[MD] Sociability Re-examined

[John Carl]

Dan,

You could say I put my response to you on the bottom of my pile...

or you could say that I save the best for last!
ything like you suggested

>> Well, you could argue of course, that I drew the wrong conclusion from
>> Pirsig's point, but the point itself, came from Pirsig
>> and I didn't exactly misattribute, as I did get the context of the
>> statement wrong.  But whatever Pirsig said, the point should be obvious
>> to
>> any reasonable person - "social" is a term with wide scope.
>
> Dan:
> Sure it is. Which is why it behooves us to use the term in the context
> of the MOQ, at least when we are discussing it here. Otherwise we are
> simply talking past each other.

Jc:  Agreed.


>> Dan:
>>
>>> My point had more to do with being submerged in culture, human
>>> culture. Everything we know is filtered through it.
>>>
>>>
>> Jc:  Agree.  What is culture then but codified social patterns - turned
>> into rules and truisims, matters of law and matters of courtesy?
>
> Dan:
> According to the MOQ culture is a collection of social and
> intellectual patterns of quality.

Jc:  According to experience, nothing that is above the 1st level, is
just one kind of pattern.
All higher patterns contain the lower, unless you believe in spirits
or angels which are non-material beings.
And there might be a possibility that non-living "entities" might be
personalized and in  a sense,
socially engaged.  This was Royce's postulation and it certainly was
believed by many American Indian Cultures.
Also Quantum Mechanics hints at the idea of consciousness being
connected to matter.  Who knows?


>
> JC:
>> These patterns have a basic structure of known rules - rules that if you
>> break, society frowns in one way another.  The rules used to be handed
>> by the Church, but we've changed and the church is dead, as an arbiter of
>> morality anyway.  This isn't to say that we are truly post-religious,
>> however.  We've just changed
>> religions, that's all.  I'd say the modern religion is SOM.  Faith in the
>> objective affirmation for one's subjective status.
>
> Dan:
> I cannot buy that. It flies in the face of common sense. There are
> plenty of religious people around, lots of churches, and tons of
> believers. Subject and object metaphysics is a term used by Robert
> Pirsig to describe a mind set pervasive in Western culture... it is
> not a religion.
>


Jc:  I know that my assertion that Humanism is a kind of religion,
falls flat.  But I think y'all are too blinded by
your experience of religion and not thoughtful enough concerning the
history and scope of religion.
The thing is, people have made a religious out of being
anti-religious.  They don't see this because
they associate religion with certain religions - they take the
instances for the category.  I'd like to examine the category - what
it is that religion is in its universal
aspect rather than its particulars.  It was in the most universal way,
that I postulated the 3rd level as the religious level and only
incidentally
included SOM as a religious pattern.

As I see it, accepted intellectually drawn ideas must have a means of
transferall to subsequent generations and religion is the mechanism by
which
truths are dogmatically transferred.

I realize that this is a radical departure from the common way of
viewing things, but I'd like some argument  on it besides,
"that's not the common way of viewing things". :-)

>> Jc:   My proposal to address the religious aspects of the 3rd level is to
>> everyone's advantage, I hope.  If it wasn't, I wouldn't bring it up.
>> Religious thinking is at the root of more problems in the world than any
>> other level.  Intellectual disagreements are settled
>> through arguments.  Religious conflicts tho tend to more violent means.
>> But that doesn't mean we can solve all
>> these problems by ignoring religion or pretending it doesn't exist.
>
> Dan:
> I don't think anyone is pretending religion doesn't exist. I know I'm
> not. Nor am I ignoring it... I am addressing it as directly as
> possible. From what I gathered, you were not addressing the religious
> aspects of the third level so much as you were equating it with the
> third level, as if human beings are bound up with religion to the
> extent they cannot live without it, that it drives all their social
> values, and without it we would be lost. It is that nonsense that I
> cannot abide.

Jc:  To be sure, I believe that without it all intellectual quality
would be lost.  We have to have religion to transfer
intellectual patterns of quality to our young, before they are old
enough to intellectualize.



>
>>JC:
>> I would say that a strong component of the growth of fundamentalism in
>> varying religions is due to a reaction against the SOM
>> idea that there is no such thing as value.
>
> Dan:
> I suspect if you were to ask any person of religion what SOM was, they
> would have no idea what you were talking about. No... I would say the
> growth of fundamentalism is the vine strangling the tree.
>

Jc:  Fundamentalists may not understand the label SOM, but what they
are fighting against is the socially supported
idea that there is no real basis for morality.  They go overboard in
their reaction (that's the nature of reactions) but make no
mistake, what they are reacting against is SOM.



>
> Dan:
> I don't see that at all. I think part of the problem is the preaching
> of a static religion vs a Dynamic understanding outside the boundaries
> of any religion... something like this:
>
> "There's an adage that, "Nothing disturbs a bishop quite so much as
> the presence of a saint in the parish." It was one of Phaedrus'
> favorites. The saint's Dynamic understanding makes him unpredictable
> and uncontrollable, but the bishop's got a whole calendar of static
> ceremonies to attend to; fund-raising projects to push forward, bills
> to pay, parishioners to meet. That saint's going to up-end everything
> if he isn't handled diplomatically. And even then he may do something
> wildly unpredictable that upsets everybody. What a quandary! It can
> take the bishops years, decades, even centuries to put down the hell
> that a saint can raise in a single day. Joan of Arc is the prime
> example.
>
> "In all religions bishops tend to gild Dynamic Quality with all sorts
> of static interpretations because their cultures require it. But these
> interpretations become like golden vines that cling to a tree, shut
> out its sunlight and eventually strangle it." [Lila]
>
> Dan comments:
>
> That is the key to marrying science and religion. It will not happen
> by thumping all the bibles in the world or by throwing around any of
> the other holy scriptures. When you praise religious leaders, who are
> you talking about? The bishops, of course, and not the saints. Saints
> are too 'out there' to lead anyone anywhere. They may have followers
> but they are not leaders.
>
> As far as I can see the MOQ does not denigrate science or the academy.
> If anything, it is the static conventional religion that the MOQ finds
> wanting, the fervent fundamentalists who close their eyes to anything
> not written in their so-called sacred texts.
>

Jc:  The MOQ certainly denigrates science in the eyes of the
scientist.  The scientist says science is all there is.
The MoQ says there is more to experience than science can describe.

The fundamentalist, like the MoQist, sees this flaw in science but
throws out the baby with the bathwater by rejecting science
where the MoQ simply puts it in its proper place.

Dan:

> Here in the United States we have the creationists striving to
> undermine science while in the Middle East there are those just like
> them who desire to live by strictures so outdated no normal person
> would believe it, which is what gives these people their power. There
> is no arguing with them and the sad thing is that they will give rise
> to a whole new generation.
>
> A little static religion can be a dangerous thing... a lot of it can be
> deadly.
>

You're right, Dan.  It's just I think more understanding and analysis
is needed, rather than the sneering rejection that religion as a whole
generally
receives.

I'm just reading an essay by Royce on William James and it seems to me
that James' thinking on the matter is brilliant and ought to be
followed.
I guess I should ask, how much of James does the MoQ embrace and what
exactly does it reject?

Thanks Dan,

JohnC