[MD] What's missing

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Kevin]
If I had to guess I'd say Pirsig's view of intellectualism is 
intimately tied to his notions of individualism.

[Arlo]
According to the MOQ, intellect emerges from social patterns.  Are 
you saying that an "individual" only arises out of social 
interactions? (I agree with this, you know. The "I" is a social 
semiotic construct that allows categorization and pragmatic activity. 
But this interplay, individual-social, is precisely what describes 
the social level.)

[Kevin]
Problem is, on that level there's nothing that can be said about it 
because on that level there is only the individual and Quality.

[Arlo]
Quantum Physics is only "the individual and Quality"?

[Kevin]
I'd say what's missing is what's missing in Pirsig's understanding of 
the two-way interactions between individuals and their society.

[Arlo]
Perhaps, but this is an intra-social level issue. How "individuals" 
interact with their "society" is what defines the social level. 
Intellectual patterns, such as Quantum Physics, are not the construct 
of an "individual", but a historical dialogic pattern that emerges 
out of the milieu of social activity.

A good description of this is "dialogism". From Wikipedia, "The term 
'dialogic', however, does not just apply to literature. For Bakhtin, 
all language - indeed, all thought - appeared dialogic. This means 
that everything anybody ever says always exists in response to things 
that have been said before and in anticipation of things that will be 
said in response. We never, in other words, speak in a vacuum. As a 
result, all language (and the ideas which language contains and 
communicates) is dynamic, relational and engaged in a process of 
endless redescriptions of the world."

Pirsig says this quite directly in LILA. "Our intellectual 
description of nature is always culturally derived. The intellectual 
level of patterns, in the historic process of freeing itself from its 
parent social level, namely the church, has tended to invent a myth 
of independence from the social level for its own benefit. Science 
and reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective world, never 
from the social world. The world of objects imposes itself upon the 
mind with no social mediation whatsoever. It is easy to see the 
historic reasons for this myth of independence. Science might never 
have survived without it. But a close examination shows it isn't so." (LILA)

Einstein had this to say. "A human being is a part of the whole 
called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He 
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated 
from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This 
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal 
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must 
be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of 
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in 
its beauty."

Falsely replacing the intellectual level with the "individual level" 
is just another S/O tactic for validating the delusional separation 
we experience. Platt's adherence to the "Great Man" view of history 
is another. This falsely heroic account paints the majority as dumb 
buffoons, struggling thoughtlessly and blindly, until here and there 
a Great Man (such as his use of "Aristotle") arises to carry all of 
us on his back. Historical progress is made not by some Great Hero 
leading the way for the poor wretched masses, but by the 
understandings that arise out of thousand or millions of daily 
interactions, carried out within (nay, "through") a social milieu.

[Platt]
At the social level, Gods and groupthink dominate.

[Arlo]
If there is a "red herring" about, this is it.

[Platt]
At the intellectual level, individual thought based on S/O dominates 
with Aristotle leading the way.

[Arlo]
At the intellectual level, patterns that emerge from the collective 
activity of historical, social individuals "lead the way".

But I'm going to stay out this, after having said my two bits here. 
Platt has long suffered in want of a Great Man Party. Perhaps its 
time he had it.