Hullo Angus,
I enjoyed the implicit challenge (in your post of 23.12.01) enough to
actually re-read all your posts for the past few months.
While you make many good points and (to me) provocative interpretations,
somehow I find your stance unconvincing, as I do Bo's, for example. I
suspect this is because we are arguing from different levels of
understanding, and unfortunately there is no remedy for this situation other
than for each of us to continue to progress with our exploration of whatever
our 'truth' may be, with the possibility that some day we shall be
sufficiently at the same level to understand each other. I notice that you
conceded that my enlightenment might even come through reading Wilber, which
is obviously not your path. Your suggestion appears to lead to the view that
each of us finds the path which is right for us, and these paths may be as
many and diverse as there are people. Or perhaps they fall into broad
groups, as the Enneagram suggests, and there are actually only a limited
number (9?) of basic stances possible. Do you have any views on this?
I am inclined to challenge your repeated assertion that Lila is somehow
about Pirsig's adolescent sexual desires. (In your most recent post you said
"a man dealing with adolescent desires is Pirsig's "identity" so he went
with it.") This seems your issue rather than his. Of course it is an aspect
of the story, and the metaphysics, but I fail to see it as central. The book
was originally to be about Indians, remember, and turned into a dissertation
on objectivity. Lila adds some spice to the rather boring metaphysics, and
'objectifies' biological value, as well as dynamic value of a particular
type, but your perspective on it seems like you are showing Pirsig as having
a huge issue with sex, which I certainly missed. Certainly the first part of
the book ends with a discussion of "sexual quality", with a small 'q'. He
dithers about whether it is better to have wisdom or be attractive to the
ladies, and opts for having both, which is really only an issue if you set
up a metaphysics where you claim the levels are both hierarchic and
discrete, and are in open conflict with each other. Place wisdom above
sexuality in this way, and there is an issue. Intellect judges biology;
biology judges intellect. They don't like each other.
But the end of the book has another orientation. "Lila was still moving
toward Dynamic Quality. All life does. This breaking up of her life's
patterns looked like it was part of that movement."(Ch 32) This seems to me
the theme of the book in regards to Lila, the person. You seem to miss this.
I am always fascinated by people who think very differently to the way I do.
You certainly challenge me at times, but in response to your words
"You've got to learn to "see" and stop "Thinking." I guess I have this urge
to cure you of this "new age" sickness, which I suppose reveals something
about my
false drama. There is no cure to this false drama, well death is as Socrate
might say, but you can fight it as Nietzsche would say. So to bastardize
David Byrne, "stop thinking sense.""
my response would be
To stop thinking is indeed valuable, at times. There are also many times
when a little thinking is invaluable. I am working in my own way at
exploring a world which is not mediated by thought. Like Pirsig, I would
prefer to have both: that is, I would like to be able to "think sense", and
to live in experience unmediated by thought. What I am not interested in is
thinking nonsense, so if that is the import of your message I am certainly
not interested. But then, as you say, the issue is yours, the 'false drama'
is yours, and if you aspire to be a teacher you will need to phrase your
critique in a form accessible to your student.
Regards,
John B
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:43 BST