[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Ian said DMB's suggestion ("social quality is aimed at controlling 
biological quality while intellect is aimed at controlling social quality"):
Sounds promising - "aimed at controlling" is very close to the "imposition" 
aspect I summarised from what Arlo had already said. Is this your "principle 
of opposition" ?

dmb says:
Yes, that the prinicple of opposition. I don't know if Arlo's notion of 
"imposition" is the same or not. As far as I can tell, nobody has said 
anything about it yet.

Ian said:
Do you see this as wholly satisfactory in distinguishing intellectual from 
social ? Could you elaborate on this, or point to somewhere where you 
believe you already have.

dmb says:
Wholly satisfactory? Sigh. I don't know what that means. Its just an idea, 
the one Pirsig uses to make the distinction. This idea is elaborated upon 
quite a lot in Lila. The recent post to Arlo concerning the shaking of hands 
was one of many elaborations I supplied already. (In the post you've just 
responded to!) I've talked about this in terms of human rights and the laws 
against vice, in terms of the clash between democracy and fascism, between 
rationality and faith. I've elaborated until I'm blue in the face. This is 
why I have to turn the tables and ask, repeatedly, what it is you don't 
get...

Ian said:
One objection I would see so far, is in the "means" of control. For example, 
I wouldn't consider an intellectual aim to "control" the social as 
intellectual if the means of control were physical force or
imposition, say. What have I missed?

dmb says:
Huh? This strikes me as a totally bogus objection to the principle of 
opposition. I mean, what in the world could you be talking about except a 
wildly immoral use of violence. When did any army ever go to war to defend 
rationality. Who ever got punched for failing to grasp Einsteins equation? 
Who ever forced a guy to accept scientific data or metaphysica principles at 
the point of a gun? I wouldn't consider that to be intellectual control of 
society either. I'd consider it a crime against society and a completely 
illegitimate use of violence. Social values, on the other hand, have always 
been enforced through the use of violence. That's what cops and armies are 
for. In an intellectually guided society, cops and armies are "controlled" 
by intellectual principles such as are found in the declaration of 
independence, the US constitution, the charter of the United Nations, etc. 
You see, the fact that people can break laws does not invalidate the laws. 
Your objection seems to be based on an example that is not only highly 
hypothetical, that example, if it actually occured, would only raise ethical 
questions about the violent behavior but not about the distinction between 
intellect and society.

Here is what I said on the topic earlier today.....

> > dmb had said to Arlo:
> > I'm still baffled as to why nobody has yet entertained the central
> > distinction, the one I repeatedly offered up. If there some reason to 
>reject
> > the notion that social quality is aimed at controlling biological 
>quality
> > while intellect is aimed at controlling social quality, then I would 
>very
> > much like to know what it is. So far, this point has mostly been ignored 
>and
> > it seems to me that it would clear things up quite a lot. Shaking hands, 
>for
> > example, seems to be aimed at controlling violence. Its a greeting that
> > says, symbolically, I have no club or knife in my hand so don't be 
>afraid.
> > It sends all kinds of signals about violent intentions and the lack 
>thereof.
> > Don't you think? Later, as firmness of the grip and the confidence of 
>eye
> > contact determine the quality of the handshake, the violence inhibiting
> > component becomes less conspicuous, but that's only a testiment to the
> > effectiveness of the ritual, no?

I think its pretty easy to see that handshaking, as Pirsig says, has no 
intellectual component. It is a social custom aimed at controlling the 
organism's appetite for violence. The laws against vice are essentially 
aimed at this as well as the other appetites that we have for food and sex 
and fun and other creature comforts. And of course Pirsig's central point is 
that social level values are supposed to control these biological urges but 
that it is immoral for the same to try and control the intellect. When 
social values try to control upward instead of downward, we have a moral 
nightmare, a violation of the right to free speech, freedom of religion, 
freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and belief. This distinction is 
supposed to alleviate a lot of confusion. SOM (as well as the postmodern 
versions of the same) has produced a situation where this distinction can't 
be made. This is what led 20th century intellectuals to take sides with 
biology, putting social values in the crossfire. This is the source of the 
ingratitude intellectuals had for evolutionary advance achieved by social 
control of biology. This same confusion led the counterculture astray as 
well.

It seems to be that you are simply re-introducing those old confusions as an 
objection to their solution. But that's not a real objection. Its just a 
sign that you don't understand the problem or the purpose of its solution.

Thanks
dmb

_________________________________________________________________
>From photos to predictions, The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes has 
it all. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline1