On 29 Mar 2002 at 15:31, Angus Guschwan wrote:
> Dear Quality people,
> Platt raises excellent questions, but in my opinion,
> questionable responses. There is a current on this
> site of extremists who believe in the "authority of
> MOQ."
Angus and Group
Extremists! I guess I belong to those?
> The MOQ feels right, tastes right, and so if
> only the world would realign on MOQ everything would
> be ok. I quote Platt:
> > Now in the MOQ I
> > find what I consider to be a rational authority for
> > my stance.
Platt is no doubt working on his own response so I won't comment
except say that I agree with him. So I'll go on to the next paragraph.
> This stance is a "transference" problem: Platt is
> transferring his problems to an external source to
> solve his problems. It's a common technique in this
> world today (see Scientology: Soul Hackers on Google
> Groups search).
this kind of psychlogizing is part of the SOM, but first a few
preliminaries. There was a time - after my first fervor - that I started to
have second thoughts about the MoQ. It was supposed to replace the
SOM, and if so it did not look promising, I saw some possibility of Pirsig
justifying what his critics accused LILA of. Fascist "law and order" ...etc.
you know all this so I needn't repeat.
> In a world without God we think up a
> number of authority figures to replace him (Platt
> himself noted this). I call attention to this because
> I believe that Pirsig does not believe in
> "transference" to the almighty MOQ. Sam has shown in
> LILA how reluctant Pirsig was in pursuing MOQ.
Anyway, the SOL-interpretation of the MOQ solved this and again I
could savor the value of his ideas. The intellectual level is the SOM and
its moral is what we regard the "Christian values" (as we say in
Norway) and its method is the balanced, objective, psychologizing one
you flaunt. And as the top level it is the BEST!
Naturally there is then the MOQ "moral" itself which is that of seeing the
whole range of values.
> So what does Pirsig say in my opinion? He gets a lot
> of things right. A morality will be man centered, and
> not nature centered or "authority" centered.
SOM is man-centered ...seen from the SOM .... because moral from
there is subjective and only humanmankind is a subject. But in a MOQ
view no level's moral is "centered" anywhere: The levels ARE their own
value! I simply don't understand where you and so many (John B. in
particular) has it from that MOQ is man-centered?
> A
> morality will be an activism, not passive. Man will
> have to create his own morality. It will be
> value-centered,
Moral value-centered? What moral is not about values? This is NOT
the Quality Idea.
> using FACTS as guides to our values
> (thus Q-intellect is SUPREMELY important). It will
> include LIBERTY, the option to be degenerate. It will
> include PROGRESS, the need to create social change. It
> will include IDEALS, people like LILA who embody his
> IDEAL-TYPE: she has no external authority other than
> herself, and in and of that, she is a moral figure.
Yes, Q-intellect (SO (without its M)) is of supreme importance, that is
what I have tried to convince people of since I found the remedy in my
SOL-interpretation.
> It's clear that a metaphysics is insufficient. As
> Becker in Structure of Evil says (and what I wrote
> above is based on his survey of ALL of sociology up to
> Pirsig in fact) we need to rediscover Auguste Comte.
> He notes 3 stages: theology (god is dead), metaphysics
> (Victorian ism), positivism (Dynamic meaning). We have
> been through the first 2 and are now on the doorstep
> on positivism. I think ZAMM and LILA are both calls
> for a positivist morality. A morality that is created
> by man through love and actively implemented in the
> world today. Reverting to a metaphysics is a failure,
> a regression to Victorian morality. It does not work.
> And anyone trying to defend the MOQ as Pirsig's main
> line has not read LILA. The MOQ is a "wahfer thin
> mint" that if you eat it will make you sick again,
> Victorian style (time to hitch up your corsets).
I see you try to provoke Angus, but if LILA makes you sick and the
MOQ fall so short of your goals and you have other deeper thinkers,
why bother with it? Except saving extremists from their follies.
Bo
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