I see what you are saying here, but this skill is not unique, or special. The struggling artist would be a good example. If you have ever been an artist, then chances are you have the goal to create something that you find aesthetically pleasing and others can recognize as high art. Now, 90% or so of the artists that try to be successful fail miserably - why? There can be several reasons:
1> Their art sucks by common decree.
2> Their art is "too much", "too little", "too common" or "too weird" for
the majority of people who would experience it.
3> Most common - They associate creation with truth, and wont modify their
behavior or art to succeed financially and artistically.
Worldview A and Goal A: Art is beauty and truth and cannot be compromised. Create my art to the best of my ability according to my creative integrity. Worldview B and Goal B: Economic survival depends upon a product that can be traded for other products - Survive financially
These goals may not seem contradictory to non artists - but ask one and you will see that it is a difficult combination to achieve.
No special mental skills are needed. It is simply a complicated situation in which most will fail if both goals are important. No level 3 is necessary, just sense, compromise and tenacity. U2 is an excellent example. (A note: I do not like U2 so I am not prejudice in their favor) The Joshua Tree is a lesson in subliminal manipulation. The entire album is dedicated to insulting you in words while getting money in music. It is high art manipulation. Some of you will have this album and can look at the words for the first 3 songs. Read them carefully and you will see they are carefully constructed insults. Insults you can sing along with. Effectively this means money and success while maintaining art. You will find this very common in successful groups, though not all use insults. When you look at people who sacrificed Worldview A for Goal B - you have groups like, New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, Backstreet boys, or any of the other short term "pop" artists. They succeeded in goal B - Money, but no music you can recognize now, much less 10 years from now. Although I am sure each will tell you they are Artists first.
The Stones, The Beatles, The Dead, XTC and many others found the mark. No need for level 3 - although maybe you put them in that group to jack up the "integrity" of the level idea - but aside from their musical skills, I know of nothing special about any of these people who found the mark.
I think what I am getting at is that the levels are unnecessary. Anyone who is aware that "nothing is simple" can find ways to make multiple conflicting systems function together if they wish too.
Of course, I could still be missing the point
Bill Roh
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Tim Rhodes
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 2:54 AM To: Church of Virus Subject: Re: virus: Levels, memes, metaphors, and concepts
Jake wrote:
>What is the difference between this and just saying that you have one self-
>consistent world view? I guess it is just a matter of how you articulate
>it. That isn't necessarily a small matter, so perhaps I should drop the
>"just" out of the previous sentence. The act of articulating something,
>tends to be a linear process. Articulating a series of world views that
are >consistent with each other, may be the simplest way to put it for now.
>However, there is no reason why we shouldn't be able construct better
>concepts to compress these understandings in one more simply stated
>world view - leaving it to our minds to "explode" these concepts into their
>full implications and understandings.
>
>However, if Brodie means that "level 3" folk should be able to hold
>INCONSISTENT world views, then I can only conclude that this is an
>endorsement of irrationality.
Let me propose a puzzle, see if you can make sense of it. (Or if it makes any sense at all for that matter.)
Worldview A works best for achieving result A'. Worldview B works best for achieving result B'. Worldviews A and B are completely inconsistent with one another. You desire both result A' _and_ result B'. Can you get both results? If so, how?
And can you do it without outside observers claiming that you're being irrational or inconsistent?
-Prof. Tim