[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 13 Aug 2010 at 10:34, John Carl wrote:

I think that the biggest obstacle in overcoming SOM, is the "S". It stems
from our society's over-attachment to the mechanisms of ego - the subject -
which binds people to this worldview.  And ALL of our social programming has
become so predicated upon this force, our laws and political and economic
institutions so dependent upon the big S,  that it takes more than an
intellectual realization to free people from their blind spot.

And while Zen is a useful technique to be used in that rigid Japanese brand
of social reinforcement, it doesn't translate so well in our society.

All this to say, be patient.  Sometimes it takes millennia for these things
to work themselves out.

Hi John,
I hope an "over-attachment to the mechanisms of the ego" doesn't represent an 
criticism of individualism. If we deny the sanctity of individual life, we 
revert to social level values where group solidarity crushes contrarians like 
Pirsig, and humanity stagnates in a swamp of certainties, like it did in the 
Dark Ages.   


[P]
> Unfortunately we are living the "social nightmare" brought on by 100 years
> of
> "intellectual" control of society, beginning with Wilson. "Phaedrus thought
> that if he had to pick one day when the shift from social domination of
> intellect to intellectual domination of society took place, he would pick
> November II, 1918, Armistice Day, the end of World War 1. And if he had to
> pick
> one person who symbolized this shift more than any other, he would have
> picked
> President Woodrow Wilson."(Lila, 22)  Now we face, thanks to Wilson and his
> communist/socialist heirs,  what to our forefathers would have been
> unimaginable -- a bankrupt U.S.A.
>

John:

I agree with Pirsig, Platt, that that was a turning point.  And a
fascinating topic of study as to how and where things went wrong.  I
disagree with your "social nightmare".  There are problems, but they could
be much worse.

Royce saw the issue as "the betrayal of civilization by Germany" and another
turning point, according to Alan Bloom came immediately after WWII, when
many of the underlying philosophical and practical underpinnings of Germany
were adopted by her conquerors, America and Russia. There's a lot to
disentangle.

[P]
I've great respect for Allan Bloom, author of "Closing of the American Mind," 
who takes the academy to task for caving into 60's radicals. I'm not familiar 
with his critique of German "underpinnings," but if he is talking about the 
premises that led the Weimar Republic to utter disaster, the parallels with our 
current situation are undeniable.

Bo:
> For some reason Pirsig had dropped the SOM in LILA, but from ZAMM
> we know that Aristotle was regarded a chief figure in SOM's evolution
> so again we get a proof for the intellect=SOM. In my "jesuitic" view Q-
> Intellect isn't a something dominated by S/O patterns, it IS the very
> SOM and "the framework dominated by value" is the MOQ that by no
> twist of logic can be an intellectual sub-set.
>
> [P]
> I along with several others agree with you interpretation of the MOQ. That
> it
> is so fiercely rejected by some illustrates the inner fear of the
> intellectual
> level that viciously counterattacks any questioning of its self-proclaimed
> superiority. Finally, putting the MOQ inside its own structure is like
> driving
> your car around a parking lot looking for where you parked your car.  In a
> word, farcical.
>
>
John:  I disagree with you both, on this issue, but I wouldn't classify my
opposition as "fierce" so much as "befuddled".  What is the real point of
your stance?  I get confused by Bo's terminology sometimes, but I understand
your words pretty clearly Platt, and thus would welcome any clarification.

Your analogy doesn't quite do the trick tho, because if I dropped my cell
phone when I got into my car, and then left, the most natural thing in the
world would be to drive my car around, looking for the place I'd parked it
earlier.

[P]
No cell phone dropping in my analogy. It's purpose is to show that one cannot 
make sense unless he steps outside the box he is trying to define. It's another 
way of pointing out that a tongue cannot taste itself, or that to assert "There 
are no absolutes" is self-contradictory. My favorite story illustrating the  
necessity to get outside the box to understand the box is a fish when asked, 
"How do you like being in the ocean?" replied, "What ocean?"   Or as Pirsig put 
it: "You can't have Box "A" contain within itself Box "B," which in turn 
contains Box "A." That's whacko." (Lila,4) In other words, you can't have the 
MOQ contain within itself the Intellectual Level which in turn contains the 
MOQ. That's whacko. 

Hope this helps clarify.
Platt