[MD] A fine mess

[Platt Holden]

Hi Bo, 

> Hi Platt
> (seeking refuge from Ron)
> 
> 2 Dec.you pointed to the low morals:
> 
> > Just a follow up to Khoo's observation: "SOM may come to be the
> > 'universal human condition' but the world is a fine mess as a result."
> > >From Breitbart.com: "American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at
> > "alarming rates," a study of nearly 30,000 high school students
> > concluded Monday. ... 
> 
> and concluded:
> 
> > The inevitable fallout of morally bereft SOM? I think so. 

[Bo] 
> You alter between (agreeing with me regarding) SOM as the highest 
> static good and as the cause of social decay. I believe the 
> metaphysics issue is the fulcrum. Intellect is not SOM in a 
> metaphysical sense, merely the distinction in a - um - pragmatic 
> sense, and I believe that these two aspects can be kept apart. 

Doesn't that distinction undercut the view of SOM as the Q-intellectual 
level?

> According to the MOQ intellect's purpose is to "tame" social patterns 
> (that have free rein under anti-intellect conditions. For instance, Nazi
> Germany was a most law-abiding country only matched by Iran these 
> days) and as SOM it did  that job, but like the sorcerer's apprentice it
> had learned the start formula but not to stop and this was what Pirsig 
> lamented in ZAMM. 

Intellect may have "tamed" Nazism, but SOM communism slaughtered more 
people than the Nazis ever did. Not surprising considering that for SOM 
"There is nothing morally wrong with . . . murder, with genocide." (Lila, 
22)

Even socialism, a more benign form of SOM, has failed. "But what the 
socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole undertaking is 
an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality." (Lila, 17)

SOM has also been blind to society's role in controlling biological forces. 
"In the battle of society against biology, the new twentieth-century 
intellectuals have taken biology's side." Result? "Today we are living in 
an intellectual and technological paradise and a moral and social nightmare 
. . ." (Lila, 24) 

So on three counts, SOM intellect has not and can not regulate society with 
anything other than detrimental effect. The survey of students mentioned at 
the outset above reveals SOM's destruction of essential social constraints. 
But, that's just the tip of the iceberg. A much more significant outcome of 
SOM's damage to the general welfare in the name of the "public good" is the 
current economic crisis.   

> That book looked upon SOM as "morally bereft" and longed for the 
> Aretê era when morals were all. But in a MOQ context the levels are 
> moral increases, Aretê is era when social value was leading edge and 
> SOM intellect entering the stage. However their static quality prevents 
> the levels from from understanding the Q context and thus not 
> knowing when to stop taming their parents. 
> 
> And THIS is the reason for intellect's relentless persecution of social 
> good, which is an earlier "taming" of biological license and if brought 
> too far brings "dreadful nights" upon us. Only with the MOQ this 
> context was revealed and intellect thereby "tamed" - not from inside, 
> that's impossible lest it becomes something else than a static level, but
> by the MOQ. 

Since SOM intellect is so damaging as I've outlined above and by going "too 
far" as you say, I cannot help but wonder why Pirsig didn't come out more 
strongly for less intellectual (government) control of society except to 
protect individual rights and promote free markets. But, nobody's
perfect. :-)   
     
> And - I can't resist kicking asses - this is why the "intellectuals" of
> this 
> forum dislike Platt (most friendly of course) he looks to them as 
> promoting social value, while he really promotes the Quality view a 
> view they haven't understood. 

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Whatever "Quality view" I have is due   
partly to your insights which have been a source of illumination over the 
years.   

Best,
Platt