[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[John Carl]

I agree with Arlo, mostly.


It's a cultural prejudice which makes us portray all  cultures different
from our own as inferior.  Whether we're talking Egyptians or Tea Partyers,
an attitude of superiority gets us nowhere - it's basis is a strictly social
phenomena of "my team is better than your team".   Which is really futile
when you're trying to analyze a cultural system many millennia in the past,
then especially  you have to use objective analysis where you try to own and
transcend your own biases as much as possible.

This kind of objectivity/subjectivity  is what being intellectual is all
about, no?  And forgoing intellectualism is not the point of the MoQ, before
we get yanked down that dead-end alley.  The point of the MoQ is holding
intellectualism lightly, as a pattern of value rather than THE pattern of
value.

As far as "social patterns in control of society" - that's the way it always
has been, always will be.

Social patterns control society, by definition.

Intellectual ideas, control social patterns.

And there is little real difference then between the high priests of
Egyptian culture and the cult of academic objectivity in our own.  We don't
have a firm grasp on THE truth, anymore than they did.  I thought that point
has been made repeatedly on this forum, eh?


The John as opposed to a John




On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:59 AM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>wrote:

> [DMB]
> Their calculations were impressive and remarkably accurate but I still
> think
> there is a difference between Egyptian mathematicians and what we'd call
> intellectual. Those mathematicians were priests, actually, and math was
> something like an elite form of spiritual knowledge.
>
> [Arlo]
> Are you suggesting that should a priest use mathematics, the calculations
> are
> "social"? Is "2+2=4" a social pattern if it is used to count sheep in the
> field, but an intellectual pattern in a modern classroom?
>
> [DMB]
> Their calculations were not about scientific accuracy but ritualistic
> precision
> and a good harvest.
>
> [Arlo]
> This would make the field of engineering a social pattern, no?
>
> [DMB]
> Not that we're any smarter, but we live with a much greater degree of
> abstraction. I can see how it could be tempting to project that onto
> them...
>
> [Arlo]
> My point is that I think "intellectual patterns" appear long before the
> achieve
> "dominance" over the social world, and drawing an abstract line at the
> Greeks
> and saying "this is when intellect appears" is unsustainable.
>
> [DMB]
> ... especially when their mathematical achievements are taken out of their
> religious context...
>
> [Arlo]
> Again, I'm not sure the fact that it was a priest calculating precession
> makes
> that particular pattern of though (the calculation itself) any less
> "intellectual". When a priest solves a calculus equation, the mathematical
> activity is still an intellectual pattern.
>
> I am not suggesting that intellect dominated the social worlds of these
> ancient
> cultures, far from it. Its obvious that social patterns were in control,
> but I
> think in these calculations we see the appearance of newly emerging
> intellectual patterns.
>
> [DMB]
> ... but their highest priest probably didn't know much more than a fifth
> grader. Well okay, let's say a really, really smart fifth grader.
>
> [Arlo]
> How many fifth graders do you know that could deduce abstract formulas for
> predicting and describing precession based on observing a pattern in the
> sky
> that repeats only ever 3000 years or so?
>
> Again, though, my point is that the appearance of intellectual patterns on
> the
> evolutionary trajectory occurs before the Greeks, even if in the Greeks we
> can
> see their eventual placement in domination of social patterns.
>
> In the same way simple human social groups appeared long before the complex
> social structures that would dominate man's biological existence.
>
>
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