[MD] The MOQ, Pathogens, and Individualism

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

All,

In another thread I had proposed that a MOQ understanding of the "self" sees it
as an intellectual pattern deriving from the contact point between the
assimilated collective unconscious and the unique bounded experience of the
organism. 

This is an extension from Pirsig's notion that the "individual" is "4 levels
plus DQ". Our material bodies are biological and inorganic. Our "mind" is
social and intellectual. And, as we know from Pirsig, intellectual patterns
originate out of society.

In this week's Newsweek, there is an article that captures the MOQ to a "T". It
is "You can blame the bugs" by Sharon Begly.

She begins by pointing to the differnece between eastern and western ways of
seeing. "As Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan described in his 2003
book, "The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently
… and Why," Westerners typically see classifications where Asians see
relationships. He means "see" literally. When students in one study looked at
tanks holding a large fish, a bunch of small fry and the usual aquarium plants
and rocks, the Japanese later said they'd seen lots of background elements; the
Americans saw the big fish."

This draws to mind Aristotle and his influence on western thinking from ZMM.
And how Pirsig had commented that those in the East don't see the "big deal" of
ZMM. Where we see "classifications", they see "relationships"

Here I am immediately reminded of Pirsig's thought from ZMM. "And now he began
to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he
gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had
lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena
of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and
wealth...but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal
magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an
enemy of it." (ZMM)

Jumping ahead, Begley directly points to this by saying, "Societies that arose
in places with fewer pathogens had the luxury of individualism, which is less
effective at limiting the spread of disease but brings with it other social
benefits, such as innovation."

So what does she mean "fewer pathogens"? Begley's article asks whether exposure
to pathogenic microbes, disease, may be behind the "individualist-collectivist
split" evidenced by various cultures.

"The West epitomizes individualistic, do-your-own thing cultures, ones where
the rights of the individual equal and often trump those of the group and where
differences are valued. East Asian societies exalt the larger society: behavior
is constrained by social roles, conformity is prized, outsiders shunned."

Her point is summed up by this statement.

"But the reason a society falls where it does on the individualism-collectivism
spectrum has been pretty much a mystery. Now a team of researchers has come up
with a surprising explanation: disease-causing microbes. Societies that evolved
in places with an abundance of pathogens, they argue, had to adopt behaviors
that add up to collectivism, for reasons of sheer preservation. Societies that
arose in places with fewer pathogens had the luxury of individualism."


But notice here the direct MOQ understanding. 

Social patterns emerge out of biology. "In places with a high prevalence of
pathogens, such cultural traits—which happen to be the hallmarks of societies
that value the group over the individual—would be adaptive. Put another way,
societies that arose in pathogen-rife regions and did not have such traits
would be wiped out by disease. Societies that did have them would survive."

Socially we adapted to certain behaviors in response to the biological world. 

Intellectually, our views on "individualism" and "collectivism" where then
derived from these cultural patterns.

"Our history of living with infectious diseases may have shaped, in ways we're
not even aware of, human cognition, behavior and culture."

Pirsig challenges Aristotle's intellectual patterns in ZMM, laying them at the
foot of our modern problems. But in a MOQ view, Aristotle's intellectual
understandings originated from his culture, which in turn was shaped by social
responses to biological patterns.

The article is here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/130623

Arlo