I agree with Platt. What Lewis describes is the kind of experience
associated with Dynamic Quality.
> Lewis writes:
>
> "It was like having had a cataract taken off my brain, letting me
> experience the world and myself properly for the first time--for that
> lovely
> dark radiance seemed to reveal the essence of everything as holy. I
> felt
> like exclaiming, 'Of course! That's absolutely right!' and applauding
> every
> single thing with tears of gratitude--not just . . . the small jar of
> flowers the
> nurse had place by (my) bedside, but also the ominous stains on the
> bed
> sheets, the ancient paint peeling off the walls, the far from hygienic
> smell
> of the toilet, the coughs and groans of the other patients, and even
> the
> traumatized condition of my body. From the recesses of my memory
> emerged that statement at the beginning of the book of Genesis about
> God observing everything 'he' had made and finding it very good. In
> the
> past I'd treated these words as mere romantic poetry, referring only
> to
> conventionally grand things like sunsets and conveniently ignoring
> what
> ordinary human consciousness calls illness or ugliness. Now all the
> judgement of goodness or badness which the human mind necessarily
> has to make in its activities along the line of time were
> contextualized in
> the perspective of that other dimension I can only call eternity,
> which
> loves all the productions of time regardless."
>
[Platt says]
> It's hard to imagine that ethnic cleansing is "loved" in the larger
> perspective of the "dazzling dark" Lewis describes, but that seems to
> the
> message he and others who have had mystic revelations bring back to
> us.
>
[David Buchanan] I don't think it follows from such experiences
that ethnic cleansing is loved or holy. That notion rings of nihilism
much more than mysticism. I guess we can say, in this case, that holy is
pretty much the same as Quality. Pirsig's metaphysic is laid out so we
can make moral judgements when different kinds of Quality come into
conflict. Clearly, genocide is an extreme version of social conflict, as
is war itself. War is the ultimate control over biology and the most
violent means of achieving social values like wealth, prestige and
power. War is the brutal clash of at least two opposing sets of social
values.
Certainly, the biological level doesn't value genocide. Its main
thrust is quite the opposite, survival and procreation. The intellectual
level doesn't value it, as the indictment of Melosovich by the UN
demonstrates. Any philosophical defence of such a policy is mere
rationalization of social values, not really an idea per se. Slogans and
ideas aren't the same thing.
Pirsig points to the positive actions of "holy" men as pragmatic
proof of the Quality of their transcendental and mystical experiences
and the ideas that are generated by them. Specifically, he points to
Ghandi and Martin Luther King as individuals who were motivated this
way. Their words and actions actually led to greater freedom for
millions.
Properly understood, Jesus and Buddha are about human freedom
too, althogh I think this kind of freedom goes way beyond political
liberty. Its spiritual. Its beyond ideology and, happily, its something
about which liberals and conservatives essentially agree. Everybody
loves freedom, even if we don't agree exactly what it means or how to
get there.
Ironically, the slave-holding Thomas Jeferson wrote the magic
words of American freedom. "..all men are created equal in that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This spirit of
this declaration motivated and informed the Constitution, especially the
bill of rights. The constituion declares that the numbering of rights in
the first ten amendments is not to be construed as a limit to those
inalienable rights. The very essence of the order is instead construed
as an open-ended expansion of freedom.
The same spirit was at Gettysburg when Lincoln said that the
civil war was a test wether a nation concieved in liberty and dedicated
to the propisition that all men are created equal could long endure on
this earth. Regardless of what people may claim about his motives,
freedom for millions was the result of Lincoln's words and actions.
OK, maybe the next part is a bit of a strech but,...
You could almost say that Jefferson's "life, liberty and pursuit
of happiness" correspond to the second, third and fourth levels
respectively. The right to life must mean that no one should be denied
air food water. And it seems any functional and healthy society will
make sure everyone has clothes, shelter and can be defended against
violence. I'm sure we could argue forever about the exact meaning of the
right to live, but you get the idea.
Liberty is on the social level and is about freedom from
political oppression. The bill of rights spells this idea out with
prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure, forcing one to
take an oath or give testimony against oneself, etc.
The pursuit of happiness, I presume, is at the intellectual
level and is reflected in the rights to freedom speech and expression,
and of conscience and religion. I presume the pursiut of happiness is
about expansion of the mind and cultivation of the soul. It is the
pursuit of DQ.
You could almost say that, but Jefferson never read Pirsig. And
the principles of natural rigths and freedom have yet to be fulfilled.
But I think it is DQ and therefore the mystical experience that is
behind the expansion of freedom. Americans don't own the idea, Jefferson
just said it well. It's much bigger,more powerful and older than the
USA. DQ tells us freedom is loved, not mass rape and murder.
David B.
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