[MD] Another parallel

[skutvik at online.no]

Platt & John

11 July:

Platt said and quoted LILA:


> > Also intellectual values in this case refers to the scientific view of
> > life  which has a defect in it: no provision for morals. Result:

    "Sometime after the twenties a secret loneliness, so 
    penetrating and
    so encompassing that we  are only beginning to realize the 
    extent
    of it, descended upon the land. This scientific, psychiatric
    isolation and futility had become a far *worse* prison of the 
    spirit
    than the old Victorian "virtue" ever was."  (Lila, 22) 

Platt says " .... intellectual values in this case refers to the scientific   
view of life  which has a defect in it: no provision for morals...."  I'm 
not sure if Platt means that only science has a defect or ...?? At least 
it's the intellectual level itself that has no provision for morals.

In the above quote Pirsig also refers to science, but the point is that 
the 4th. level IS the OBJECTIVE attitude of which science is most 
prominent. It says that morals only exists SUBJECTIVELY in our 
minds and thus irreal (mind a fall-out of matter) The fact that matter 
can't exist without mind (the platypuses) I leave here, the point is that 
SOM is no evil force that has invaded intellect, but the very article.       

John says:
> I was thinking that a lot of the intensity for the social forces was
> caused by that jesuitical fervor that society gets when worldview is
> being overturned.   A feeling like, where do we go now?  There was a
> lot of hedonism in Victorian society - the men with their cigars and
> clubs, the ladies shunted to the side.  Strict separation between
> science and morality because science brought all these wonders and
> morality restricted our desires but leading in the end to isolation
> and futility.

Social value patterns are as many-faceted as intellect's, but one basic 
feature can be extracted, namely THE COMMON CAUSE and since 
you mention  Victorian times (England) it's displayed in the slogan 
"my country right or wrong". Separation of science and morality - in 
Victorian times - definitely, because "science" already represented the 
coming intellectual and "morality" the waning social value. But there 
are cultures today where intellect hasn't got a hold, where social value 
in many forms rule. Particularly the muslim world where Islam reigns 
... unrestricted.      

> But I notice that almost any discussion of values, when you get down to
> it, needs clarification, definition and disambiguation just to know
> what it is you're talking about.  I'm starting to see for myself  that
> defining quality is like going the speed of light or dividing by zero,
> conceptually there but not really. 

Yes, it's the forest/tree problem, if one picks that and that tree as the 
real forest one is soon lost, a grand view is needed. No one need a 
definition of the inorganic level, it corresponds more or less with what 
SOM calls "the physical universe". That goes for the biological level 
too that corresponds to SOM's "life", but with the social level the 
trouble begins because SOM has no social level only societies and 
entering beehives and anthills is counterproductive. Also that of USA 
or any other Western state as "social value" representatives, they are 
societies totally intellect-dominated. And with intellect the real trouble 
starts, this level has nothing to do with mind, thinking, intelligence or 
anything but is the aforementioned OBJECTIVE, scientific mind-set 
...SOM in other words.


Sincerely

Bodvar