From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 17:40:53 BST
Hi Platt,
Good questions, pointing out some sloppy thinking and/or phraseology in me.
You make three points, one about human rights, one about Zen v Lila, and one
about 'what people think of themselves'. I'll take them in reverse order.
I don't immediately recognise what you are referring to when you say "what
people think about themselves is the determining factor in level
definition". Are you referring to a judgement of self (what people think of
themselves) or the fact that an individual has a capacity for independent
judgement (people can think for themselves)? It's the latter that I'm
arguing for. So the way I see the MoQ as a whole is like this:
inorganic (regulated by laws of physics) -
DQ innovation of DNA or other self-replicating molecule -
biology (regulated by natural selection) -
dynamic innovation of culture (language?) -
society (regulated by 'moral' laws - the policeman and his gun, also the
priest) -
dynamic innovation of autonomous judgement -
individual (regulated by arete, driven forward by mysticism)
(I think Pirsig's formulation has that last as intellectual, regulated by
reason.)
Seems to me that - as you recently argued - 'making judgments is the
foundation of the Metaphysics of Quality.' At the inorganic level the atoms
value certain combinations which allow them to 'static latch' in stable
form - rocks or water. At the biological level cells and cellular structures
value certain activities which allow them to 'static latch' in stable form -
plants and animals. At the social level, society values certain behaviours
which allows the society to 'static latch' in stable form - lesser and
greater civilisations. At the individual level, people value their ability
to choose, to 'static latch' an existence which is both a reflection of and
a support for those values [logically I would want to talk here about lesser
and greater individuals, but that sounds a bit fascistic]. Some of those
values will be intellectual values, and so as a result of individual choices
and DQ innovation there will develop an intellectual aspect to the fourth
level, but it is only a part of the fourth level. (So I see the Church of
Reason as being a social pattern of value that fosters the fourth level,
just as a farm is a biological pattern of value that fosters the third
level). But my key contention is that the 'intellect' is unable to choose or
make judgements. It is therefore inadequate as a constituent part of the
MoQ.
Which brings me to the second point, about ZMM vs Lila. I think I've got a
reasonable handle on what Pirsig is saying in Zen; I don't have such
confidence that I have a full understanding of Lila. In particular, as I
mentioned in another thread, I think that Pirsig the author may deliberately
be distancing himself from Phaedrus the character, and that much of the MoQ
needs to be understood as a product of Phaedrus, not Pirsig. (Obviously the
whole ensemble is Pirsig's product). In particular, Phaedrus as a character
is not particularly attractive - whereas the narrator of ZMM, and Pirsig
himself (from what little information I've come across) do seem to be more
'human'. Phaedrus the character is indulging in a confessedly degenerate
taste for metaphysics, which the narrator of ZMM critiques, powerfully, and
the choice of method suggests that Pirsig retains his suspicions. Anyway,
there is enough material here for a number of different threads. Perhaps we
could agree that what we want to establish is the highest quality MoQ that
we can get to, and we can take material from both ZMM and Lila according to
how the light of quality leads us? (Isn't that how Pirsig himself
understands the quality of this forum?)
Lastly, the question of human rights: your quote from Pirsig:
> "It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code
> of intellect-vs.-society, the moral right of intellect to be free of
social
> control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury;
> habeas corpus; government by consent-these "human rights" are all
> intellect-vs.-society issues." (Lila, 24)
>
I _am_ proposing a modification of Pirsig's proposals (such presumption on
my part!) Pirsig describes them as intellect v society issues - is he right
to do so? That is, is the description of these 'static latches' best
described as 'intellectual' and not 'individual'? We are so used to thinking
of the seat of personality as being our 'reason' that we automatically
equate those two things - but that is due to the Platonic inheritance. I
think that we should disentangle them. I'm not disputing that these things
are the modifications of the third level that the fourth level needs to
survive and flourish, what I am saying is that these modifications are more
fully understood through the lens of 'individuals' as sources of value,
rather than 'intellect' as the source of value. In each case what is at
issue is a diminution of social controls on individual freedom. That freedom
may well be something that seeks expression in intellectual endeavour, but
it need not be. However, that freedom *is* something which, of necessity,
will find expression in individual endeavour. Consider freedom of travel. A
society may seek to curtail that freedom for any number of reasons, and a
person may object to that curtailment for an equivalently broad number of
reasons - some of which will be intellectual in nature (eg defecting from a
Soviet state in order to publish the Gulag Archipelago or something like
that). A person may simply wish to have a life that isn't interfered with,
not because of any great intellectual insight that would otherwise not be
shared, or because of an intellectual belief that anarchy is the best form
of government, or any notion of 'the truth' that needs to be exemplified.
The person might just want to travel - that is where the light of DQ is
leading them. In any case, to my way of thinking, it is the preservation of
individual freedom which is guaranteed by these static latches.
I would back up my point by a brief consideration of how the fourth level
was born. Pirsig refers to 'government by consent'; would people here accept
that democracy is a social level pattern that has been shaped in order to
allow the fourth level to flourish more freely? Yet democracy is all about
aggregating the choice of individuals, not the intellectual consensus. It is
notoriously the case that aggregating the intellect diminishes its Quality,
and yet democracy is still a high quality innovation. A quotation from
Martha Nussbaum:
"It is not accidental that it was in fifth-century Athens that this
dialectical debate-filled sort of theater got its hold. These aspects of
tragedy [their capacity to communicate ethical teaching ie arete] are
throughly continuous with the nature of Athenian political discourse, where
public debate is everywhere, and each citizen is encouraged to be either a
participant or at least an actively critical judge... Plato's debt to tragic
theatre is not a debt to some arbitrary aesthetic invention - it is at the
same time a debt to the social institutions of his culture. In the same way,
his repudiations of tragedy and of Athenian democracy are closely linked".
To my way of thinking, it is the delusion - derived from Plato and
exemplified in any 'totalising' metaphysical and political claims - that
pure reason is the best part of humanity which lies behind our cultural
understanding of 'intellectual' (and which also underlies various political
programs to 'improve' humankind - but that's that political thread again).
Use of that language is IMHO misdescribing the fourth level. Phaedrus might
disagree; Pirsig might just not....
I should perhaps emphasise that I'm largely making this up as I go along -
in other words, I'm exploring an understanding of the MoQ at the very time
that I am expounding it. It has seemed to me for some time that there is
something the matter with Pirsig's account of the fourth level. Therefore
either i) I don't understand Pirsig, or ii) Pirsig has actually got
something wrong. If my case is shown to be more full of holes than a colande
r then I will be able to make a DQ leap to a better understanding - and a
full agreement with Pirsig. If, on the other hand, my case is a robust one,
and it withstands whatever criticisms are thrown at it, then we'll all have
learnt something. I think it makes the campaign worthwhile.
Thanks for the feedback.
Sam
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