Hi John,
Thanks for the post. You make me think and see.
Forgive the length, I didn't have the time to make it
shorter (to 'tween Twain's trenchant thought, tick
tock).
> some of the fundamental differences between
> people in this group,
> yet in a thoroughly confusing way.
My take is this: we're forgetting the story part of
Lila. The story to me equates to the Dynamic Quality
of the author. Everyone thinks its boring and stupid
and therefore they dismiss it BUT it's half the
battle. For the MOQ to have integrity, it needs to
present itself using some of the MOQ itself. What is
the DQ of an author? His ideas and his story. His
static quality and his Dynamic Quality. The closest
way to catch his DQ is a story. I think some others on
this list want the static quality part of the book,
the actual Metaphysics of Quality, to somehow capture
the DQ of the book, which by definition of MOQ it
can't. I guess I'm using the MOQ against the MOQers as
the MOQers use the MOQ against SOMers. Now that's a
mouthful. That's at least my camp (I have s'mores
ready for those mouths). I'm late Wittgensteinian in
this sense, and my feeling is Bo, Platt, etc. are
early Wittgensteinian. What is that split? Late
Wittgenstein says we obviously do communicate DQ
experiences, whereas early Wittgensteinians says we
can not talk about DQ experiences. Pirsig does say DQ
is describable!!!, but not definable. It's an
important distinction and contains the basis of my
view. Just because we can not define DQ does NOT mean
we can't communicate it. Definitions live in language,
descriptions live in life. Thus, we all live in 2
worlds that are communicating at the same time: a
world in life and a world in language.
> You say, Angus, "There is a current on this site of
> extremists who believe
> in the 'authority of MOQ'". I take it that it is
> this search for a moral
> authority outside oneself that you are attacking.
I think Pirsig thinks there is an outside moral
authority BUT labelling it as MOQ or any other
attached object is "transference" in my opinion. When
I watch MOQers touting MOQ as a moral authority, in my
opinion, they don't get it, or rather, they're not
communicating that they get it. I think Platt probably
gets it but doesn't communicate it with high quality.
I'm not being mystical because I think the discussions
of the story can help us deal with the moral authority
aspect instead of referring to the actual metaphysics.
That's all I am calling for in this quote of moral
authority. Let's turn to the story for Dynamic Quality
discussion and let's be careful in whipping around the
term "MOQ." A lot of this is the very loose use of the
term "MOQ:" people use it sloppily. It's a static
intellectual pattern that includes a description of
dynamic quality. But "MOQ" does not "contain" DQ: if
anything it's a pointer of sorts, a Derridaean "trace"
of sorts, a Aquinean "unmoved mover", a Buddhist "one
hand clapping." page 466 "this metaphysics... was a
CONNECTING LINK to a PART of THEMSELVES which had
always been suppressed by cultural norms and which
needed opening up." MOQ literally is a "meta" physics
because it refers to itself in its expression (and I
mean expression in the full expression of all aspects
of the MOQ). The MOQ is a recursive metaphysics, and
thus it has integrity. It performs what it sets out to
do. It is the doing of the do of metaphysics (Platt
put it better, something like: Quality is the
experience of quality that creates quality.)
> So far I follow what you say, but you then totally
> loses me with your
> "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."
> Clear as mud to me, though it sounds like a rewrite
> of Nietzsche. Please
> explain, Angus.
Let's go to the beginning of the book LILA (here is an
example of HOW we might talk about MOQ as moral
authority in regards to DQ). Phaedrus says, and these
are the first 10 pages or so, that he had seen Lila
before he met her. He describes these incidents where
he imagines seeing Lila and literally equates it to
dreams. Then, this important quote: "There is Lila,
this single private person who slept beside him now,
who was born and now lived and tossed in her dreams
and will soon enough die and then there is someone
else - call her "lila" - who is immortal and who
inhabits Lila for a while and then moves on. The
sleeping Lila he had just met tonight. But the waking
Lila, who never sleeps, had been watching him and he
had been watching her for a long time." (p.6) Note the
capitals for the temporary "Lila," and the lower case
"lila" for the immortal. I venture to guess that Lila
is Pirsig's Anima, akin to the Asa-NIsi-MAsa of
Fellini's 81/2. Thus, I support my contention that
Lila is about a one night stand in the sense it is
about the integration of Phaedrus' anima with himself.
