[MD] The Word is Not the Thing

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Platt 

17 Sep. you said: 

> > Surely were, as are all college textbooks. Can anyone name a book
> > that is MOQ-steeped other than those written by Pirsig? The New
> > Testament perhaps?

Agree, there simply were pre-SOM (social) and SOM (intellectual) 
texts before Pirsig. In the letter to Paul Turner:

    But if one studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies 
    the sayings of primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is 
    conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods who follow 
    social and biological patterns and nothing else.  

He identifies the Old Testament as a pre-intellect text meaning pre 
SOM (again he affirms the SOL but this becomes so embarrassing 
common that I don't make a point of it) From this it follows that Pirsig 
regards the new  Testament as an intellectual text which is another pet 
idea of mine, namely that Jesus was a sensitive antenna that picked 
up the new intellectual signals from Greece through the Romans and 
as such   represented some rebellion in the middle of the densest 
"social value" region on earth.

Bodvar