[MD] A fine mess

Mon Dec 8 23:05:13 PST 2008

Hi Ron,

Two great points in there, either of which I still live in hope of Bo noticing.

(1) the social acceptance (received wisdom) angle of, err .. truth ?
(the entanglement of the socio-intellectual - cultural context - levels)
(2) the pointlessness of the metaphysical naming, when we are talking
about pragmatism, particularly the kind of enlightened pragmatism we
arrive at after the "experience" of such a huge amount of intellectal
(and rhetroical) effort.

But I still believe it is possible to lead an argument constructively,
logically, to that point from where (say) Bo is now ... given the
mutual effort.
Ian

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:53 PM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Bo, Ian here,
>
> You say here
> QUOTE
> Society is dominated by (controlled by) intellectual value in the
> Western culture, and this intellectual over-control will be checked
> when/if the MOQ comes to be "standard model".
> UNQUOTE
>
> Yes, yes agreed, we've reached this point many many times.
>
> I think we need to make some progress on moving the MoQ into that
> position. And when we were discussing why that existing SOMist
> intellect had trouble recognizing exactly how to handle the MoQ, you
> accused me of a lack of logic, to which I responded 4 days ago in this
> thread. Any reason why you're not addressing that response - I think
> we can make progress ?
>
> Ron:
> Ian, very interesting questions for Bodvar.
> SOM has moved past the notion of THE
> "truth" intellectually, HOWEVER it has been
> unable to move past this socially in the way of defining
> truth as social excellence.
> I sense this is what concerns Andre. That MoQ
> and SOM are not two competing metaphysical systems per say
> and it really does more harm than good to look at it this way.
> In fact it is the intellectual realization that objective truth
> is a poor standard for social excellence, it is the laymans
> perception of objective truth that causes the social
> level problems.
> It is the conflict of old socially accepted intellectual values conflicting
> with new intellectual values, those that tell us that the truth is contextual
> and not universally absolute.
>
> so for all intent and purpose, there really is not
> a metaphysic of Quality, it exists in name. The name
> representing the emphasis for social level acceptance
> of contextual truths.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:32 AM,  <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
>> Hi Platt
>>
>> 3 Dec. you wrote:
>>
>> [Bo before]
>>> > 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.
>>
>> Platt:
>>> Doesn't that distinction undercut the view of SOM as the
>>> Q-intellectual level?
>>
>> You mean that S/O as intellect  undercuts SOM as intellect? Yes, it
>> does and is supposed to, I take for granted that MOQ takes over the
>> metaphysical "rank", leaving only the naked S/O.
>>
>>> > 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)
>>
>> Marx lived in England and took its (intellectual in our lingo) patterns for
>> granted and thought that a revolution simply would take them over,
>> now run by "workers". But being transferred to the despotic Russia it
>> was soon corrupted by social social forces and Marx' ideal schemes
>> were used for the many mad "plans" (collectivization for instance)
>> without implementing any of the said intellectual patterns. Freedom of
>> press, speech ...ect.
>>
>> About "nothing morally wrong with murder" we must translate ZAMM
>> (where SOM was regarded as a-morality taking over from the all-moral
>> Aretê past) to moqish where it was intellectual morality emerging from
>> social morality. In the SOL interpretation that is, orthodoxy however
>> sees SOM a bad intellectual pattern taking over an already present
>> intellectual level (that must have lurked under from times immemorial)
>> to be replaced by the selfsame Aretê-as-MOQ. This makes a true
>> mess of it all and the the MOQ a non-starter.
>>
>>> 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)
>>
>> Yes, SOM=intellect (before the MOQ was bad for the said reasons, but
>> remember that the intellectual patterns (freedom of speech, press,
>> independent juries, parliamentarism,  human rights and worth) are all
>> moral to the core, only when intellect came to be the "standard model"
>> in the West it continued its crusade against social law & order, not
>> having any means of knowing when enough is enough. This is what
>> the MOQ provides
>>
>> But here's the crux. S/O (in our modern mind/matter form) have
>> philosophically ramifications of creating paradoxes and these torment
>> those who think like young Phaedrus did. He wasn't  bothered by the
>> "aesthetic ugliness" that Andrè points to (this was the later Pirsig who
>> wrote ZAMM) but was haunted by the inconsistencies he found in the
>> mind/matter dualism, and - after many ordeals - the Quality Idea.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Society is dominated by (controlled by) intellectual value in the
>> Western culture, and this intellectual over-control will be checked
>> when/if the MOQ comes to be "standard model".
>>
>>> 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. :-)
>>
>> Well he does in your example
>>
>>    "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)
>>
>> but the ill-conceived intellectual level prevented the MOQ from being
>> such a moderator
>>
>> IMO
>>
>> Bo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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