[MD] Food for Thought

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[DMB]
Yea, your post helped some. There seems to be an apples and oranges problem
here, however. I mean, granted; SOM gives us objectivity with its notion of the
independence of the rational mind. Despite the fact that we can see Pirsig
denying this myth of independence, the MOQ still makes a distinction between
the social and intellectual levels and says they are discrete.

[Arlo]
Yes, and it was this notion of "what makes them discrete" that I was trying to
handle. Let me see if I can really reduce it.

1. The intellectual level is the "logos". The social level is the "mythos". (Or
perhaps not "is" but "includes"?)

"The logical order of things which the philosophers study is derived from the
"mythos." The mythos is the social culture and the rhetoric which the culture
must invent before philosophy becomes possible. Most of this old religious talk
is nonsense, of course, but nonsense or not, it is the parent of our modern
scientific talk. This "mythos over logos" thesis agreed with the Metaphysics of
Quality's assertion that intellectual static patterns of quality are built up
out of social static patterns of quality." (LILA)

2. The logos derives from the mythos.

"Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived." (LILA)
"Thus, in cultures whose ancestry includes ancient Greece, one invariably finds
a strong subject-object differentiation because the grammar of the old Greek
mythos presumed a sharp natural division of subjects and predicates. In
cultures such as the Chinese, where subject-predicate relationships are not
rigidly defined by grammar, one finds a corresponding absence of rigid
subject-object philosophy." (ZMM)

3. OUR logos, OUR intellectual level is S/O oriented, because it derives from a
Greek mythos heavily laden with S/O dualism.

"Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality supports
this dominance of intellect over society. It says intellect is a higher level
of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level than society. It
is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for a society to destroy
an idea. But having said this, the Metaphysics of Quality goes on to say that
science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take over society,
has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science has no provision
for morals." (LILA)

The problem I was having had to do with an association of "logic" (or reason, or
science) as THE defining characteristic of the intellectual level, and also
with it as inherently S/O. That is, the very characteristics that Pirsig
criticizes as S/O, are the very characteristics that distinguish intellect from
social level patterns. Clearly, however, Pirsig believes that there CAN be a
science, there can be reason, there can be logic that is NOT S/O dominant. But
I have trouble envisioning what "reason" would be without the
decultural-decontextual "objectivist" characteristics of S/O thought. 

In other words, "logic" is not S/O, OUR "logic" is. But what would a non-S/O
"logic" look like? What would non-S/O reason look like? 

I think its worth mentioning that Pirsig writes heavily about two cultures whose
mythos are NOT S/O oriented, the Native Americans in LILA and the
Asian-Buddhist culture in ZMM. The philosophies of these cultures, their logos,
their "reason", I think is an answer.