Hello all MOQers:
A funny thing happened on the way to making a list of quotes for our
political compass. The reading and thinking I did while away from here mixed
nicely with the re-reading of Lila and it gave me some surprizes. I
discovered some fresh answers to Bodvar's SOLAQI, Mr. Beasley's points on
the mysticism of Pirsig and, hopefully, some fresh ideas about the 4th & 5th
codes too. Instead of looking these issues as single bricks, I'll try to
paint a coherent picture, a coherent structure. The picture actually tries
to make yet another point, but the other issues are naturally addressed
along the way. The point that sheds so much light is this: Both the MOQ and
SOM are culturally derived and herein lies Pirsig's genius. This one's for
Rod. With apologies to those not working with the 1991 Bantam hardcover and
to those with eye strain or short attention spans.
I think the political quotes I posted last night (02/22/02) pretty much
speak for themselves and the interesting part really begins about where
those quotes end. I think its obvious to any honest reader. Pirsig says the
20th century intellectuals and contrarians are the good guys and represent
the intellect. They're the liberal, socialists and communists. He's equally
explicit in associating social level values with conservaties, reactionaries
and fascists. The interesting part begins when we look at the reason for the
failure of the good guys, the failure of "liberal intellectuals like
himself".
"That's what neither the socialists nor the capitalists ever got figured
out. From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism.
Its a higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not
just a society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives
socialism its drive. But what the socialists left out and what has all but
killed the whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite DQ."
P220
"He knew now that the reason nobody ever spelled it out was nobody ever
could. In a SOM understanding of the world these terms have no meaning.
There
is no such thing as "human rights". There is no such thing as moral
reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else." P306
To effect a proper fix, Pirsig needs to come up with a system that includes
DQ and CAN spell it out. Its not an easy task. And he has to do this without
violating the same rules that get SOM in such hot water. He has to derive
his intellectual system from the culture.
"Our scientific description of nature is always culturally derived." P299
"Once this political battle is resolved, the MOQ can then go back and re-ask
the question, Just exactly how independent is science, in fact, from
society? The answer it gives is, 'not at all'. A science in which social
patterns are of no account is as unreal and absurd as a society in which
biological patterns are of no account. It's an impossiibility." P299
"The logical order of things which the philosophers study is derived from
the mythos. The mythos is the social culture and the rhetoric which the
culture must invent before philosophy becomes possible. Most of this old
relgious talk is nonsense, of course, but nonsense or not, it is the PARENT
of our modern scientific talk. This 'mythos over logos' thesis agreed with
the MOQ's assertion that intellectual static patterns of quality are built
up out of social static patterns of quality." P378
Pirsig has to go to the parent, that old religious nonsense, because if it
is to be a valid improvement his MOQ has to be derived from the social
level. It has to be an intellectual system that's aware of it dependence on
the social level and the implied limitations. So where does he go? What is
the purest and best well-spring of social values?
"He could only guess how far back this ritual-cosmos relationship went,
maybe fifty or one hundred thousand years." P386
"One can imagine primitive... cosmology stories, myths which
generated the primitive religions. From these the first intellectual truths
could have been derived." P387
"He seemed to remember a book he'd always wanted to read called THE MASKS OF
GOD. (A four-volume set by Joseph Campbell.) You could discover a lot about
a culture by what it said about its idols. The idols would be an
objectification of the culture's innermost values, which were its reality."
P401
This is where the surprize discovery comes in. I've been reading the MASKS
OF GOD while on hiatis and I'm back to tell you that the MOQ is indeed
derived from "the cultures innermost values". SOM is too, but thinks
otherwise. Anything else is "an impossibility". SOM is derived from cultural
values whether she knows it or not. I don't mean to get off on a tangent.
The MASKS OF GOD books show that both metaphysical systems, both SOM and the
MOQ can be seen in the MYTHOS. The 3rd and fourth volumes, the ones that
cover Western civilization, trace two broad and distinct currents in our
culture. As Mr. Beasley suggested, SOM can be the Eden myth. SOM is derived
from the religions associated with this separation-anxiety-producing
creation myth. Light and Dark. Good and evil. Heaven and Hell. God and Man.
