From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Oct 19 2002 - 22:19:55 BST
John B and, for different reasons, the Jesus freaks, Paco, Sam, and all the
Conservative lurkers who hate me:
The brief discussion about what does and does not constitute a personal
attack got me thinking. Clearly, I'm responsible for some hurt feelings here
no matter where that line is drawn. This is certainly not my intention, its
just an unfortunate consequence of the actual aim. At the very least, I'd
like to offer an explanation.
I think most of it has to do with the shape of the MOQ itself, its division
of the world into four discreet levels, its unabashed elitism, its emphasis
on excellence, quality and the high country of the mind. But Pirsig has
nothing to do with the hurt feelings that have been caused by my own
inability to soft-peddle, candy-coat or other wise pull my punches. Sorry
about that. Its a visceral thing. It feels phony and dishonest to
equivocate. There's an actual physiological response to it in my belly. I
can't do it. It feels wrong. The opposite, saying exactly what I really
think, doesn't feel quite so visceral, but its pretty damn refreshing to
have the freedom. I guess I tend to step on toes when I'm drunk with that
freedom, or something like that. Not that I regret the words or that I wish
to take anything back, but I thought I should at least explain that
insulting people is not my intention.
Personal attacks are invalad forms of criticism because they fail to address
the assertion and only condemn the asserter, but in a very real sense there
is no line between the person and their views. This is what the levels are
all about. We are composed of those various kinds of static patterns and our
views essentially express which ones (Page 360) and that evolution takes
place within societies as well as individuals. Those familiar with Ken
Wilber need only take a quick glance at his charts to see that each level
has its own worldview that directly corresponds to development. Its no
accident that Pirsig builds his own biography into the fabric of the book.
Its only consistent with his metaphysical conclusions. Its much more
complicated than merely sorting people into demographic groups, vocation,
levels of education or political ideologies, but these are some pretty handy
indicators. They really can help us get a handle on where people are in the
step by step evolutionary process that the MOQ describes.
Pirsig gives us his own demographic profile. He's a liberal intellectual, a
mystic and a contrarian. I suppose one could dismiss the MOQ as a
self-serving since it puts such a person at the top of the heap, but to do
that one would have to assume Pirsig was being insincere and was motivated
by nothing more than self-aggrandizement. The real question is not about his
motives for writing, but the truth of what he's saying. And even though it
makes him shine like a star in the heavens, I still think he makes a damn
good case the being a liberal intellectual mysitc contrarian is a far, far
better thing than being a conservative anti-intellectual fundamentalist
conformist, which out number the former by about a million to one. And in
ZMM, even though he's "not one of them", Pirsig says something like those
political reactionaries. But he goes far beyond the call for self-reliance
and gumption in Lila. He takes personal virtue to a whole new level, a
cosmic and mystical level. If the Puritans made the Victorians look like a
bunch of dirty hippies...
"Rt meant quality all right but the quality it meant was static, not
Dynamic. He had wanted it to come out the other way, but it looked as though
it wasn't going to do it. Ritual. That's the last thing he wanted ARETE to
turn out to be. Bad news. It looked like the Victorian translation of ARETE
as "virtue" might be better after all since "virtue" implies ritualistic
conformity to social protocol. It was in this gloomy mood,... from the
sediment of old memories... RTA. It was a Sanskrit word, and Phaedrus
remembered what it meant: RTA was the "cosmic order of things". Then he
remembered that he had read that the Sanskrit language was considered the
most faithful to the Proto-Indo-European root, probably because the
linguistic patterns had been so carefully preserved by the Hindu priests."
(380)
Notice how he doesn't mind telling us about his desires and feelings. Notice
how he's relieved to discover that original meaning turned out to be
Dynamic. He's a contrarian who wants his Quality to be somethng mystical and
its personal. And as an intellectual, he's thrilled that it is deeper than
the Victorian social protocols.
"..a good summary: Rta, which etymologically stands for 'course' originally
meant 'cosmic order', the maintenance of which was the purpose of all the
gods; and later it also came to mean 'right', so that the gods were
perceived as preserving the world not merely fom physical disorder but also
from moral chaos. The one idea is implicit in the other; and there is order
in the universe because its control is in righteous hands...
The physical order of the universe is also the moral order of the universe.
Rta is both. This is exactly what the MOQ was claiming. It was not a new
idea. It was the oldest idea known to man." (382)
If the MOQ is self-serving, then that's just a lucky bonus. But it can
hardly be construed as an arbitrary constructs since is essentially
expresses the oldest idea known to man. Its more like a genuine discovery.
The MOQ is a description of what the mystics and saints have always said.
Add the definition of a person as an evolving forest of static patterns to
this idea of a evolving cosmic order in the universe and we begin to see how
they are one in the same.
"Dharma, like rta, mean 'what holds together'. It is the basis of all order.
It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition
which gives man perfect satisfaction. Dharma is duty. It is not external
duty which is arbitrarily imposed by others. Its is not any artificial set
of conventions which can be amended or repealed by legislation. Neither is
it internal duty which is arbitrarily decided by one's own conscience.
Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external.
Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure
and purpose to the evoution af all life and to the evolving understanding of
the universe which life has created." (383)
What is all adds up to is the idea that the best we can do is embody the
entire structure, all static quality AND balance that with a good dose of
DQ, Pirsig's own demographic profile. Its like you want the self to fully
match the structure and purpose of the cosmos, live according to that
principle of rightness that it expresses. This is something like atonement.
AT ONE MENT. This is the goal of every individual. This is the full flower
of creation. This is self-reliance and gumption on acid. This is a radical
identification of your personal biography and the ongoing evolution of the
universe. Its about "becoming one with the father". Its about man's perfect
satisfaction.
Its a big deal. That's why sometimes when I'm trying to keep my eye on the
ball, I end up crushing yours. With apologies to Yogi Berra too,
DMB
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 10:37:59 GMT