Hal to Bill Powers (cont.)

The editor screwed up and sent off a partially written message.
Here's the rest:

I'm thinking that in your determination to reduce findings to pure
material manifestations of reality, you limit yourself and anyone
who applies your knowledge to the kind of control possible where
attributions of meaning are not modeled as interactive with the
material patterns. Interesting you should mention Plato. I know
of two authors--Howard Zinn in DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE and Riane
Eisler in THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE--who suggest that Plato has
reconstructed even Socrates's thinking to presume a duty to obey the
wisdom of male philosopher kings, and heads of state too. Eisler
refers to his thinking as "dominator" rather than "partnership"
thinking. Yes, he acknowledges we see only shadows, but in the end,
he presumes some of us know better than others what kind of order will
settle us all down. In the alternative model I propose, my referents
at all lower orders are subject to the tenth-level referent of
watching for my other referents to change to accommodate the gap
between my perceptions and the referents with which I have been
operating. I'm bidding to negotiate a reunderstanding of what I want
to see.

Again, I don't expect to know how clearly I've explained anything (a
higher order referent) until you tell me so. I appreciate your
pinning down for me what you don't get. I'm still learning. l&p hal