From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 23:32:51 BST
Hi David,
Don't read too much into the Bible gateway site that I link to; it's simply
a place for me to look up Bible verses in different translations. Anything
beyond that I've never explored; I guess from what you say that it's
fundamentalist, but do you really think that's where I'm coming from?
But I'm happy to get stuck into a more MoQ focussed discussion; hovering in
the background to what I wrote was a "we disagree about Pirsig" element,
which, to be fair Platt has already done much in articulating. But perhaps
it's worth me having a go as well.
Pirsig writes: "What the Metaphysics of Quality concludes is that the old
Puritan and Victorian social codes should not be followed blindly, but
should not be attacked blindly either. They should be dusted off and
re-examined, fairly and impartially, to see what they were trying to
accomplish and what they actually *did* accomplish toward building a
stronger society." This comes a short distance after Pirsig has said "We are
living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a moral and social
nightmare because the intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to
become free of the social level, has ignored the social level's role in
keeping the biological level under control. Intellectuals have failed to
understand the ocean of biological quality that is constantly being
suppressed by social order."
To my way of reading him, Pirsig is saying that social institutions need to
be examined at the intellectual level to establish which are worth keeping,
and which we are able to discard. It would be stretching the point to say
that Pirsig subscribes to Conservatism, but it seems clear to me that he is
allowing the possibility of some form of Conservatism at the intellectual
level along the lines I have described (especially the bit: 'Intellectuals
have failed to understand....' which could be seen as something of a
Conservative mantra.)
It chimes with something he writes in ZMM also, when he is talking about
individual Quality (ie character): "I think it's about time to return to the
rebuilding of *this* American resource - individual worth. There are
political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for
years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real
individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich,
they're right. We *do* need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance
and old-fashioned gumption. We really do."
I imagine that you will say Pirsig is not describing a Conservative attitude
here, but if so, we may simply end up with an argument about words, whereby
you *define* Conservative as exclusively social level, and presumably come
up with some other word to describe what Pirsig is here referring to. At
which point there isn't much left to discuss. That which I think
Conservatism seeks to fight for - an examination of social level
institutions and a preservation of those with high quality; an emphasis upon
self-reliance and ""traditional values"" - is, on my way of reading things,
something which Pirsig allows for in the MoQ. I'd be interested to know why
you disagree with my reading of Pirsig on these points.
Thanks for your time.
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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