As proof, at the end of the book, quote P462 "You did
one moral thing on this whole trip.... You told Rigel
that Lila had Quality." Thus, instead of the
idealization of "lila" the anima, he integrates the
real Lila and accepts her as real and acknowledges the
"Other." For every person, this integration is
different, so in that sense there is no moral
integrity. But in the abstracted sense of the "other"
everyone has an external authority which is some
projection of the self. LILA is the IDEAL for Pirsig,
Phaedrus, but it is not the ideal for others. Lila is
the ANIMA of Phaedrus, the Other of him and he
successfully integrates her: "So you gave something to
[LILA], and that's what SAVED YOU. If it hadn't been
for that one moral act, you'd be headed down the coast
tomorrow with a LIFETIME OF LILA ahead of you." (p
462) Further I venture to speculate that ZAMM is
Pirsig's integration of shadow and LILA is the
integration of his anima. Aion: Phenomenology of the
Self: " Recapitulating, I should like to emphasize
that the integration of the shadow, or the realization
of the personal unconscious, marks the first stage in
the analytic process, and that without it a
recognition of anima and animus is impossible. The
shadow can be realized only through a relation to a
partner, and anima and animus only through a relation
to a partner of the opposite sex, because only in such
a relation do their projections become operative."
So in fact the 4 levels equate to 4 characters of
LILA: Aion "The recognition of the anima gives rise,
in a man, to a triad, one third of which is
transcendent: the masculine subject (Rigel), the
opposing feminine subject (Lila), and the transcendent
anima (Phaedrus). The missing fourth element that
would make the triad a quaternity is, in a man, the
archetype of the Wise Old Man (Dusenberry and/or John
Wooden Leg), which I have not discussed here, and in a
woman the Chthonic Mother. These four constitute a
half immanent (inorganic/biology) and half
transcendent (social/intellect) quaternity, an
archetype which I have called the marriage quaternio.
The marriage quaternio provides a schema (Erin you
there?) not only for the self but also for the
structure of primitive society
> I think Pirsig is
> much more interested in a metaphysics than a
> positivist morality, and that
> you are reading this into Lila, Angus.
I think I am reading into it too BUT that is the
privilege of the viewer of ART. "Lila" is not Pirsig's
anymore; it's a text, thus, it is mine. Thus, I call
it a revelation in the sense that maybe Pirsig didn't
know what he was doing in the sense that he was
possessed. An overemphasis on the metaphysics ruins my
interpretation. I offer my interpretation and you can
leave it; I don't care. BUT it works for me and I can
support it as I did above.
>I see much
> more of this 'positivist
> morality' in ZAMM, actually, and I see Lila as a
> backward step, a retreat
> from active involvement in relationships to a
> thinking about morals, a
> metaphysics.
See my theory on the Anima above. It's a Jungian
progression from ZAMM, shadow insight, to LILA, anima
insight. It's couldn't work any other way and thus it
is NOT regressive from my POINT OF VIEW. BUT I can see
your point of view AS WELL. So I do not DISAVOW your
point of view and I think it is legitimate. But using
paraconsistent logic, it can be both "regressive" and
"progressive." I'm relying on Deleuze's (Nietzsche and
Philosophy) abandonment of Dialectic for a multiple
point of view theory. I too miss the activism and I
worry about Wim's progress dialectics POV. In my POV,
there has to be an activism, a call to action. So
maybe beyond integration of anima is a transpersonal
integration ala Wilber that reinvokes a call to arms,
arms of hugs, arms of strength, arms of assertiveness.
What's your thoughts on this John?
> Pirsig
> seems quite emphatic
> that his aim in Lila was to write a metaphysics, and
> to me the story line
> has always felt contrived and remote.
