[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

Arlo and Group 

[Bo] before: 
> > Is this a convoluted affirmation of the SOL or is it a rejection???

[Arlo]
> It's a rejection. You know that. SOM is a particular species of 
> intellectual patterns that derive from a very specific premise, the 
> primacy of the Subject-Object duality. Patterns drawn from this 
> premise compromise the body of patterns Pirsig refers to as 
> "Subject-Object Metaphysics". The MOQ is a (new) species of 
> intellectual patterns derived from a different premise.
 
> It is as absurd to say "all intellectual patterns are SOL" as it 
> would be to say "all social patterns are theistic", or "all 
> biological patterns sexually reproduce".

No, rather as relevant  as declaring all biological patterns alive.

> > Right, how can the 4th. level have managed to rise on top of the 3rd.
> > and - as is a MOQ tenet - regard society as "evil" in any other capacity
> > than SOM?
 
> I'm not sure what you mean? Are you saying that its a MOQ tenet that all
> levels regard their foundational level as "evil"?

Phew, is that news to you? If I brought quotes on all levels' struggle it 
would fill the MD, so a few intellect vs society tidbits have to do.

>From LILA: (my caps and brackets)
    The events that excited people in the twenties were events that 
    dramatized the new dominance of intellect over society. In the 
    chaos of social patterns a wild new intellectual experimentation 
    could now take place. Abstract art, discordant music, Freudian 
    psychoanalysis, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, contempt for alcoholic 
    prohibition. Literature emphasized the struggle of the noble, 
    free-thinking individual against the crushing oppression OF 
    EVIL SOCIAL CONFORMITY.  

    Scientifically speaking, sexual activity is neither good nor evil, 
    the intellectuals said. It is merely a biological function, like 
    eating or sleeping. Denial of this normal physical function for 
    some pseudo-moral reasons is irrational. If you open the door 
    to premarital sex you simply allow freedom that does nobody 
    any harm. Books such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic 
    of Cancer were defended as great salients in the struggle 
    against SOCIAL OPPRESSION.  

    Prostitution and adultery laws were eased. It was expected that 
    with the new application of reason, sex could be handled much 
    like other commodities without the terrible tensions and 
    frustrations of SOCIAL REPRESSION exposed by Sigmund 
    Freud.  

    At every opportunity, it seems, they (the intellectuals) derided, 
    denounced, weakened and undercut these Victorian SOCIAL 
    PATTERNS OF REPRESSION in the belief that this would be 
    the cure of man's criminal tendencies. It was as a part of this 
    new dominance over society that intellectuals became excited 
    about anthropology in the hope that the field would provide 
    facts upon which to base new scientific rules for the proper 
    governing of our own society. That was the significance of 
    Coming of Age in Samoa.  

    One reason why fundamentalist Moslem cultures have 
    become so fanatic in their hatred of the West is that it has 
    released the biological forces of evil that Islam has fought for 
    centuries to control. What the Metaphysics of Quality indicates 
    is that the twentieth-century intellectual faith in man's basic 
    goodness as spontaneous and natural is disastrously naive. 
    The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without 
    coercion cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual 
    good of all is a devastating fiction.  

I must add one observation. Some of these passages  
reveal a tendency of the MOQ to sympathize (join forces) with society 
in a joint operation to quell intellect (in the same way that intellect join 
biology to quell social good). To avoid this and limit MOQ to just 
"normal" control of intellect from "above" it's adamant that its (MOQ's) 
position as out of - above - intellect is recognized. You who fight the 
SOL interpretation does the MOQ a disservice because a MOQ 
declared (by you to the be) the highest INTELLECTUAL pattern will 
make intellect's real value (its "objective attitude") into "low intellectual 
value". Do you understand? Then we'll have a corrupted 4th. level that 
won't control the 3rd. rather join it. You may not understand or agree, 
but to keep intellect's true nature and purpose high and dry is ... well, 
what all is about.


Bodvar