Hi All,
Having been laid low with a nasty cold, and having my computer out of order
as well, I have just struggled through a mountain of the last week's debate.
I emerge saddened, not much wiser, but not entirely devastated.
Sam, I found your four theses a great blend of intellect and morality. You
said in your opening words "If the MOQ stands for anything it is for the
value of the truth - a system which is open to the truth and the reality of
the situation is one that is of higher quality than one which is not." I
sense this concern has underlaid your continued contributions, and I cannot
endorse it too highly.
I have found myself very supportive of some people I have not always agreed
with in the past. Marco, I appreciated your "I am an American" post of 16.9,
and Rasheed, I found myself in unexpected agreement with some of your posts,
particularly the extended one from Tamim. Horse wrote with justice "I would
doubt that anyone on this list would be so stupid or callous as to say that
the U.S. deserved to be attacked or that the thousands of lives lost in the
WTC atrocity can be justified." He went on, with equal justice, to show, as
did many others, that the US has been far from blameless in its own use of
force. The same can be said of my own country, Australia, which shares with
the US a deplorable history amounting to genocide against our own native
peoples, and each has played dirty with neighbouring countries. And Tanya,
thank you for sharing Auden's poem, which seemed to me to speak at a deeper
level to the events of last week.
My sadness arose from the responses of Platt and Roger, not just initial
outpourings understandable in the circumstances, but maintained and defended
in increasingly vehement and accusing ways. I have enjoyed my differences of
opinion with both in the past, and saw them as 'elder statesmen' of the
forum. I have visited America, have relatives there, and have good friends
from there. I do not hate America. I celebrate those aspects of the US which
are indeed admirable. But my concern in this forum is with two things; the
first, as Sam indicated above, is the truth as I see it. The second is the
exploration of Pirsig's thoughts on quality, and how quality might shape our
perception of truth.
Platt says "it is clear that the MOQ considers attacks against society such
as occurred in the U.S. this week to be rooted in biological values designed
to undercut and destroy social values." Perhaps I am just a little dense,
but it is by no means clear that such attacks are biological. Indeed, my
understanding of 'biological' would rule this out. The attacks appear
ideological, which is a very different, and much more an intellectual,
level. But Squonk (and Wim) have already said that. And Marco has pulled you
up on your misquoting of the "Intellect has a defect in it" thread. But it
was your latest statement on the environment that really floored me.
You said "Since Pirsig says nothing about the environment per se, I
hesitate to inject my views about it on this site. There are more pressing
matters where the MOQ can be looked to for guidance."
It was my privilege to organize a lecture in my home town only two weeks ago
by Thom Hartmann, a US citizen, and author of "The Last Hours of Ancient
Sunlight", in which he charts the likely future of a world in which the oil
is running out. Since reading his book a year ago, I have found his thesis
well supported in reputable enough journals such as 'New Scientist'. His
lecture was polemical, and thought provoking, even if I have reservations
about some of his conclusions. He is concerned that the world is entering a
new feudalism, in which corporations are carving up markets with absolute
indifference to the outcomes on us, their future serfs. I am not sure that
he is right, but I must say I am less inclined to see protests against
economic globalisation as some rat-bag, leftist conspiracy, since listening
to him. I still see some aspects of globalisation as valuable, and tend to
agree with him that it is the absence of deeper values in our consumer
society that fuels our dis-ease. Part of any solution to our problems is
surely a rediscovery of 'community', both locally, in meeting our basic
needs for human contact and validation, and globally in terms of learning to
plan for not just our immediate 'pursuit of happiness', but for the welfare
of future generations. I agree totally with Paul when he says, "When I look
at the people surrounding me, I don't see happiness. What I see is a
misunderstanding of where happiness is."
Hartmann, like Pirsig, is drawing lessons from the US Indians, in this case
the Iroquois Nation and its enlightened constitution which contributed so
much to the US Bill of Rights. I won't go on, except to say that to sustain
a standard of living for all human beings on earth equivalent to a survival
income in the US or Australia, is just not possible. The resources are
finite and humanity keeps increasing inexorably. If Pirsig has nothing to
say about this most urgent of issues, and we choose to ignore it, then we
shall reap the whirlwind. As Derrick said, "America's power is great;
attendent is great responsibility."
So how to sum all this up. I feel like Pirsig as he walked out of the Hindu
University in Benares. I just give up. All the talk about a Metaphysics of
Quality has done nothing to improve our world, it seems, and does little to
change our generally knee-jerk reactions to disasters such as we saw last
week. I actually see the reactions in this forum as essentially religious,
particularly from Platt and Roger, rather than any form of reason informed
by value. Pirsig is his own best critic when in Ch 29 of ZMM he says that
Phaedrus' attempt to create a new philosophy, a new spiritual rationality,
was the wrong path. What we have exemplified in the US response to teror is
"the evil of our technology, the tendency to do what is 'reasonable' even
when it isn't any good." But what Pirsig eventually gave us was a
metaphysics, and that ain't no better. It doesn't fix things either.
I am not totally downcast. As Pirsig says "any further improvement of the
world will be done ... by individuals making Quality decisions and that's
all." (ZMM Ch 29) What we need is a better road map for educating ourselves,
and others, to more rapidly ascertain the quality options that can inform
our actions. After much thought, I doubt that the MOQ will help. Ken Wilber
has his faults, but still offers a superior vantage point for charting our
uncertain future. Pirsig, sadly, appeals to a sick machismo in all of us
when he speaks of crushing germs. We only need to label Bin Laden or some
ethnic or religious group as the germs, and we are back in the crusades.
"Remember the cruelties".
In a sense I endorse the attack on religion that was made by someone. It is
the fundamentalists, of whatever ilk, armed with technology they could never
have created, but can easily use or corrupt, who scare me. But the only
solution to fundamentalism is education where possible, social justice and a
fair share of life's goods where practicable, and firmness where necessary.
As Wilber makes clear in his recent books, though, progression through the
moral hierarchy cannot be short circuited. What must be done is to provide
the support that allows each individual to move on, and not become stuck in
a low level moral stance. Yet to do this actually entails valuing every
level of the moral hierarchy, since none can be avoided. Each is grown
through in each individual life journey. My hope is that education can
facilitate this journey for each of us. The alternatives are grim.
John B
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