hi, squad:
i havent been around since this discussion started so pardon me if my
comments are not directed to anyone person, but having had personal
experience under two separate economic systems, i think i'm qualified to
express my views in terms of Lila's Morality.
what i liked about Pirsig's definition of Morality was that it explained
Quality; they were one and the same. this was very unusual because as he
later says:
The Metaphysics of Quality varies from
(empirical thinking) by saying that the values
of art and morality and even religious mysticism
are verifiable.
they are verifiable! what an unusual idea, i thought. but, it rang true
and it could be applied to real life situations. for instance:
i live in the United States today, but my life started in a small Caribbean
island where life smacked of quality. you could smell it in the salt
scented air, and feel it in the fresh ocean breeze and when you wiggled your
toes in the white powdery sand of the tropical beaches. it was heaven!
unfortunately, the government of this tropical paradise did not have the
same quality that the island did, and it was overrun by an egotistical man
who duped the people into believing that the Marxist type of govt. was good
for them.
it was not.
right now, Cuba is being run like a Medieval city. Everything has regressed
many years into the past. The higiene and the standard of living of the
country is terrible and if you define Quality as Freedom, then you can
definitely sense the same lack of Quality that abounded in Russia and caused
their change into Capitalism which despite all their present problems
adjusting to the market system is still better than what they used to have.
Conversely, living in the United States, in spite of its many problems
caused by the very freedoms that make it great,
does have quality to it. We are free to choose our way of life to a certain
degree but to a larger degree that anywhere else in the world...and i have
traveled a lot.
it is not that there is an absolute truth to what im saying or to what any
one of you is saying but that "one seeks instead the highest quality
intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is
any guide to the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as
useful until something better comes along."
i think that is what everyone is forgetting. the very dynamism created by
the freedom which gives rise to Quality can only be provisional. for
anytime it becomes the status quo, it can then be superceded by something
else that comes along which has more Quality, but which could not have come
along before the status quo of its precedent idea was established. that is
the beauty of MOQ for me.
i leave you with two thoughts. one from a writer which most would agree has
much Quality. in Macbeth, there is a line which captures the dilemma and
paradox of the human condition, it says: Security is mortal's chiefest
enemy.
how true! in our complacency and illusory safety we choose to disregard
Quality in new situations. therefore our Morality becomes suspect.
two, from Pirsig himself: Good is a noun.
Lithien
http://members.tripod.com/~lithien/Lila2.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Fintan Dunne <findunne@iol.ie>
To: Lila Squad <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Sunday, November 08, 1998 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: MD Morality and the MOQ in Marx v Capitsalism
>
>Hi Jonathan, Squad
>
>Jonathan wrote:
>
>> It is with some reluctance that I dive into the hot waters of the
>> political debate started by Fintan. It was probably inevitable that this
>> topic would surface in the discussions since Pirsig himself raised it in
>> the first place.
>
>This 'political' discussion goes to the heart of the MOQ. After all it was
Robert Pirsig's
>dis-illusion with the gaudy awfullness of our plastic pseudo-society that
led to his
>mental collapse. Then our Heretic was forced to recant by the Societal
Machine,
>only to hint at withdrawing that recantation in the last pages of Zen and
the Art.
>
>Yet in Lila we find him in New York City seeming reconciled to co-existence
with
>the Giant! (which I have alluded to as the Social Ego).
>
>So which is it?
>Is the Giant a lunacy-inducing monster or a necessary evil?
>
>Jonathan wrote:
>
>> Capitalism is an amoral economic system which itself knows no obligation
>> to provide minimal human conditions.
>> A capitalist system can only be considered moral if it is conditioned
>> and restrained by an ethical system, and a part of that ethic should be
>> to anticipate and forestall any collapse.
>> Socio-economic systems should be morally judged on their ability to
>> provide good living to the world's people. Currently, there isn't a
>> system offering that.
>
>This begs the question Jonathan, if it is possible to bolt on an ethical
system
>to capitalism that will so restrain it?
>
>Or can we build anything moral on an amoral base?
>
>Or did capitalism have a moral ethic in it's early development which has
been
>lost along the way?
>
>Jonathan:
>> and a part of that ethic should be to anticipate and forestall any
collapse.
>
>The Green movement has this very intent- but people seem to veer off
supporting
>their agend for gear of affecting "Standards of Living". Nice phrase that-
I wonder
>are our 'standards' rising of falling?
>
>
>
>
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>
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