He is NOT a good story writer NOR is Wilber for that
matter. BUT, he went the RIGHT Direction: only in a
fusion of ideas and story can you "be" the metaphysics
he calls for. He reminds me of Salinger in the
inverse: Pirsig came from philosophy to writing
stories, whereas Salinger came from stories to writing
philosophy. When i say Salinger is "writing
philosophy" I mean he choose not to integrate a
metaphysics in his stories and so he is NOW SILENT. A
FUSION of story and ideas is the new MYTHOLOGY, and I
think the internet has a lot to offer in this realm.
> Put simply, he
> was more concerned with
> his filing system than with Lila Blewitt.
Read it again. It's all about LILA. She is HIS Other.
Random LILA quotes:
" Where have I seen you before?" 16
"Lila said she was going south for the winter" 17
"are you the one?" 19
"in this little floating world, whatever you needed
you had to get for yourself" 23
"he noticed a strange noise...It was Lila" 77 (Sound
and Fury reference?)
Anyway, Chapter 6 is huge, it's the negotiation of his
masculine part with his transcendent part about his
female part. At the end of the book, it all get's
reconciled: 461 " Lila gets her precious Richard Rigel
(anima), Rigel gets his precious self-righteousness
(masculine), you get your precious Dynamic freedom
(transcendent) and I get to go swimming again (Wise
Old Man). "
> Is this Lila the person in the story,
> or the metaphysics of the
> book, or what?
See the "lila" and "Lila" split quote above. It's
clear she is an ideal. So Lila is both the person and
the ideal. She's an arhetype.
> I
> take it that some post-modern writer has generated
> the spatial and temporal
> metaphors, but they fail to connect with anything
> real for me. 'Show' and
> 'say' likewise.
These are my constructs, though show/say split is
linked to Susan K. Langer and Wittgenstein and
Heidegger. If you want to call it "experience" and
"intellect" that could be ok. Or, right brain
experience (show) and left brain experience (say) ala
Erin. The things that 'show' are the things that are
indescribable ala DQ and the things that 'say' are the
things that are labelled ala sq. Sorry for the
confusion.
> Again I suggest that you are reading more into this
> than is really there.
But who are you to define my reality? It's my POV, and
dismissing it because you don't get it is a bit
premature. With a story, you can define the experience
as it relates to you individually. It's a basic tenet
of my education in Liberal studies. That's the genius
of Pirsig's format: he "shows" DQ while he writes
about "DQ". He is "showing" DQ and "saying" DQ at the
same time. And he opens his text to "my" DQ. So your
dismissal of my DQ seems a bit intolerant. For
example, I think Bo's SOLAQI is a viable POV. It is
very helpful. I think it falls short in areas, but its
powerful nonetheless. I use it from time to time to
think about things, at times it helps, at times it
doesn't. I merely say you might try my POV on for size
and see if it works sometimes. Maybe it will maybe it
won't. But outright dismissal seems hasty.
> When you say that "It's a whole book of him trying
> to explain to himself
> that it's ok to have a 1 night stand", I wonder if
> we have read the same
> book.
Again you assert your intolerance. I'll take your
challenge. There's a section at the end where he talks
about W. J. Sidis and how he took a vow of chastity.
Pirsig says in the book he wants to figure out how to
get women AND be able to think like an intellectual.
p232: "Is it better to have wisdom or it it better to
be attractive to the ladies?...it seemed to Phaedrus
there ought to be some way you could have both." And
that is at the END OF PART 1, Huzzah. Could it be more
explicit? 233 "Lila, Lila what is your answer true?"
That's the setup for Part 2. That is the question for
the book. Maybe my POV can open your eyes.
> We agree that half the book is a metaphysics
> (well, 80% I would say).
That's because you dismiss the story because it's a
crappy story at that. I agree with it's poor quality
HOWEVER it's poor quality does not diminish it's
value. Maybe it's a degenerate story, huzzah. Again my
POV demands equal weight of the story with the
metaphysics. Try it on for size.
> The other half, in my view, is nothing to do with
> whether it's ok to have a
> one night stand.
See my Sidis quote above. He EXPLICITLY spells it out.
