In a message dated 1/29/01 9:29:22 AM Central Standard Time,
pholden@cbvnol.net writes:
> PLATT
> A couple of comments. First, you seem to want to avoid using morality
> as a synonym for Quality. I thought we agreed that in the MOQ
> Quality=Morality=Good=Direct Experience. So my response to your first
> question, “. . . then why use the word morality?” is why not? Belief in
> the
> MOQ depends on accepting the extension of the word “morality”
> beyond the just the social/cultural context.
>
> Second, while New York city may have improved in quality since the
> sixties due to an increased enforcement of law, the general decline in
> intellectual and social quality in the U.S. has been documented in
> numerous books, an example being “Closing of the American Mind-
> How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the
> Souls of Today’s Students” by Alan Bloom. But, one needn’t read
> books to know there’s been a decline. Just look at the degradation of
> the American Presidency by Clinton, passively accepted by the public,
> along with the general decline in popular culture as exemplified in the
> Super Bowl half-time show. In viewing the American scene today I’m
> reminded constantly of Pirsig’s neon sign that keeps flashing
> PARADISE-PARADISE, pointing to “the same low-quality thing that he
> saw everywhere but which couldn't be put into words.” Economically,
> technologically things are good. But moral degeneracy and dwindling
> quality is evident everywhere.
>
>
Hi Platt
First of all, I think I pass the test.
I think we agree on several issues, particularly regarding the scope of
Morality. In the past I've pointed out that "the cold objectivity" which
science utilizes to give us all our current "technological goodness" could
indirectly lead to some of the moral decay we now sense. Glenn, of course,
totally disagrees. I know that you've said you don't want to "attack" the
sci-method, and I'm not asking you to do that, but what are your views
regarding "cold objectivity" contributing to our current moral decay? Is
there any connection in your opinion? Pirsig thinks so, or so it seems from
the following quote:
(LILA page 351: "It's this intellectual pattern of amoral 'objectivity' that
is to blame for the social deterioration of America...")
Old-style family values are cherished by half of America and despised by the
other half, or so it sometimes seems to me. These values, as Pirsig says in
LILA page 355: "...should be dusted off and re-examined, fairly and
impartially, to see what they were trying to accomplish and what they
actually *did* accomplish toward building a stronger society."
I've said in previous posts that I believe morality to be as real as gravity,
and we have a strong intuitive sense of how both of them works. Gravity is
accepted as "real" only because it conforms to mathematical descriptions. We
can't describe morality with math (yet) and that's the reason they say it's
not real.
Cells IMO are subject to the powers of gravity and morality. We have an
intuitive sense of both, but only one conforms to mathematical description.
So this means insects and animals such as bumblebees, water buffalos, and
even wildcats have primitive moral codes (survival). We humans simply have,
along with advanced intellects, advanced moral codes (compassion, etc).
"These moral bads and goods are not just 'customs.' They are as real as rocks
and trees." (LILA page 355)
So I think it's fair to say Pirsig considers morality to be as real as
gravity. I wonder how many members agree that Morality and Quality are the
same thing? Platt, you agree. Horse agrees. Jonathan agrees (i think!). 3WD
I'm not sure about. Diana I believe thinks they are different, and does Ian,
Dennis, and probably Glenn. If I'm mistaken, please let me know. We should do
a survey on this issue. We really should.
We need Society and the Social Level. "Science is totally unconcerned with
*social* values and morals, particularly church values and morals."
(paraphrased quote from LILA page 342)
Pirsig says we need the Social Level in LILA page 354: "If man is basically
good, then maybe it is man's basic goodness which invented social
institutions to repress this kind of biological savagery in the first place."
Why are we going downhill morally? Is Objectivity to blame at all? That's the
question, and I'll end my post with this quote from LILA page 317: "From the
perspective of subject-object science, the world is a completely purposeless,
valueless place. There is no point to anything. Nothing is right and nothing
is wrong. Everything is just functions, like machinery. There is nothing
morally wrong with being lazy, nothing morally wrong with lying, with theft,
with suicide, with murder, with genocide. There is nothing morally wrong
because there are no morals, just functions."
Jon
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