[MD] Social Intellectual

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi Craig, I love the paradox in that quote, it's been quoted a few times.

The fact that it starts with the word culture ....

And in fact it's very much the same point in an exchange with DMB
earlier about the key distinguishing feature between the social and
intellectual (which is not in doubt).

The paradox is that having conceptualised a high quality intellectual
idea / pattern, (using intellectual "freedom") it needs to be realized
in the lower levels (or remain forever conceptual). That realization
through the social level then depends on being able to "dominate"
other social patterns using things that look less like "freedom" and
more like "authority" backed by "force" and it starts to look more
like a social pattern, even though it originated in intellect. The
distinction between intellectual and social patterns is not in doubt
BUT HOW a culture "manages" its socialization of its intellect whilst
preserving the freedoms its intellect requires (ie governance) is the
real issue. It is almost all about limitations to freedoms.

(So much more important for us here and now than the speculative,
cosmological and evolutionary navel gazing and nit-picking at the
lower levels IMHO - which are important in documenting a coherent
metaphysics and predicting future evolution - but not your next meal
or next years laws and taxes.)

So to answer you question it MUST be a balance (dynamic, cyclical
balance) of 1 and 2, rather than choosing one or t'other. They cannot
be exclusive.

Ian

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 9:56 PM,  <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:
> "...a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values
> over social values is absolutely superior to one that does not."
> (Pirsig, Lila, p.311)
>
> .
> IMHO the 2 important questions that this quote raises are:
> 1) would a free culture that supports the dominance of intellectual
> values over social values be superior to an authoritarian culture
> that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social values &
> 2) would a free a culture be more likely than an authoritarian culture
> to support the dominance of intellectual values over social values.
>
> Craig
>
>
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