[MD] Problems with Intellectual control of Society

[John Carl]

Ok, since I've been putting it out that I have a problem with simplistic
hierarchical analysis of level-conflicts, I figure I should bring in some
real world problems to illustrate how I see using the MoQ's levels analysis
more creatively than hierarchically.
Triggered by newsradio blurb this morning,  McCain (the guy I guess who
represents McMerica) is criticising Obama's handling of the Afghan war.
 Predictably, McCain is accusing Obama of dealing with the dynamic situation
of war in a "professorial" manner, with intellectual debate and consensus
seeking and stuff like that.

While the barbarians batter at the gates.

Ok, I'm not gonna get too far into war policies at this time, but I'd like
to use this to discuss using static hierarchical analysis of the differing
levels involved - whether  intellectual control of social forces is more or
less moral.

Now dub-ya wouldn't have suffered from those charges of over-thinking.  No
sirree.  I don't know if we've had a prez that ever more fully exemplified a
reaction against intellectualism and was a purely social-patterned guy from
bottom to top.    In a simplistic hiearchical system, it's plain who is the
more moral, Professor Obama.

But I say,  that analysis doesn't work for reasons best explicated in
Ehrenfeld's The Arrogance of Humanism.  Intellectual control of society is
far more problematic than ever forseen or imagined.  If we simply allow a
 society to evolve according to its own rules and process, it works things
out "naturally". But when we step in with intellect and take over, the
infinite consequences of actions are far beyond the intellectual's capacity
to analyze and exacerbated by a faulty metaphysical foundation.

eep.  You might say, Houston, we have a problem.

Intellectual control of society is the most dangerously immoral tool ever
invented.


Now, I'm a positive guy.  I do believe there is a better way AND I believe
that way does involve analysis of the differing levels of intellect and
society, but not looking a which is higher than the other.  Nope, I believe
the proper Quality analysis is using the analysis of the different levels to
bring about harmony between the two in the service of  a higher good
overall.   But if one insists upon simplistic hierarchical analysis....

well, you just won't get it to work.  That's all.

If the wrench slips off the nut, you need a different size.