[MD] (MD] Collective intelligence

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Krimel]
When did acting in good faith and obeying the law become evil? Without
conformity there is no social at all.

[Arlo]
"Social conformity" is not at all what the Mythos, the collective consciousness
of all communicating mankind, refers to (I know you know that). That's simply a
perennial shift, an attempt to reframe (as you point out) the discussion in
terms of Heroic Individual v. The Evil Collective, or Divine Man v. World as
Man's Commodity. The "Epic Battle" strawman that gets rolled out ad nauseum.
(Coming soon, gulags and Pol Pot, and at that point we are so far from Pirsig's
words on the collective consciousness its pointless to continue... which is
what is desired anyway).

When Pirsig rightly says, "So and so culture exists, therefore I think,
therefore I am", he draws an accurate pointer to the dialogic-assimilative
nature of the "self", which which emerges as a fusion of man's
bodily-kinesthetic "proprietary experience" and the collective consciousness.
Without either, no "self". 

The individual v. collective epic battle is the only "useless illusion" at play
here. The two are an inseparable, dialogic, intertwined, co-constructed,
yin-yang, pair. They are not "at war", they are "in dance". 

Aside from this, the "one-eye blind" crowd seems to forget that political
correctness, the manipulation of language, is not limited to one political
party. Jon Stewart recently criticized the democrats for their use of the word
"timetables" in calling for troop withdrawl, saying they should know their
enemy and have used "Freedom Dates" or "Patriot Dates" instead.