Wim and others,
I have been following the discussion on the moral shortcomings of the MOQ,
which culminated in your suggestion of the need to develop a Q-ethics. I
totally agree with Roger that the MOQ as it stands is morally bereft. I am
currently working on my own synthesis of Pirsig and Wilber, and find Pirsig
actually promotes at least three different moralities in Lila.
One I quite admire; but it is only briefly suggested in a couple of pages in
Ch 32, where he talks about karmic garbage. The morality implied here is not
so different to the Christian ethic, as I see it. There is definitely an air
of a 'higher' good which is implemented by individuals who 'kill' "the
suffering that results from clinging to the static patterns of the world."
I'm sorry Pirsig has so little to say about this, as I suspect it is where
we need to go.
But this is only one of Pirsig's moral codes. The most chilling is in
Chapter 22 of Lila, where its fascism is masked by the subtle presentation.
"Kindness to children, maximum freedom, openness of speech, love of
simplicity and affinity for nature" are judged incompatible with "a complex
technological society", and must be replaced with "the finest sort of urban
adjustment", namely punctuality, attention to detail and subordination to
authority. Put so bluntly it appals, yet the meaning is clear. At times in
his description of the Giant, the modern city, he appeals to a similar
morality, where the city is described as the 'higher organism' which
'devours' people for its own purposes. (Lila Ch 17)
And of course there is the extended and poorly worked out morality of the
levels of static quality and the superiority of dynamic quality. Not only do
I agree with Roger that it is unable to sort out real world moral issues
with any success at all, but the longer I look at it, the more pathetic it
seems. Pirsig's attempt to define the indefinable results in Quality = moral
judgments = religious mysticism = perfection = value = undefined fitness =
the fundamental ground-stuff of the world = a code of art etcetc. All this
is getting pretty close to Ken Wilber's critique of metaphysics as "thought
without evidence".
Wilber develops his theoretical stance from looking at the systems others
have proposed, and searching for the overarching structures (orienting
generalisations) which can encompass them all, in broad outline, at least.
He claims there is not one metaphysical sentence in the several hundred
pages of "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality". That may be a bit exaggerated, but he
certainly is indicating he comes from a very different basis to that of
Pirsig.
Wilber's fundamental slice of the razor is to note that nothing can be well
described without incorporating elements of both interiority and
exteriority. His holarchical model then asserts that at any level of the
holarchy, whatever we attend to can be seen as complete insofar as it
represents the outworking of the level below it in the holarchy. Seen from
this level, it is as it is, drawing together the incomplete aspects of lower
levels into a new emergent unity. But from the aspect of the next level up
in the holarchy, it too is incomplete, and it is the experience of this
incompleteness that provides the lure towards the next level, at which the
incompleteness of the lower level is transformed, and "a whole new world of
available stimuli becomes accessible to the new and emergent holon". Each
developmental stage creates a new reality. (This is necessarily a cursory
and incomplete picture of Wilber's model.)
One of the strengths of Wilber's way of working is that he draws directly on
moral schemas developed by others as part of the substructure of his
thought. He is particularly influenced by studies in developmental
psychology which explore the stages of human development, including moral
and faith development (principally Kohlberg, Gilligan and Fowler).
Even if there are differences in the stages defined by different
researchers, they all tend to see a progressive development through, at the
least, preconventional, conventional and postconventional levels of moral
understanding. These patterns seem to be culturally universal. Now where
there is a meeting of Wilber and Pirsig is that Wilber would agree that the
more evolved patterns are qualitively 'better' than the lower patterns. The
higher levels of moral development are indeed 'better'. Wilber reminds us
that all quality is elitist, yet each of us is invited to explore higher
quality.
Whereas Pirsig tends to equate many dimensions of quality, Wilber
discriminates four distinguishable aspects of anything we choose to examine,
which can be described in terms of interiority or exteriority, and singular
and plural forms. Morality belongs to the interior dimension of the plural
(groups). Being interior, it is not directly accessible to science, which
can work only with the observable and measurable exterior. But the
outworking of morality does result in observable behaviour, and this can be
studied 'scientifically' by ethicists and anthropologists. And morality, at
lest at the lower levels, can be expressed in language.