Spirit and flesh. You get the idea. What's worse is that SOM has been
derived from a bad, static version of all this and it has done so in an
unwitting, unconscious way.
The MOQ is intentionally derived from another current, pagan current, the
ancient mystical current, from the oldest ideas. Orpheus represents this
current beautifully. His transformations and permutations serve as a
constant theme throughout the MASKS OF GOD. An enclopedia told me that "some
elements of this myth may even pre-date the human species itself". He
represents the ancient shamans of siberia and thereby baers a strong
resebmlence to certain American Indians. It is said that Christ is just a
cheap knock-off version of Orpheus. Plato and Pythagoras were Orpheans in a
big way and the influence of Orphism on the ancient world can hardly be
overstated. There is a long line of dynamic contrarians from pre-historic
times right up to the present. The Orpheus myth itself can be traced
throughout history too. Mozart, Wagner, Hitchcock and U2 have done Orpheus
in more recent times. This current is more underground, but its nearly
ubiquiteous. I could go on for days, but Orpheus is just a good
representative of that current and he's old enough to harken back to the
primitive Eurasian mythologies, which are not unlike some American Indian
mythologies. The point is that the MOQ is derived from a different side the
culture, one that's hidden out in the open, an ever present alternative
cultural current. This is what Pirsig taps into.
"current research and discussion are clouded by political and social
issues." P35
Mysticism is the odd man out in the battle, denied by liberal intellectuals
and religious fanatics alike. Sure, Hitler had inclinations but they were
fundamentalist in their own way. He sent teams out to locate the holy grail,
to actually and literally dig up a mythic symbol. One of his men killed
himself over the failure to find the grail. But I digress. The point is
that SOM and the values from which it is derived are both hostile to
mysticism. But Pirsig's "whole metaphysics had started with an attempt to
explain Indian mysticism." P109
He describes their traditional use of peyote...
"...Indians who used it regarded it as a quicker and surer way of arriving
at the condition reached in the traditional "vision quest" where an Indian
goes out into isolation and fasts and prays and meditates for days in the
darkness of a sealed lodge until the Great Spirit reveals itself to him and
takes over his life." P35
And uses a "source" to provide an intellectual description of the effects...
Perceptual modifications follow,... Emotions are intensified... The
intellect is drawn to the analysis of complex realities and transcendental
questions. Consciousness expands to include all these responses
simultaneously. ...a feeling of union with nature...dissolution of personal
identity...beatitude or even ecstasy... terror and panic... P35
And gives us a few ideas about his own experience with it. The vast web of
transcendental thoughts, the feeling of something opening up, the feeling of
final coming home... and finally the germ of the MOQ. He saw that social and
intellectual values were transmitted and absorbed in mysterious ways, ways
invisible to SOM.
"Then the huge peyote illumination came: They're the orininators! It
expanded until he felt as though he had walked through the screen of a movie
and for the first time watched the people who were projecting it from the
other side." P40 (1000 slips on this insight.)
His thinking on this original illumination is expanded when he reads
PATTERNS OF CULTURE.
"When Phaedrus first read this passage he felt a kind of eerie feeling-...It
was the same feeling he got at the peyote meeting. This Zuni Indian was not
exactly someone else." P111
And he applies the "logic" of it to the brujo's effect within his own
culture and this is where he developes the first crucial step, the first
split.
"Phaedrus thought that the story of the old Pueblo Indian, seen in this way,
made deep and broad sense, and justified the enormous feeling of drama that
it produced. After many months of thinking about it, he was left with a
reward of two terms: Dynamic good and static good, which became the basic
division of his emerging MOQ." P115
And so he ends the book back where it all started.
"Americans don't have to go to the Orient to learn what this mysticism stuff
is about. It's been right here in America all along." "Phaedrus remembered
saying to Dusenberry just after that peyote meeting was over, 'The Hindu
understanding is just a low-grade imitation of THIS! This is how it must
have really been before all the clap-trap got started." P408
OK, now get ready for the big finish.
This clap-trap all started with the question: how do we fix the 4th level,
how do we replace the SOM views that have paralyzed 20th century
intellectuals? How can he include
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