[MD] Food for Thought

[David M]

Hi Arlo

A better science might fully recognise the context
in which it os possible in terms
of human experience and values, and that these need to be
better understood and recognised and used to
direct science to help us achieve what we want and
what we value, rather than simply gaining power and
delivering it up to rather unpleasant elites.

David M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought


> [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.
>
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