[MD] MOQ levels

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 

> Platt:
> >> We disagree on this. There are plenty of static social ideas  
> >> around IMO,
> >> including the idea that religion can tell us something about about 
> >> reality and morality that reason can't.  But, let it rest.
> 
> Steve quotes RMP from LC:
> "45. After the beginning of history inorganic, biological, social and 
> intellectual patterns are found existing together in the same person. I
> think the conflicts  mentioned here are intellectual conflicts in which one
> side clings to an intellectual  justification of existing social patterns
> and the other side intellectually opposes the  existing social patterns..."
> 
> All justifications are intellectual patterns (as I was arguing that  
> using faith as justification for belief is an intellectual pattern  
> which I have further argued is a dangerous one). Your example of "the  idea
> that religion can tell us something about about reality and  morality that
> reason can't" is an intellectual justification of a  social pattern rather
> than a social pattern itself.

You may be right, but I got the idea for "static social ideas" from 
Pirsig's explication of Victorian ideas about morality which he invariably 
described as "static patterns." Also the following quote suggests the 
existence of "static social ideas:"

"It has caused him to filter out what we call normal cultural intellectual 
patterns just as ruthlessly as our culture filters out his." (Lila, 26)

It was "normal cultural intellectual patterns" I had in mind in citing 
"static social ideas." For example, the dominance of science as the arbiter 
of truth in Western society  I would describe as a "normal cultural 
intellectual pattern," i.e., a "static social idea."  

Maybe to keep the levels pure it would be better if I referred to such 
examples as science  as "intellectual ideas that dominant society" rather 
than trying to squeeze intellect into becoming part of the social level. 
Where to draw the lines between levels is, as you know, a source of 
continuing debate.

Regards,
Platt