[MD] 42

[John Carl]

Thanks for your response, Dan,


> John:    Without my cells I would not be and without the men
> > that build it, the city would not be.
>
> Dan:
> As Phaedrus says, it's difficult to see that the "city" isn't the
> substance of actual buildings and bricks. Rather, what binds the city
> together--what creates it--are the social quality patterns that emerge
> from the biological patterns of people.
>
>
J:  Didn't Pirsig talk about this in the context of explaining the levels?
that's the way I got it too. And I think it's an excellent analogy to
compare a city and its people to a person and their cells.  There is a
higher pattern that guides and makes a city - but it's not a process that
happens independent of it's cells.  The people of a city and the cells of a
body ARE the substance in which the waves and resonances of social
patterning (and intellectual) move and have their being.

But it's interesting to consider that the over all plan for the human,
doesn't come from "on top"  It comes from it's DNA and like wise the city's
overall plans comes from the dreams and ideas of men.




> Think of it this way: the cells that make up the structure of your
> body have little to do with your personality, or the social and
> intellectual quality patterns that comprise your life. Remember when
> Phaedrus talks about the University and how it isn't composed of
> bricks and mortar? Same analogy here.
>
>

Um.. yes.  I've heard that story.  I'm well acquainted with Pirsig's works
and have been active in discussing them for a long time.  I realize I
differ in my opinions than some on this list and I realize that's a painful
thing to some people, but I'm off the opinion that I'm here to do more than
merely learn Pirsig's MoQ. (which I learned when I read it, btw)

I'm here to fill it out and develop it further.  Usually a complete
metaphysics is about a tome of up to 1000 words in deeply technical
language - ZAMM and Lila were not that.   Beyond fleshing Pirsig's work out
completely, I want to understand how to integrate it to the world of
experience that I live in.  That's been an uphill slog, that last part so I
also want to dig in and understand why.



> >
> >
> > Dan quoting lila:
> >
> >
> >> "If "man" invented societies and cities, why are all societies and
> >> cities so repressive of "man"?
> >
> >
> > John:  Isn't it true that huge organizations like cities and corporations
> > are repressive of some men (those on the bottom) and empowering of others
> > (those on top)?
>
> Dan:
> As one of the former ones at the top, I was as repressed as any of my
> employees, perhaps more so. I had to keep feeding the tiger. I had to
> keep juggling those balls. I knew if I dropped even one, a cascade
> would ensue and wreck everything I thought was important.
>
>
John:  I see what you mean.  It's hard for me to comment upon because I've
avoided the jaws of the tiger.  It's pretty easy - you just stay poor and
unregarded your whole life. :)

But while it might be easier on our egos to blame some outward force
repressing us, the real repression is psychological and from within.  The
city is a reflection of a psychological malaise in the human heart.  It's
also the cause of it.  Nuthin is so simple as to boil down to one cause,
there's always more relations to be found the deeper we dig.



> >
> > Lila:
> >
> >
> >> Why would "man" want to invent
> >> internally contradictory standards and arbitrary social institutions
> >> for the purpose of giving himself a bad time? This "man" who goes
> >> around inventing societies to repress himself seems real as long as
> >> you deal with him in the abstract, but he evaporates as you get more
> >> specific." [Lila]
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >> Dan comments:
> >> If I am reading this correctly, it means that there are no "competing
> >> selves that make up the body of the Giant." When we begin to specify
> >> the nature of the 'Giant' we see it doesn't really exist from a
> >> substance point of view, only from a value-centric point of view.
> >>
> >>
> > John:  Ok, then it's competing values.  Because there's certainly a lot
> of
> > competition to be on top.
>
> Dan:
> There is competition everywhere.
>
>

J:  I disagree most strongly and this is the heart of the problem I see
with the current MoQ modality.  Seeing everything antagonistically is also
a psychological reaction.  It's reading ego into everything else because a
strong ego is doing the projecting.  The levels do not compete - they
cooperate.  Are you at war with the cells of your own body?  Or do you
cherish them and value them and mourn if some of them get cut off?  You're
certainly not competing with them.

Neither does the city compete with individual men.  The city values
individual persons and protects them with laws and gets angry and defensive
when a bunch of them die in a terrorist attack.  So the metaphor of the
levels competing with one another doesn't integrate with actual
experience.