> Pirsig seems quite unfussed by
> this. What does interest him
> is the question "do you ... believe that Lila
> Blewitt has quality?" (Lila Ch
> 6)
That's true. It's his struggle to acknowledge his
ANIMA, and the idol doll tells him that is what
redeems him, saves him. The question of Lila dissolves
away and so the "one night stand" question dissolves
with it. He's integrated his self. Of course, Pirsig
himself can't see it because the BOOK is a projection.
You can't see your own projections. That is the
otherness of other. So the fact that Pirsig himself
seems to ignore the story FITS my theory. Again from
Jung AION: " The projection-making factor is the
anima, or rather the UNCONSCIOUS as represented by the
anima. Whenever she appears, in dreams, visons and
fantasies, she takes on personified form, thus
demonstrating that the factor she embodies possesses
all the outstanding characteristics of a feminine
being. She is not an invention of the conscious, but a
spontaneous product of the unconscious. Nor is she a
substitute figure for the mother. On the contrary,
there is every likelihood that the numinous qualities
which make the mother-imago so dangerously powerful
derive from teh collective archetype of the anima,
which is INCARNATED anew in every male child." Lila is
Pirsig's INCARNATION of the anima arhetype.
> In fact Rigel asks him the question three times,
> and Pirsig returns to
> the theme over and over.
Yes, Rigel is Pirsig's masculine archetype who is in
conversation with Pirsig's transcendent archetype,
Phaedrus.
> Then you become equally cynical "LILA is a sort of
> performance art joke:
> create a metaphysics that poor sops (me included)
> can't understand and watch
> them worship it on the internet." While I half agree
> that this is what has
> happened, I doubt this was ever Pirsig's intent.
Agreed, it is a work of art, and I think we are
getting mired in the sq of the MOQ. I just want to
resurrect the DQ in the true fashion of expression:
the story. My Jung interpretation is just that: my DQ
expression of the story. Someone else's will be
different like yourself.
> He
> seems to me to truly
> believe in his own creation. Read SODV, or his
> recent comments on cracking
> the champagne that the MOQ would survive without
> him.
I've read them, but remember: LILA is a projection, so
he can't really talk about it with clarity. That's my
POV which addresses his after Lila writings.
> Bo and others
> certainly come across to me as 'true believers', and
> it seems to me a very
> intellectual belief at that.
I would say Pirsig has exposed Bo and others to their
own shadows, and that is why their reaction is strong.
He leads them to their own unconscious, which explains
why Bo is so hard to understand. Again just my POV.
That's why Pirsig is great: his stories can cause
people to find their shadows. And just for that alone,
he's great. Years of therapy in 1 book.
> I have been arguing the
> limitations of the
> intellect in this forum for some time, in response
> to this, not because I am
> a crazy mystic, because I am all too sadly aware
> that I am not, but because
> I have mined the intellect for what it is worth, and
> find it is an
> inadequate substitute for life.
BUT I seem to feel that you don't analyze Q-intellect
from a DQ point of view. Just the fact that you
dismiss my reading into the story seems to indicate
that. I've tried to show you how to look at the
Q-intellect from a DQ point of view. I've given you
instructions and everything. And this tome is my piece
de resistance, the sine qua non, the tome de la tome
of what DQ Q-intellect is about. It's personal, it's
dynamic, it's revelatory. And you don't have to add a
fifth level tick tock.
> I suspect we agree
> at that level.
sq Q-intellect absolutely. BUT DQ Q-intellect can set
you free. Just learn to balance it.
> I
> argue that authority
> resides in the situation. "Let the situation
> dictate." But, and this is
> crucial, it is the situation as it is that dictates,
> not the situation that
> I fantasise exists, or that I would like to exist,
> or that I interpret
> through the coloured lenses of my ideology or
> metaphysics.
This seems close to Wim's sense of progress
dialectics. I don't disagree too much, just that you
have to add "love". Let "love" in the situation
dictate. I'll have to write another time about what I
mean by love. ALSO, though, I think there needs to be
a call to action beyond love, which would be located I
think in the sq part of the MOQ. This is where Wim's
sense of progress dialectics falls short. How do we
know to take out Bin Laden? A sq intellect call to
action. So I have a dual moral authority: love of the
DQ and call to action of the sq. They must be
separate, but IN BALANCE. Checks and balances.
