virus: Response to Zander

Richard Brodie (RBrodie@brodietech.com)
Mon, 9 Dec 1996 15:44:21 -0800


>On the other hand, in science rather than in marketing, saying what you
>mean is typically looked on in a more favourable light. I'd like to
>think what we do on this list is more akin to science than
>salesmanship.

How about the science OF salesmanship?
>
>For every criticism or question, you respond by suggesting the
>questioner is either lesser because he's not Level-3 or `just doesn't
>get it,' or `has an obscured relative view.'

Curious that it seems that way to you. Are you attributing those quoted
phrases to me? I don't even know what an "obscured relative view" is, so
I doubt I said that. And just because you don't like the fact that the
answer to many questions is "look at it from Level 3," that doesn't mean
that isn't the answer. As to suggesting that Level-2 people are
"lesser," you may be reading in an insult where none is intended.

> You apply the concept of
>relativism to all arguments but your own. That would seem to proclaim
>it loud enough, wouldn't you think?

Once again, I state many times in both my books that these are models,
not Truth.
>
>> If it were so, it were a grievous fault. But since I have a whole
>> chapter in VotM (and another one in GPOK) about NOT doing that, you must
>> mean that, while I INTELLECTUALLY know not to confuse the two, I'm
>> unconsciously doing it anyway. Example?
>
>Be careful ascribing `what I know' if you will, I'm not interested in
>setting precedent for that. I can't say what you intellectually know,
>its quite possible you intellectually, consciously and intelligently
>confuse the two; that's certainly one possible take on the entire
>Level3
>thing.

I'm not making sense of your argument here.
>
>Christianity is `at most enlightening and empowering' even as it led to
>the Crusades and suffocation of opposing, and equally valid, modes of
>thought.

It's up to each conscious person to decide which memes he wants to
propagate and which, if any, he wants to suffocate. It's unconscious,
militant ignorance that fuels viruses of the mind.
>
>Personally, I'm not actively trying to be obnoxious, whether or not my
>cojones are whole or I want to get a point across. I suppose I still
>suffer from the rhetorical conceit of respecting my audience. This may
>be a currently unpopular position to take, but I need some
>old-fashioned
>horse sense sometimes.

I can't let you slide in your unstated assumption that it's somehow
better to be unobtrusive. What makes you think it's sensible to be timid
and conforming in your rhetorical style? Have you experimented? Do you
think Shaw was a net minus to the world?
>
>> No, there's a tangible difference in the process of Level-2 folks who
>> become fearful, angry, or defensive at a belief conflict and Level-3
>> learners who are agile in their mental repositioning. Level-3'ers do
>> have a new process, just as Level-2 folks are able to see the forest for
>> the trees while Level-1'ers can't.
>
>The only /tangible/ difference that you have been able to communicate,
>however, is one which I see as a matter of degree, not of kind. The
>entire Leveling scheme seems more the work of salesmanship than
>engineering or science from this point.

By the nature of Level 2, you are unable to see how different your
consciousness would be when you achieve Level 3. Sorry. I know you hate
that answer. Wish I had a better one.
>
>Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
>CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
>Do you know what a "meme" is?
>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>