Hi all,
sorry for the summary dispatch to this : I read the entire
thread-to-date at one go.
Firstly, something that Pirsig says _somewhere_ in Lila is that all
[should rephrase that to 'a lot of'] the self-proclaimed anti-racists
are all hung up about e.g. prosecuting black people because they break
the law, because to the soi-disant non-racists they are black and
cannot be held to the same account as the advantaged racial group
because that would be racist. The precise analogy he uses is that of a
parasite (wasp I believe) using all the predispositions of a spider to
invade it.
I'm not saying that what meneer Fortuyn said about Islamic immigrants,
or anything else is necessarily correct. What I am saying is that just
because something is at "the intellectual level", it can still be a
pretty damn stupid idea. I believe that Pirsig's point was that in order
to allow intellectuality you have to have a cultural mechanism (social
level) which permits it. And ideas that destroy the social base that
supports intellectuallity are necessarily "low quality". Such as a
moral relavitism that cannot bring itself to criticize intolerance in
'foreign' cultures because that would be "racist" for example.
I believe that *one of* Fortuyn's points was that certain cultures could
destroy his prized Dutch culture of tolerance so that immigrants should
be carefully integrated so as not to destroy that culture virtue of
tolerance. I say "one of" because of course his political position has
to be e-valu-ated in the full. But is anyone in this discussion group
too hung up to say that, er, well, some cultures might not prize
tolerance as highly as others and thus erode the tolerance? I
appreciate the imperialistic baggage that might go down with such a
statement, but to my mind a culture that will not educate women is of
extremely lower quality that a society that will. And I am afraid that
it is up to the 'higher quality cultures' to disabuse the 'lower quality
ones', by example, persuassion, and reluctantly, possibly by other means
- the virtue of all this obviously needs careful scrutiny. And I include
Israel in the latter category at this exact moment in time :-<.
Yes of course Fortuyn had other ideas, he - to my mind - was not, um,
fully on the path to quality in that I think he had a very narrow
perspective of "us alone, but we'll allow mitigating circumstances" for
Holland and his ideas could appeal to and encourage crude racists [or
anyone else without sufficient subtlety of thought] - perhaps an
argument for Skutvik's 5th level of quality - judging the intellectual
level - that I remember reading about a couple of years ago.
BTW : Apparently Fortuyn was shot by an "animal rights" activist who
disagreed with Fortuyn's attitude to the fur trade. An obviously
intellectual motivation then, but one of high quality? I think not.
But the thing that most disturbed me about this thread me was the
chapter and verse quotation of Pirsig and the the bandying around of the
word 'saviour'. The "Pirisg said this" and "Pirsig said that" malarky
is quite frankly scary. Are some of you only trying to look through
Pirsig's documented eyes? In ZAMM he tries to explain what existence is.
In Lila I think he tries to explain that just because the rest of the
world doesn't truly perceive 'existence', there is no real reason to
execute roadrage on existing patterns of morality, because they might
actually be a damn good thing if you think about it; granted, they might
need 'maintenance' & upgrading though. Good advice, the lot of it -
notwithstanding a few quibbles here & there. However it is advice.
"What is good and what is not good? Need we ask others to tell us these
things?" is surely an exhortation to think for yourselves. Jesus,
Buddha, Mohammed, Lao Tzu ... could also give good advice. And bad
advice. But it's up to you to judge. I dare say that Ariel Sharon &
Yasser Arafat could give good advice too, although I have no idea what on.
I'm afraid that the "human right to suspend your critical faculties in
order to pursue dogma" is one of those little intellectual ideas about
society that should get it between the metaphorical eyeballs. Whilst
religions & traditions might have "good advice" on how not to be
dissolute and to treat other people with respect, at the end of the day
in ethical terms they are like kindergarden mathematics books explaining
arithmetic with pictures of apples and oranges. Good in their place but
it ain't calculus or number theory, is it. Unfortunately, the demise of
religion has become all to associated with the demise of morality. And
ol' Pirsig has an awful lot to say about that....
So come on folks? Are we sheep or wolves here? [Yeah, I'm aware of the
mistranslation of Phaedrus]
All the best,
Hamish
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