[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[david buchanan]

DT said:
Can the social level control the intellectual level? If so how is this accomplished? I can think of only of one way under the MoQ this could happen. By ignoring or suppressing the intellectual level either completely or selectively. But even that doesn't really work because supposed the social level is unaware of the intellectual level.


dmb says:
How is that accomplished? Don't forget that these levels are just a way to divide static reality as we know it. I mean, you're asking for an abstract answer where Pirsig has already supplied a whole series of historical examples. It was Pirsig's idea to use FDR and Hitler to illustrate the difference between social and intellectual values. In that example the fascist is described as being profoundly anti-intellectual. See, it's not that the anti-intellectual sees nothing at all when she's looking at intellectual values. She sees these values the way a dog sees a newspaper. She can see that it is an object but is unaware of the content and meaning of it's printed pages. She only knows it as something that hurts her when she's smacked with it. 
It seems to me that anti-intellectualism is what you get when people dominated by social level values construe intellectual values as a threat and a danger to the health of the society. That's why you always hear about the restoration of traditional values. With Italian fascism, that meant recapturing the glory of ancient Rome. In Germany it meant the restoration of the pure Aryan warrior and in the U.S. that means restoring the founding fathers' original intention (by which they often mean restoring the Puritanical foundations). 


DT said:
... But the problem with this whole take is that if the social level is dependant on individual worldview does in not disappear when the change from the mythic worldview happens? If that is so then as we all slowly evolve to the logos level does not the social level disappears?


dmb says:

No, of course not. How would that work. Did biological organisms disappear once the social level emerged? Did matter disappear when life evolved? Of course not. That would be absurd nonsense. To put it in an image, you don't have to hollow out the middle in order to expand the perimeter. The whole thing grows as the evolutionary process adds new layers. 


 		 	   		  
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