>You are quite
> right to reject the MOQ as itself a moral authority.
I just worry about "transference." What if people
project onto the MOQ? That's what I warn against.
> What he totally ignores is the
> bias and distortion
> that our own egoic development brings to our actual
> perception. His
> view is
> naive.
This is where we part ways. I think it is naive to
tell other people "how" they are distorted (in this
case, I guess I am naive with regards to you). This is
my problem with WILBER, the uberintellect. To show
someone "how they are perceiving things is wrong" is
just a projection of the person criticizing. The color
spiral dynamics is just Wilber's own projection of his
sense of inadequacy and need to be a genius. It's a
nice POV from time to time but get off yourself
already Mr. Wilber. NOTICE HOW WILBER IS NOW WRITING a
STORY. TICK TOCK. A bad one at that, just like Pirsig.
I mean Wilber is like totally rad, and totally smart
but he has his own projections too. TO not project is
Pirsig's greatness. He WITNESSES his own projection
via a story. That's why I like Pirsig better than
Wilber, though I have not read all of Wilber's new
story I have read parts of it and shows how Wilber is
finally arriving at Pirsig's destination.
>While he accepts that our view of what is, is shaped
>by culture and
> language, he ignores the most fundamental influence,
> that of the ego.
But don't you see now? He has, he has SHOWN his own
ego in his story LILA. He shows it, he does not say
it. He shows how his MAYA, his illusion, LILA has
screwed him over. To quote: "If it hadn't been for
that one moral act (telling Rigel that Lila is
Quality), you'd be headed down the coast tomorrow with
a lifetime of LILA (Maya, ego illusion, get it yet
John?) ahead of you." He communicates about the ego in
a DQ sort of way. That is Wilber's mistake: he uses sq
intellect to communicate about the ego. But the ego is
in DQ, and DQ can only be captured in a story, morning
glory.
>In
>fact he trivialises the ego.
Because he is being honest about himself.
>So when I say the situation dictates, I mean that as
>I become to free
>to
>experience what is, rather than what my ego wants to
>believe is, then I
>encounter value, (quality, authority,) directly.
How does LILA end? "Of course, the ultimate Quality
isn't a noun (LILA???) or an adjective or anything
else defineable, but if you had to reduce the whole
MOQ to a single sentence...it'd be: "Good is a noun."
Phaedrus OVERCOMES his maya, his illusion : LILA. But
your egoic function is different and so Pirsig can't
tell you what that is.
>This is not simple and
>obvious, as Pirsig would have it, but the outcome of
>a long
>developmental
>path
Maybe like a boat trip down the Hudson???? Wink.
>(or sometimes, rarely, of a sudden transformative
>experience,
>typically
>a near death experience).
Maybe like smoking peyote in a tent???? Wink.
>In this path the realm of ideas is not
>unimportant, but must be transcended if immediacy is
>to be allowed.
Yes, that is what Phaedrus is working out, he is the
transcendent function negotiating with his egoic
functin, Lila.
>Platt is
>correct in pointing to art as embodying something of
>the fundamental
>quality
>in which moral authority resides,
Lila is a work of art.
>just because in art we encounter to
>some
>degree value that is free of intellect and previous
>judgements.
I know the Lila book story is degenerate but it does
have value. Wink.
>There
>can be
>a degree of immediacy in an encounter with art that
>points to a more
>fundamental potential, that of an immediate encounter
>with all reality,
>not
>just that which has been contrived by the artist.
The anima Lila is an instantiation of the collective
archetype: page 6: "call her "lila" who is immortal
who inhabits Lila for a while and then moves on. The
sleeping "Lila" he had just met tonight (one night
stand). But the waking Lila, who never sleeps, had
been watching him and he had been watching her for a
long time."
>That's my credo, anyway.
And Pirsig's as well. Am I sub- VERSE - ive or what?
Tick tock.
Regards,
Angus
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