[MD] Intellect vs. Intellectualism

[118]

>
> Hi dmb,
>
Some comments below on the misunderstanding of intellect and
intellectualism.
Regards,
Mark


> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 3:34 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com
> >wrote:
>
>
> I agree.  I call the flaw, "intellectualism".  Intellect is a good thing.
> Without intellect, we'd be screwed. However, putting intellect as the sole
> value of evolution or the highest value is the stance that over-emphasizes
> the head at the expense of the heart.  Intellectualism is the name of that
> particular problem.  That is where one concept ends and the other begins.
> Therein is the reason Bo's SOL is an issue and Platt, Marsha and others
> cannot rest easy with the MoQ as it is formulated.  Because the MoQ states
> that the highest and most moral level of evolution is intellect.  This is
> wrong and immoral because it puts thinking alone in front of feeling
> whereas
> this task of ours should be to integrate heart and head; to demonstrate
> science that is not ugly, and art that makes sense.
>
> The common definition of intellect:
>
> "the power or faculty of the mind by which one knows or understands, as
> distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the
> understanding; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge."
>
> I've posted supporting evidence (Schlain) for the leading edge of human
> evolution being the aesthetic sense.  Pirsig himself posits rationality as
> an art and support for the idea that the artistic sense is the highest
> (closest to DQ) human mentation so it should be plainly obvious that
> unfeeling rationality is not the highest of all.  And yet, because we use a
> hierarchical model for evolution with intellect at the top, we get stuck in
> these conundrums, over and over.  Making intellect your highest value
> forces
> you logically into an intellectualism.  In this regard, the MoQ is inferior
> even to the Academy, which at least has a liberal arts arena and lets the
> two fight it out on somewhat equal terms.   The MoQ, which should have been
> a synthesizer, instead has inadvertently come down on the side of
> intellectualism with it's labeling.  And until that problem gets cleared
> up,
> I don't think we're going to get anywhere.
>

[Mark]

I believe the problem is already clear-up by Quality.  Intellectualism is
based on truths.  Quality overrides this and makes truths relative.  Many in
this forum seem to be creating barriers and demarkations where none need to
exist.  Intellectualism is an Art.  This is what Quality proposes (as in the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).  There seems to be a misconception which
separates the fine arts (for example) with intellect.  If one it true to
Quality, there is no difference.  This was why the concept of the church of
reason was brought forward.  It is not a church unless we bow to it.

If the highest level of MOQ is considered to be intellect, then it is by
definition, the highest Art, but this is misleading since one does not
necessarily control the other.  Both painting and rhetoric are arts, and
they are both equally close to Quality.  It is Quality which creates these.
 The Academy is a church.  As such, it's quality is lower than a free
posting such as this forum.  The art of the academy is lost in dogma.  Such
dogma is considered Truth.  But we appreciate that such an elevation of
truth does not stand.  I think a lot of the confusion comes when we try to
equate other philosophies such as radical empiricism to MOQ.  The attempt
seems to be to ascribe some Truth to MOQ by nailing it to some wall.  These
relevant philosophies could also be seen as derivatives of MOQ.  Once we
look at it that way, much is cleared up.

Yes, the intellect is the manipulation of abstract symbols, but this is no
different from the manipulation of a paintbrush.  We can try to compare
apples to oranges, but both are the fruits of Quality.  It cannot be
proclaimed as true that some arts are better than others.  Once Quality is
elevated above truth, then the quality of ones actions are above some
dogmatic truth.  It would seem that there are many in this forum that are
trying to proclaim some truth about MOQ.  How can this be done?  One cannot
create morals as true, only as quality choices.

Perhaps some of those who have spent some time in this forum could respond
if they disagree with this notion of Quality.  This is my understanding of
what I have read and thought of over time.  It is a radical departure from
Truth.  It does not create artificial structures from which people can
preach.  An understanding of Zen allows one to walk right through these
buildings as phantom structures.  This is The Way (Tao), if you try to get
in the way and create false buildings, the Tao simply goes around them, like
a river around a boulder (this is an incomplete metaphor, but you know what
I mean).  It is dynamic.  If one lives in Quality, SOM disappears.

Cheers,
Mark

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