[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Kevin]
I have no doubt that what you say is correct according to the Metaphysics of
Quality, at least according to the static pattern arrangements.  But where is
Dynamic Quality?  Are individuals not aware of or affected by DQ in the choices
they make and in their sense of betterness?

[Arlo]
I think this is an impossible question to answer "in general". In some ways I am
reminded of Pirsig's brujo, a drunkard, a peeping tom, and yet somehow he was
able to act as a catalyst. Although I do have problems with the brujo story, I
think it shows that DQ-evolution occurs often in-deliberately. That is, the
brujo's intent was not thinking "I am going to follow DQ and bring about social
change my people need to survive the European influx". Pirsig called this a
"vague sense of 'betterness'", "If you had asked the brujo what ethical
principles he was following he probably wouldn't have been able to tell you. He
wouldn't have understood what you were talking about. He was just following
some vague sense of "betterness" that he couldn't have defined if he had wanted
to."

Secondly, I don't think DQ operates only at the intellectual level, as some
suggest. A vandal may have learned that his actions bring temporary, positive
relief to pent-up feelings of frustration, inequality and injustice. Just like
some drink beer, or paint, or sleep around, or run marathons, or write music,
the issue becomes not one of following "DQ or not", but in finding
socially-sanctioned ways to follow DQ at the biological level. 

And what of the vandal who vandalizes out of a perceived injustice or inequity
at the social level? Here you may, in fact, have a social-intellectual
conflict**, and while static social forces will move to squelch this behavior,
if its endemic of growing intellectual condemnations of society, eventually
intellect will destroy that society and create something new. The heralded
"Boston Tea Party" was an act of vandalism from the British view-point, but
represented the coming intellectual victory over social forces (the end of
monarchy and the beginning of democracy, to generalize loosely). 

(** You may NOT, of course. Perceived injustice or inequality can also be the
result of unawareness of opportunity.)