[MD] Problems with Intellectual control of Society

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hey John Carl, 

On 8 Oct 2009 at 8:26, John Carl wrote:

> Andre, Platt,
> The current economic collapse is a good illustration of the failure of
> intellect to inform social evolution.
> 
> 
> Actually tho, Marx explained all this a long time ago...
> 
> Pirsig used western Capitalism to illustrate the success of a relatively
> more dynamic system.  However, once THAT system becomes fixed, static and
> unchanging, it evolves according to natural evolutionary outworking of its
> premises till it reaches a stage of development that is untenable.  It might
> have been relatively good, and even the best at one certain time.  But when
> it becomes THE static good, disaster looms.
> 
> 
> The MoQ perspective shows that the problem comes in when value become
> statically fixated.

Good point, but I think a fixed system that promotes DQ, like capitalism 
and the MOQ itself, is better able to avoid disaster Or, if disaster occurs,  
DQ systems are likely to lead to a quicker recovery than static S/0 
intellect systems.   


> It has caused huge problems requiring huge interventions. Governments around
> > the globe have done so and are still doing it because it ain't over yet.
> > Should governments have done nothing, as you seem to advocate...and let
> > everything go down the drain?
> > The social consequences would have been catastrophic and we would have been
> > back at the biological level: the law of the jungle.
> >
> 
> 
> This is what is widely  feared, but I don't see it.   The actual conditions
> of life as we experience them are much more fundamental than the big
> computers keeping score of finances can impinge upon.  Power on high would
> have been lost (good!)  and actual useful work would have been more highly
> valued in relation (another good)  and more natural and fundamental values
> would have replaced the artificial values imposed/promoted by the govt/media
> complex.

You nailed it with the phrase, "govt/media complex" -- as great a danger 
to a free society as a military/industrial complex.


> > Andre:
> > Pirsig endorses free enterprise only because it is more dynamic...and
> > mindless. I do not think he endorses the latter. And, eventhough he has
> > claimed that capitalism/ free enterprise has made everybody richer, I feel
> > this is an exaggeration and not quite in line with the data which states
> > that at present there are one billion people (!) going hungry every day.
> > And, let's not muck around,he still finds an intellectually guided society
> > morally superior... and a capitalist/free market system is not
> > intellectually guided.
> >
> 
> I'd disagree that Pirsig would argue for an intellectually guided society.
>  Wasn't that the defining characteristic of Communism?   Intellectual
> control of society is not the solution and probably  the problem.  Hence
> this thread.
> 
>  Intellect is objectivism and whenever objectivism solves a problem it
> isolates its  factors away from the real world and gains power while losing
> wisdom.

I consider these last two paragraphs full of wisdom. In fact, it is wise to 
challenge intellect based on the S/O premise, as Pirsig has so ably 
demonstrated and as you have done in this thread.. 

Platt