[MD] Zen and theArt of Religion

[Andre Broersen]

JA to Andre:
A social motorcycle is a social pattern that can be maintained, not by using a monkey-grip but by social tools. That?s what the MOQ is good for, kind-ness, social quality and friendlyness. The art of how to enter a public house for a beer and some small talk.

Andre:
The point you are trying to make JA still eludes me. Is it the language? Am I thick? The MOQ suggests that there are moral codes that establish the supremacy of the social order over biological life and other moral codes that establish the supremacy of the intellectual order over the social order (LILA p 167). 

I guess I am now unsure as to what you mean by social tools designed to maintain a social pattern. Are you talking about celebrity? Are you talking along the lines of: ¨Do as your told child, pass your grades, get a good job, find a nice friend, settle down with your house, tree and pet and generally keep your nose clean? And all will be well?
I suppose when it comes down to it each level has its own self-regulatory values as well. In your example not necessarily kind-ness and friendliness but also their poles (un-kindness and un-friendliness) to maintain some sort of balance.

JA:
My point is, the existence of something seem to be differently confirmed at the different levels. One of my favourite examples is from Kant, he was talking about ?Das Ding an Sich?, 

Andre:
It seems to me unfortunate that you are trying to confirm the existence of something through the use of Kant’s Ding as Sich. In the MOQ there is no ¨ding an sich”. They are patterns of value in a universal context of co-dependent arising.

JA:
Social patterns are detected by social behaviour. Civilized manner is measured and compared to another. Celebrity is therefore not an absolute like social patterns.

Andre:
Here you’ve lost me again. First of all: there are no absolutes in the MOQ. Social patterns are NOT considered absolute. Secondly: who suggested that celebrity is an absolute? Fame and fortune…are the twin forces in the Dynamic generation of social value (LILA,p262). What is absolute in that argument?

Are you suggesting JA (hence my confusion) that organic values cannot be detected by social values or intellectual values for that matter? Or that social values cannot be detected by intellectual values?

It appears to me that we are a long time past the observation where a social pattern is unaware of the next higher level. We are supposed to be living as a (civilized) culture which contains social and intellectual values but not biological or inorganic. 

What exactly you are arguing here JA still eludes me. Perhaps we are talking past each other or what?