Where Wilber takes us miles ahead of Pirsig is in his detailed mapping of a
large number of levels in the holarchy. He generally discriminates at least
13 such levels, but would agree that the number is somewhat arbitrary. He
argues that there are no wholes, no parts, but only whole/parts, holons, and
that each level represents a transformation of the holon in the level below,
both transcending but also including it. There are parallels with Pirsig,
but Wilber's vision is more detailed and more compelling. And critically, he
argues that the subject/object division is inherent in the lower levels, and
only transcended as we reach the higher levels of development. Thus for
someone at the magic level of moral development, subjects and objects cannot
be transcended, for the stimuli to do so are quite simply inaccessible to
someone at this level. Experiences of a deeper unity may occur, in fact do
occur constantly, but cannot be comprehended. This explains why drug
experiences can act as powerful lures to deeper states of consciousness, but
equally can become addictive traps at a low level of functioning and
morality. They offer experiences of deeper, more dynamic states, but without
the static latches of the yet to be explored intervening levels, cannot be
integrated.
Wilber offers a detailed map of the transpersonal domains, often described
as 'religious' or 'spiritual', but this development is very different to the
common use of these words when referring to the archaic, magic and mythic
structures associated with religion. One of Wilber's strong and most
impressive claims is that these higher levels are just as open to evidence
and experiment as any science. "These spiritual endeavours ... are purely
scientific in any meaningful sense of the word". (SES p 265) "The claims
about these higher domains are a conclusion based on hundreds of years of
experimental introspection and communal verification. False claims are
rejected on the basis of consensual evidence, and further evidence is used
to adjust and fine-tune the experimental conclusions." (Ibid)
Now I am often criticised as being an SOM critic of the MOQ, and to some
extent that is quite correct. As I see my position in the holarchy, I am on
the verge of entering the higher, transpersonal domains. I do not yet have
meaningful experience of these levels, but I feel keenly the inadequacies of
the levels below. However, some of those who critique my position, I am
convinced, are actually coming from an even lower level, and have not yet
experienced the integration of mind and body at the vision-logic or
Centauric level. They are back in a heavily intellectual (mythic-rational)
level, where they confuse 'understanding' the MOQ with experiencing the
world at that level (and where they use "all the formidable powers of
rationality to prop up a particular, divisive, imperialistic mythology and
an aggressively fundamentalist program of systematic intolerance" SOS p 252)
I need only point to the outpourings of otherwise rational people post Sept
11th, and rest my case.
If anyone is still reading, I would urge that all ethics is 'Q-ethics'. Each
level of the holarchy is about a new vision of quality. But to suggest that
we can construct a substantial ethics on Pirsig's shakey base is a mistake.
I would welcome the opportunity to explore the meta-questions surrounding
ethics as we move into the transpersonal domain. But, and this is the big
BUT, it cannot be done from a lower level. The only way is through a praxis
that explores the higher levels experientially. On this point Pirsig was
totally correct. The dynamic is required to be accessed to transcend each
static level. What he seems unaware of is that it is a different dynamic
each time. If you like, the dynamic itself evolves as I move through the
levels. It is not just a progression in history, from inorganic to organic
to social to intellectual, though that is perhaps a valid though partial
suggestion. It is the existential progress of my experiential life that is
central, and while the separate 'I' is indeed challenged at the highest
levels, it is an absolutely inescapable and essential component of the lower
levels. This eludes Pirsig. Indeed, I suspect Pirsig, despite his
experiences of Peyote and his mental breakdown, with their intuitions of the
mystic realm, is writing from the mythic-rational level himself.
Having just earned expulsion from the brotherhood, I will cease humouring
myself on my 55th birthday, and rest.
Regards,
John B
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