[MD] Social Level- Catholic Social Teaching

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Steve

29 July you  wrote:

> [Steve]
> Pleased to meet you as well.

I.regret sounding so grumpy, if tired I better retire. Now, the 
intellectual level has up to now been my obsession (I claim that the 
ordinary use of the term is more like "intelligence" while the level is 
the subject/object distinction (SOM)). However, the social level 
also seems to be controversial, some people want it to cover 
insect colonies and animal packs, but this I believe comes under 
the "... in the service of the parent level" category, Still, even if we 
limit it to the human realm it's not all clear, I speak of the notion of 
a reality transcending biology  - a beyond - and this means that 
absolutely all humans are at the social level because there's no 
tribe however primitive without a "mythology". Pirsig - on the other 
hand - seems to regard lawless human behavior as biological  
value (brigands, bandits etc) but IMO this does not fit, there are 
rebels who are regarded lawless (Robin Hood) but merely want a 
better and more just society. 

OK, over to your post      . 

> [Steve]
> I'm not trying to deteriorate the MOQ, if that's what you mean.
> All I am trying to see is if these Catholic social teachings might be
> an example of "good social Quality" and what intellectual values are
> behind them (Gav had a thread about an intellectually-guided society,
> this thread would be a comparison).

Right, an intellect-guided society (a culture where intellect is at the 
helm and have all traditional social institutions under its control) is 
just what I mean, According to the MOQ "raw" social value looks 
like evil to intellect, why Western democracies regard Moslem 
religious despotism with such disgust and wants to convert them 
...even at gunpoint.  .      

> [Steve]
> I don't think that they are about submission to some common cause, I
> think they are about what should ideally happen in some interactions
> that humans have with other humans, with the earth, etc...  Did Pirsig
> write anything on how humans should treat other humans?

Catholicism is not about submission, I meant to say that social 
value is about submission.  

Regarding Pirsig he hasn't written in this vein because there is no 
such ideal in the MOQ, Social value is something more 
fundamental than being good to the your neighbor. Moses came 
down from the mountain with commandments, among those one 
of not killing, but once his people (their cause) were threatened 
killing became the first commandment. Still is, and one aspect of 
MOQ's immense explanatory power is how murder can be hailed 
in one instance and condemned the next. This enigma NO 
metaphysics has solved before it.

> [Steve]
> I'm confused, so Catholicism is an unintellectual religion? There are
> no intellectual values guiding our social teachings?  Sorry again if
> you think I'm trying to sabotage anything, I mean no harm.

Don't get me wrong, Catholicism is of course intellect-influenced, 
yet Christendom has its root in the social pattern known as 
Judaism. My idea is that Jesus was a sensitive antenna who 
picked up the Greek intellectual (SOM) signals through the 
Romans and his words about the (Mosaic) Law existing for 
mankind's sake - not the other way round -  is intellectual value 
taking leave of social value, In Judaism and Islam humans only 
have value to the degree they accept the (respective) holy Law 
books, and because this is God (-given), Jesus' really took leave 
of this Semitic kind of god as well. Not directly, but this rebellion 
came to be modern Christendom's nucleus and the moment a holy 
text/law becomes subject to scientific or interpreted in light of the 
times its back is broken.   

In my opinion.

Bo