[MD] Regarding The Fundamental Nature of The Intellectual

[Christoffer Ivarsson]

DMB - I like you! =)

See, I'm not looking for some kind of ideological stand-off - I'm just 
trying to get a constructive discussion regarding conclusions that I have 
drawn from my way of seeing the MOQ. I mean, the conclusions I have made is 
quite easy -

- First I put it to you that the nature of the intellectual level is that of 
the "Quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake alone"

- Then I say that Social Level Values should be subordinated to Intellectual 
ones.

- But if Intellectual Values is the movements towards better understanding, 
then I have to draw the conclusion that social structures should be modelled 
into serving that as much as possible.

- Looking at this I notice that "freedom" and concepts like that more and 
more looks like social value patterns - they seem to be instruments which 
the intellectual level have planted in the social level to help itself.

- Then It comes to me, quite naturally, that if social structures are to be 
remodelled to serve the intellectual level better (and thus evolution) well 
then the social value pattern that is the _concept of "freedom"_ may have to 
be looked over as well.

The problem occurs when I propose that the freedom that is free market 
enterprises may have to be restricted in order to serve the intellectual 
level (as they are clearly social level patterns) I seem to magically turn 
into Stalin in peoples heads, and the ideological stand-off begins.


> ------------------------------

> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:22:14 -0600
> From: david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>

> Ian said:
> Exactly Marsha, "isms" for for people stuck in social level patterns
>
> Cause Marsha said:
> Marxism?  Capitalism?  They're both stinky.  And besides there's that old 
> saying, "garbage in, garbage out".  The Intellectual Level needs to look 
> beyond the past for something that considers the seventh generation.
>
> dmb says:
> I really don't think we should pretend to be above "isms" and I think it 
> is extremely unhelpful to pretend there is no difference or that they all 
> belong on the social level. There are quite a few "isms" discussed in LILA 
> and the political conflicts that make up the last century (or so) of our 
> history is used to explain the difference between the third and fourth 
> levels. Yes, it is true. Conversations on this topic too often come down 
> to some kind of ideological stand-off but I really don't think this makes 
> both sides equal. Haven't you ever noticed how conservatives have to 
> ignore or distort what Pirsig says about politics, as in the recent case 
> of Ayn Rand and her individualism? Take the Scopes trial of 1925, for 
> example, which pitted evolution against religion in our public schools. 
> This debate continues to this day and it is certainly a conflict of 
> "isms". Here's a key section from chapter 22 of LILA...
>
> "But when that trial is seen as a conflict of social and intellectual 
> values its meaning emerges. Scopes and Darrow were defending academic 
> freedom but, more importantly, they were prosecuting the old static 
> religious patterns of the past. They gave intellectuals a warm feeling of 
> arriving somewhere they had been waiting to arrive for a long time. Church 
> bigots, pillars of society who for centuries had viciously attacked and 
> defamed intellectuals who disagreed with them, were now getting some of it 
> back.
> The hurricane of social forces released by the overthrow of society by 
> intellect was most strongly felt in Europe, particularly Germany, where 
> the effects of World War 1 were the most devastating. Communism and 
> socialism, programs for intellectual control of society, were confronted 
> by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of 
> intellect. Nowhere were the intellectuals more intense in their 
> determination to overthrow the old order. Nowhere did the old order become 
> more intent on finding ways to destroy the excesses of the new 
> intellectualism.
> Phaedrus thought that no other historical or political analysis explains 
> the enormity  of these forces as clearly as does the MOQ. The gigantic 
> power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this century, is 
> explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. This conflict explains the 
> driving force behind Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an 
> all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of 
> intellectualism. His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His 
> exaltation of the German volk was fueled by it. His fanatic persecution of 
> any kind of intellectual freedom was driven by it.
> In the United Sates the economic and social upheaval was not so great as 
> in Europe, but Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, nevertheless, become 
> the center of a lesser storm between social and intellectual forces. The 
> New Deal was many things, but at the center of it all was the belief that 
> intellectual planning by the government was necessary for society to 
> regain its health."
>
> dmb continues:
> Pirsig makes reference to a whole lot of other example in this chapter (as 
> well as chapter 24 and scattered throughout the book). For Chris and our 
> other European friends, the New Deal is classic American liberalism and 
> the conservative movement - along with the boys from the Chicago school of 
> ecomonics - has been taking it apart bit by bit for decades. They've been 
> propping up third-world dictators like Pinochet and its only getting worse 
> by the day. (Again, you gotta get "Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein) 
> The YouTube video about the atheist soldier who is suing the army for 
> being a christian organization would only be the most recent example of 
> how the social-intellectual conflict shows up in the news on a daily 
> basis. I don't know if the situation at the US Air Force Academy makes 
> national or international news but around here it counts as local news and 
> we've been hearing about it for years. (The academy is in Colorado 
> Springs, where many leading fundamentalist leaders
>  are headquartered.) Apparently, the students are pressured to "get 
> saved", to convert to fundamentalism and those who resist are made to 
> suffer for it. Add that to a thousand other assaults on intellectual 
> values. Oh, and did you hear? They gutted the fourth amendment the other 
> day. Russ Feingold and a few other brave souls are the other ones who 
> objected. I mean, really, this is no time to pretend that "isms" don't 
> matter. Wake up and smell the fascism. Please. Before its too late.
>
> Seriously,
> dmb