[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Platt's Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 

>      Platt said:  "Your explanation of the conflict
> between the social and intellectual levels (collective
> vs. individual) is confusing to me. I interpret it to
> mean that society determines what intellectual thought
> patterns are acceptable. If society says the world is
> flat, then for all intents and purposes the world is
> flat. It seems to me just the 
> opposite. What makes the intellectual level separate
> and distinct from 
> the social level are the thought patterns that go
> against the 
> prevailing cultural view. Wasn't that the point of the
> brujo story? 

[Steve]
> As I recall, Pirsig's use of the brujo story was to explain dynamic
> versus static quality not the conflict between the social and
> intellectual levels.

The brujo story for me was an illustration of how individuals change 
societies -- the conflict between an intellectual pattern vs. a social 
pattern where the intellectual pattern won. 

> Your desire to rename the intellectual level the individual level is
> leading you to a strange definition of intellect. The way Pirsig defines
> intellect it does not just include thought patterns that go against the
> prevailing view but instead includes all thought patterns.

Pirsig defines the intellectual level by its domination over the social 
level, not as the container of all thought patterns. (You have pointed 
out that the social level pattern of government contains thoughts.) 
When you define the levels by their conflicts with other levels, you 
get closer to Pirsig's meaning.  For example, he wrote:

"Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the 
intellectual order over the social order -- democracy, trial by jury, 
freedom of speech, freedom of the press." (Lila, 13)

Here it is clear that the defining aspect of the intellectual level is 
its supremacy over the next lower level. Similarly, the social level 
strives for supremacy over the biological, as does the biological over 
the inorganic.

The supremacy of intellect over society exactly matches the  supremacy 
of the individual over the collective as codified in our Constitution --
 the right of the individual to free speech, trial by jury, secret 
ballot, etc. vs. politically correct speech, vigilante law, communism, 
etc.

Platt