[MD] Stuck on a Torn Slot

[John Carl]

Ron,

I pretty much agree with you, Arlo, dmb and all who oppose the SOL assertion
that SOM=4th level.  As you know, I just wish we had a better term for it
than "intellect".  If it's an expansion of reason, and I agree that it is,
then it oughta be designated as such but really, I can't think of anything
else that wouldn't be just as confusing so I'm gonna give that complaint a
rest.

However, I'd like to address a couple other points you make.

[Ron]
> Which brings about something I've been contemplating regarding what
> Nietzsche
> said about philosophy being unable to cure an ailing culture.
>
>
John:

It depends, I think, on the exact mechanisms you've got available for the
interactions of philosophy and culture.  In a literate culture that reads
extensively, then I think you've got more possibilities.  But I can see that
by definition of "ailing" you're not gonna have that.  In fact, I'd say
"ailing" means a culture that doesn't heed philosophy or wisdom.  So yeah,
that sounds right.  And how are you going to change that dynamic?  I don't
think you can.

I'm not sure  what point Arlo is making with Toynbee/Campbell's "reborn",
except that its just a process that occurs naturally as cultures create
civilizations which grow old and die and there's really nothing to be done,
in the end.


> [Arlo]
> Arnold Toynbee makes the same point, as quoted in Campbell's Hero with a
> Thousand Faces. "schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be
> resolved by any scheme of return to the good old days (archaism), or by
> programs
> guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the
> most
> realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating
> elements.
> Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of
> something new... Peace then is a snare; war is a snare; change is a snare;
> permanence a snare. When our day is come for the victory of death, death
> closes
> in; there is nothing we can do, except be crucified—and resurrected;
> dismembered
> totally, and then reborn."
>
> Ron:
> Sounds then, that it is a question of developing certain values and our
> reasons
> for holding them, which brings up the Socratic dialogs about the meaning
> of wisdom.
> It then begs the question on the wisdom of philosophy,
> Does being a lover of wisdom, make one wise?
>
>
John:  I'd say unequivocally yes.  Always.  Loving wisdom, makes one wise.
Loving the reputation for being wise, however, leads to foolishness.
That's the intellectual / social conflict.



>
> Arlo:
>
> I've thought for a while that DQ is too rhetorically confined to the
> creative
> aspect and is better understood as the Hindu Trimurti, which encapsules
> "creation, maintenance, and destruction". That is, DQ "destroys" as much as
> it
> "creates", or better said "creation always comes with destruction". Every
> act of
> creation occurs in the midst of destruction and transformation.
>
> Ron:
> I was trying to make this point to Dan about what we mean
> when we use the term.
> When we link ideas together how their continuity has a greater
> meaning, a generalized root meaning and in this capacity the dynamic
> has the greatest meaning. In that root meaning DQ or Quality in it's
> totality to me, is best described as betterness, destruction is embedded
> in this betterness it is part of the good. It is part of being.
>

John:

More dynamic means more choice.  More choice is creative of more quality.
Sometimes we shun more choices because we're so entirely satisfied with the
status quo, (sq!) that we've got and we don't appreciate at all the
destructive aspects of DQ, or see betterness at all in those aspects.  But I
agree with you both, it is there.  Which makes me think  that "suffering is
the root of desire" is better realized as a recipe, rather than a warning.

Ron:


> Aristotle linked being and the good as being qua being a sort of act of
> becoming. I suspect that many dualistic monisms point in a similar
> direction.
> But as you can see, there become two contextualized meanings for the term.
>
>
Thanks for this, Ron, and you too, Arlo,

John - caught in the act of becoming