In fact, I say that all antagonism, all competition is purely 3rd level.
It takes a perceived ego-greed against another perceived-ego in order the
social patterning engine to run.  And it's not all antagonism either, but a
push/pull of antagonism/cooperation.  When we come together and identify as
a group or a nation, that makes a new entity, a new self that competes with
other selves on it's level and by that I mean the social level is
many-leveled itself.

Even tho most people here think intellectual and social patterns argue,
it's not technically correct.  Intellect is a lone, individual thing.
Objective means basically "not just what other people say but what actually
is".  That's the purpose of the 4th level - to individuate.  To step back
from society and cause growth in individuation ad infitum.


Whew!  I went a bitty overboard there Dan.  It's been a while, I guess I
had some catching up to do in explaining myself.



> John:  we say that SOM
> is the big problem but if the Giant doesn't operate from the
subject-object
> point of view then there is no problem with the giant.  That seems a
faulty
> conclusion to me.    And what mechanism creates social quality patterns if
> not individual selves?  I'm sorry but this is just very confusing to me.

Dan:

> According to the MOQ, social patterns arise from biological patterns
> but have little to do with them. In fact, they actively oppose them.
> The driving forces of the social level are celebrity values of fame
> and wealth. From the janitor who mops the floors to the CEO high in
> his tower, everyone is seeking to have their voices heard.
>
> Praise costs nothing yet it empowers in ways that money could never
> do. Praise is a form of celebrity value, like the applause the actor
> hears after nailing a particularly difficult line. A raise in pay or a
> bonus is wonderful but if it doesn't come with a pat on the back, it
> means less. In fact, it means nothing.
>
> Notice that none of this has anything to do with subject/object
> metaphysics.
>
>
John:  Yeah, I just realize I've been avoiding that one too.  Let's save it
for another day.


>> The system is real and yet non-physical.
>
>
>
> John:  In fact it could be said that everything is.   Real and yet
> non-physical that is.

Dan:

> In the MOQ, inorganic and biological patterns are physical. We can
> pick them up, examine them, put them under microscopes. Social and
> intellectual patterns are non-physical. If you were to take two people
> and examine them carefully, you couldn't tell which one was the CEO
> and which one was the janitor.
>
>
J:  Ok, sure.  Given the understanding that by "physical" we mean
experience of a certain value.  Agree.

>  Dan:
>
> The
>> only thing that holds this system in place is our conception of it.
>>
>>
> John:  I agree but wonder if you agree with me on the nature of this
> "our".  Is it personal or communal to you?

Dan:

> Lila doesn't possess quality. Quality possesses Lila.
>
>
John:  So *not* personal then.  Gotcha.  But like the epithet "physical",
"personal" is an aspect of experience that has a certain value;  is it
not?   But a personal possession of the system that holds us together would
be a dreadful solipsism and one that holds us would be a dreadful
absolutism so I like to thinks that Lila and Quality possess each other -
in a kind of dance that is.

>>[John]

> > I have a small problem with this word "competing" when applied between
> the
> > levels.  Isn't it true that values compete within levels but not so much
> > between?  Pirsig said the levels were largely discrete - that means they
> > don't have that much to do with one another.  It certainly obviates the
> > idea of any widespread competing going on.
>
> Dan:
> They are discrete and yet continuous. The whole premise of Lila is to
> show how rigid social values (Rigel) hold the culture in place while
> the biological degenerates (Lila) tear it apart. Then along comes the
> intellectual folk (Phaedrus) who kick everything down the riverbank
> and upend the whole shebang.
>
> The Victorian values of the late 19th and and early 20th centuries
>


John:  Modernism



> were usurped by the intellectual evolution of society. The beatniks
> and the hippies furthered the cause only to misunderstand the scope of
> their movements.



J: Post Modernism (reaction)



> Even today we see, particularly here in the US, the
> fight between social values (creationism) and intellectual values
> (evolution.)
>
> I hope this helps,
>

All agreed except I want to make a very important point using  Galileo's
conflict with the church.  You see, all science was a part of the church in
those days.  Monks were the scientists.    it was all God's creation in
everybody's eyes - including Galileo's.  But the churchmen on Galileo's
side were opposed by some more powerful churchman who were the
conservatives and didn't like change.   It wasn't scientific
intellectualism vs. social rule.  It was two different social groups
warring - each with different interests.  The only way you can call the
competition intellect vs. social, is that some social groups are more
intellectually oriented than others.  But all competition is inherently
social.


As I see it.


John