On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Bodvar Skutvik wrote:
>For Lithien: You once asked me if one has to turn mad to understand
>the MOQ. No, no longer, once the new platform outside of SOM was
>established it's nothing more than a little unsteady feeling shifting
>standpoint, but for poor Phaedrus of ZMM it was more risky and I often
>wonder what made him step out into the no-man's land? Will we ever
>know? Does he know himself?
Bodvar, you make a very big deal about the labeling of 'SOM' (I
remember you once said that that was the real importance to the MoQ and
not Quality -- "He could have used any term [insted of Q]," were, I
believe, your words!). But identifying 'SOM' wasn't at all Pirsig's
original doing. 'Anti-SOM ' philosophy has been around for a very long
time -- It's perhaps the oldest human philosophy and the foundation of
magic and religion going back to Lascaux. I've argued this point here
before and recieved no real responce, much less a refutation. If you
define SOM as "The position that the knowing subject and the known object
are ontologically seperate and irreducable -- not able to be derived from
one-another or from any other entity" as we agreed to at the end of our
1st PROGRAM, then I can hand you bags full of non- or anti-SOMs. I can
give you bits of Kant, Hegel, and Hippolet where they deny the above
position -- Hegel even acuuses Kant of trying to esscape the S-O duality
but never truly suceeding. They were against that above stated position;
the Vadanta of Hinduism is; the Taoists; the Buddhists; The Gnostics...
Many, many people identifyed and denied that position before RMP
did. It's a major theam in philospophy, religion, mythology and art. This
framework ('SOM' vs. non-SOM) was -well- established by the time the
events of ZMM took place and that can be philosoplogically proven.
>
>There's discussion what is best: ZMM or LILA? IMHO Pirsig could
>have gotten away with the first as a masterpiece and a status
>much like JD Salinger, embraced by all as a great work of art,
>he had not committed himself with clear-cut assertions as he did in
>LILA.
Very few masterpieces ever make clear-cut assertions. That's part
of what makes something Art! James Joyce, Goethe, Peter Hoeg, Thomas
Mann... these are all great authers, and none of them spell everything out
for you. They open doors, they contain possabilities... they imply. Thus
they also inspire analysis, debate, interpritation... the reader is not a
passive entity, but a participant in the art.
"Education is not filling a pail. It's egnigting a fire!" (Ben Franklen)
This is also part of what, in the visual arts, sepperates Fine Art from
graphic design/illustration. An illustration or a poster (generally) has
to be immedeatly readable. I think it was Paul Klee (one of my favorite
artists) who said, "What is required to understand art is a chair." You
have to work w/ it, sit w/ it, live w/ it. And everyone who does that will
be taken in a slightly different direction -- and that's GREAT! No two
people will ever interpret a great work of art in -exactly- the same way.
ZMM *is* a masterpiece. It's a great work of
philosophy/intellectual education. (I can't eveluate how much discovering
that book and Joe Campbell's *Power of Myth*, at a relativly early age
changed my life -- started me into philosophy, mythology, graeat works of
literature... I hated reading, and read nothing but the minimum school
requirments until I was 17. I had so-so grades at the end of High school,
but after my first year of college I was on full achademic scholership.
ZMM heleped to ignite in me a "fire in the mind" as we say -- a passion
for learning.) It's a great novel. It's a genious approch to
autobiography. It's a re-telling of a classic mythic motief playing on
Goethe's Erl-King, Hamlet, and the story of Christ.
LILA, by comparison, is pretty good as far as philosophy books go
(It has it's ups and downs). As a novel it's out-right struggleing, and I
don't think it quite reaches the level of mythology... Maybe it does, but
not very high quality mythology. ZMM really made me -CARE- about the
characters in the book. I literally cryed the 1st time I read of Chris'
murder in the afterwards, I was so deeply connected -- put at-one w/. But
in LILA... Personaly, I found Lila only slightly more annoying than
Pheadrus and Reigal. I didn't care much about the characters. Mostly they
just got on my nerves.
But look, I don't want to sound like I dislike the book or
anything. I thought it was quite good. It just doesn't make it on the same
shelf as Thomas Mann's *Dortor Faustus* or Peter Hoeg's *History of
Dannish Dreams*... much less RMP's ZMM! It dosn't quite achieve
'Masterpiece.'
>Just consider: For seventeen years he plugged away at
>explaining a system that he did not have an inkling if anyone would
>understand at all, throwing to the wolves all ambiguity of the ZMM
>that could be interpreted to fit everyone's favourite taste. Well,
>now there is an Internet discussion going like wildfire while the
>those who praised the ZMM are silent.
Silent! Hardly! I find ZMM a -lot- more pervasive out there than
LILA. Many bookstores don't even carry LILA, but they do carry ZMM, so I
assume that ZMM is continuing to out-sell it's sibling.
There's a painting instructer here at UT -- a wonderfull, wise old
lady -- who has all her Grad's read ZMM. It is known simply as "The Book."
She calls it "the foundation for everything!" "Quality" is the most
important word in her class. One night we spent 1/2 an hour debating how I
should finnish a piece. Finally she said (quating ZMM) "I don't care how
you do it; just do it well." And as important as ZMM is to this whole
creative atmoshere (she's read 'The Book' through again and again)... I'm
not really sure if she even knows LILA exists.
>
>I better get down from my soap box now. :-)
You should know that if you climb-up there and talk about
something merely "getting away w/" being a materpiece you're not going to
be let off w/o having to dodge a few vegitables. ;-)
Pirsig said the highest moral level as the 'code of Art,' and even
if it's true that LILA is "the smart one" as he (RMP) says, it's still not
the higher quality one. The reason behind that 'code of Art' line is
because -- as I said above -- art can take us to a higher place because of
(not inspite of) it's ability to imply what can't be said. Like that
Hienrich Zimmer quote:
"The best things can not be said, because they're beyond words. The 2nd
best are always misunderstood, because they are alligorical but are taken
literaly."
Art (and mythology) is that 2nd best realm.
"Getting away w/"... Cripes, Bo. :-7
>
>Bodvar
>
Donny
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