Hey all,
The final insight offered by Pirsig in LILA is that if you had to boil
the MoQ down to one sentence, it would be "Good is a noun." Personally, I
was never a big fan of this reduction. It reads cryptically and is
virtually unintelligible to one who is not already familiar with LILA, and
so is of questionable value as a summary or main point of any kind (go
ahead, try it on your friends, go up to them and say 'good is a noun' and
see if anyone is instantly stunned by your deep metaphysical acuity).
Anyway, I was recently digging through Webster's dictionary, and I was
slightly disappointed to discover that Pirsig's final insight in LILA is
somewhat less than ground breaking...
I copied this from Webster's II New College Dictionary---
good (adj):
(1) having desirable or positive qualities
(2) serving the desired end
(3)(a) not ruined or spoiled (b) being in excellent condition
(4)(a) better than average
(5) of high quality
(6) handsome
(7) beneficial
(8) skilled: competent
(9) thorough: compete
(10) safe: sure....
good (n):
(1)(a) something that is good (b) a valuable or useful aspect or part
(2) beneficial: welfare
(3) virtue: goodness
Yes, that's right. According to the dictionary, the least original and
least dynamic reference for language in existence... Good is already a noun,
and always has been. While its primary definition is given as an adjective,
the secondary definition is quite clearly, a noun. Could it be that the
editor's of Webster's have had the same deep philosophical and metaphysical
insights and epiphanies that Phaedrus had??? Could they possibly have
already figured out the intricacies of the MoQ and thus expanded their
definition of Good to include the 'MoQ in a sentence'???? Or could it be
that 'Good is a noun' is really worth zilch a metaphysical, philosophical or
linguistic insight???? It's anyone's guess. And just so there's no
confusion....
quality (n):
(1) essential character [nature]
(2)(a) An inherent or distinguishing attribute [property], (b) A character
trait.
(3)(a) Superiority of kind, (b) Degree or grade of excellence
(4)(a) High social standing (b) the upper class
(5) Timbre, as determined by overtones
(6) The character of a vowel sound determined by size and shape of the oral
cavity and the amount of resonance with which it is produced
(7) The positive or negative character of a proposition [logic]
-(adj) Superior of its kind
Good always was a noun,
Quality too,
so much for a one line MoQ.
rick
ps
the preceding should be seen as a dig only at the last paragraph of LILA,
and nothing else.
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