Platt, and others,
  

 [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.

     Einstein and society discovered the law of
gravity understood today.  Even others, after Einstein
has died have contributed to this understanding.  It
is the individual intellect of Einstein working with
the collective mythos of society at the time that has
the individual Einstein use the societal static
quality to view the law of gravity.  I'll keep moving
on with the comments you have further on.  Maybe this
will clear up some.
 
> 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)

     This infiltrate and contact of the individual
intellect with social patterns... ok

, and collective
> activity of these
> "individuals" gives rise to intellectual patterns
> over historical time.

     See this collective activity of these individuals
I would say give rise to social patterns over time. 
The social patterns, the way I am understanding this
could be very reasonable if a moral order was taking
place.  The intellect passes on information to the
rest of society and the society can think
intellectually.  Yet, the intellect passing on the
information is the individual, I believe at least so
far, to the society.  The individual does have society
mythos, but the spark of a new idea begins in an
individual, but this brujo means nothing for the rest
of society until the society accepts the moral order
of what is intellectually arguable needs to be taken
in consideration and debated, if need be, so the moral
order of intellectual level being higher than societal
level can be affective.

> 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 does not have to have an intellectual level
starting point.  I could be rehashing the same old
slogan or dogma of other people and therefore would be
making a societal level static quality.  The identity
that is SA - is biological.  To make such an identity
does not come from some worm biological level though. 
The identification assertion process, I believe, comes
from the intellectual level.  
 
> [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 was an agentic action, if that means
the brujo did something to show his value to the rest
of society.  And I quote from Lila chapter nine,
"...although by her own accounting (her being
Benedict) he (brujo) was very much in contact with the
whites.  It was the white man to whom he sent for help
and who saved him.  It was the white anthropologists,
presumable, who took dictation of all his songs and
stories and made him well known in books of which his
tribesmen could not have been ignorant.
     Phaedrus concluded that the real reason the
people of Zuni made the brujo governor had to be
because of this.  The brujo had shown he could deal
successfully with the one tribe that could easily wipe
them out any time it wanted to.  It wasn't just a
sweet singing voice that made him governor of Zuni. 
He had real political clout."

     Thus, the society noticed something the brujo did
that nobody else was doing in their society.  The Zuni
eventually accepted his intellectual level, which
became the political clout he gained.  With his
individual talents the Zuni society couldn't turn him
down anymore, and his way infiltrated the Zuni
society, I assume, and now somebody is able to discuss
with the U.S. culture.  I assume from an educated
guess, because I do know the Zuni still exist and must
have some contact with whites.

   Arlo continues:  "The brujo
> does nothing alone. It is the collective, cultural
> dialogue adapting to
> negotiated value differences, that "causes" the
> evolution of the social
> patterns.

  In what I typed above and quoted it seems it was the
brujo doing this alone.  Was his culture able to have
a brujo?  Yes, but the societal static quality is what
the norm of any culture is, not the exception.

> [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.

     Yes, this is beginning to stump me.  The social
patterns are engaging the intellectual individuals of
society.  The intellectual values are never from one
individual all on his or her own making something up
totally original.  Something original can happen, but
it is supported, encouraged, and has meanings within
the original meaning by any one individual that are
from the societal level.  Yet, Pirsig came up with
MOQ.  Nobody else did.  Pirsig was influenced by the
social level, but I would say his contact with another
level called the DQ level, which is above the
intellectual level, gave him the space necessary to
think outside the box and come up with something very
different than what the rest of society had to offer. 
Yet, clearly he was influenced by Zen and Daoism. 
Buddhism coming out of India was influenced by Daoism,
too, which gave Chan (Zen in Japan) its' uniqueness
from the original Buddhism from India.  Yet, Zen
masters can argue effectively too, that Zen is the
original Buddhism.  Yet, Zen has different sects.  We
have Rinzai and Soto schools.  We also have different
kinds of maple trees.  Yet, maybe it is the path we
are arguing.  
     How can Zen be the original Buddha?  Yet, Tibetan
is the original Buddha?  Yet, Zen has different sects,
too?  Different maple trees?  It is not the way we
need to argue, it is what the way leads to that has
Zen masters say Zen is the original Buddha, even if it
is a Zen master of Rinzai or Soto schools talking. 
Sugar maple and red maple trees will give maple syrup.
 So in the end it is maple syrup that is put on
pancakes that we are discussing.  It is this distinct
maple sweetness that is the same, even though the
trees that become the way the sweetness is made are
different.
     This was not a 'I'm running away from the
discussion' message I was trying to give.  We probably
might be coming at this from different angles, and I
will try to understand what you are talking about, and
I hope you will try to figure out what I'm saying. 
This last part was just to show how originality can
come about, even with the influences of others
'things' or ways long before the original Chan first
came about are influencing this original Chan, but in
their mix - original Chan can be found all by itself
as a whole other way to become enlightened.  Just as
Pirsigs' MOQ is a unique way to become enlightened,
which came from Pirsig himself.

Thanks, 
SA  
 

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