Hi Wim:
Don't think I can absorb your long post in one take, but would like to
give you some immediate impressions.
Your metaphor of a “story” reminded me of the following passage from
Daniel Dennett's “Consciousness Explained:”
“Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control and self-
definition is telling stories and, more particularly, concocting and
controlling the story we tell others--and ourselves--about who we are.”
Having had some experience in the field of psychology, I am not a fan
of the “story telling” explanation of how we manage to negotiate our
way through life. Nor do I consider discussing principles of a
metaphysics a story-telling exercise. For me it's more of a search for
an elegant intellectual pattern. Obviously I am very much attracted to
the pattern created by Pirsig called the MOQ, and am most reluctant to
mess with his creation any more than I would “correct” a Winslow
Homer painting. You can create your own metaphysics of morality by
borrowing patterns from Pirsig, Wittgenstein, Plato, Heidigger, Derrida
who whoever, but I doubt you will ever achieve a pattern with the clarity,
brilliance and value of the original. My goal here is to interpret the
master's work, much as art connoisseur discusses the nuances of
Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Thus I disagree with your statement, “Pirsig’s story is not identical with
the static intellectual pattern of values called the MOQ.” Anyone who
sets about to change the intellectual pattern of the MOQ cannot help
but make pale imitation of the original. I don’t admire hand-me-down
metaphysics any more than hand-me-down furniture.
I respect, of course, your feeling of shame at the inequality between the
haves and have-nots of the world. If you feel a moral obligation to do
something about it, more power to you—except the power to force me
or anyone else to redress the presumed inequality by redistribution of
income, racial preferences in hiring, or however you might like an ideal
society to behave. I have always found it curious that those who
espouse ways to correct the inequalities they perceive in the world
rarely leave the comfort of their own living rooms to do anything about it.
In any event, I find nothing in the MOQ to support a communal
approach to balance out everyone’s lot in life. As Jimmy Carter, hardly a
right-wing republican, once said, “Life is unfair.”
Along the same line, I am most suspicious of balloon words like
“freedom, justice, brotherhood, integrity of creation, “ etc. because they
have been employed by all sorts of despicable characters to justify
their dastardly deeds. Every bloodthirsty dictator from Nero to Stalin
has appealed to the “public interest” and the universal appeal of “we’re
all in this together” and “human rights” to grab and sustain power. The
fact that similar sentiments have been expressed in our Declaration of
Independence is all the more reason to demand an explanation of
precisely what is meant by those words. You will note in reading the
Declaration that it presents a list of particulars that defines precisely
what the founders meant by the larger values they appealed to. When
Pirsig referred to a “soup of sentiments,” it was precisely the lack of
definition among modern intellectuals and the implications thereof that
he was referring to. (I was most gratified to see that Marco and you
have reached agreement on the meanings of certain philosophical
terms, illustrating the importance in discussions and debate of
defining one’s terms. I vote to make FOLDOP the official philosophical
dictionary for the MD.)
You asked how I might amend the MOQ. With extreme reluctance, as
pointed out above. Personally, I would prefer that he let up on the
immorality of eating meat. Also, I think he erred in assigning Islamic
hatred of the West to our release of biological forces. Instead what
really ticks them off is our intellectual superiority. Finally, I have
suggested a fifth moral level of Art, but haven’t as yet been able to
elucidate exactly what I mean in that regard. I am trapped in SOM
language. (-:
To wind this up, as much as we would like to and to apply MOQ
principles to our lives and build a series of ethical commandments
based on them, your final paragraph in your post to Marco that just
arrived is most insightful, dead on the mark, and brilliantly expressed
(short and sweet):
>Summarizing Pirsig’s MOQ: we experience quality and only history will
>show whether we chose to be a savior or a degenerate. In other
>words: Pirsig’s answer to “How can we know what we should do?” is
>“You can’t.” He literally says in chapter 17 of “Lila”: “you can’t really say
>whether a specific change is evolutionary at the time it occurs.”
I’m sure at times, Wim, you have thought of me on occasion as being a
hopeless degenerate, and likewise at times I have shaken my head in
disbelief over some of your pronouncements. (Marco and I have had
our doubts about one another, too.) But, so long as we maintain
dedicated to keeping our hearts and minds open to DQ, which is really
Pirsig’s only advice on “what to do,’’ we will grow to admire one
another with each passing post and, who knows, even score some
sort of a fantastic breakthrough in understanding that even the mystics
have yet to discern.
Best regards,
Platt
P.S. Just for the record, as of today I am a libertarian agnostic. But who
knows what degenerate path I may succumb to tomorrow? (-:
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