I've been re-reading parts of Lila while thinking about the nature of
fame and fortune. Pirsig has lots of original ideas in this area and it
goes a long way toward explaining the differences between the social and
intellectual levels of value patterns. I think the issue is very much
related to our recent discussions about psychological projection, the
static filters and even the Hiroshima debate.
(Rich has very recently asked good questions about ultimate and mystical
truths, but I'd like to stay in the phenomenal world for a while.
Besides, I mostly agree with Rich and so my reply to him would just turn
into a love-fest and would probably just bore everyone else. But I'd
also like to challenge Rich to be much, much more specific. I dare say
that the poetic language you employ is appropriate and sometimes even
beautiful, but that style of expression also makes it difficult to get a
handle on your views.)
It seems like it might be a good time to incorporate real-world events
into the topic too. JFK Jr. has disappeared and it looks like he is
probably dead. I bet the funeral and out pouring of public greif will
rival that which surronded the death of Princess Diana or Mother
Theresa. They are each Mythic figures, the most powerful kind of
celebritiy.
I'm sure you remember that scene in a Manhattan hotel room where Pirsig
meets with Redford to discuss the rights to ZAMM. This is the same
section where the "Giant" is discussed. Celebrities are a part of the
Giant.
On page 256 Pirsig writes, "Celebrity is to social patterns as sex is to
biological patterns. ...In a value-structured universe celebrity comes
roaring to the front of reality as a huge fundamental parameter. It
becomes an organizing force of the whole social level of evolution"
I think its safe to say that we're not just talking about movie stars.
It seems celebrity is practically the social "giant's" means of
propagation. It must include the rich as well as the famous, living and
dead. Somehow even the infamous are included in the hall of celebrity,
the hall of mirrors.
On page 254 it says, "But what controls all these mirrors is the
culture: the Giant, the gods; and if you run afoul of the culture it
will starrt throwing up mirrors and try to destroy you, or it will
withdraw the mirrors and destroy you that way."
It seems that this is nearly a nuts and bolts description of how static
filters work on the social level. Anyone that tries to fight the giant
will be destroyed, except for the rare heros who slay the dragon, as the
legends say. Its one of the oldest stories, eh? Notice how the hero must
be pure of heart, etc. Its a mythological recognition of the difference
between de-generate criminals and Dynamic revolutionaries. (Joseph
Campbell's HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES really spells this out.) Pirsig
points to this mythical issue toward the very end when he mentions
Campbell's multi-volume MASKS OF GOD as a good source on the social
level vaules.
But more at ground level, I was struck by the following passage in light
of the shootings at Columbine high school, which was last April 20th,
Hitler's birthday. It comes from page 257.
"High school was REALLY the place for celebrity. That's what had those
jocks out playing football every afternoon. That's what the pom-pom
girls were all about. It was celebrity."
The shooters, they say, were tormented by the jocks. They were
supposedly outcasts, neo-nazi misfits with there own brand of
counter-culture rebellion. But when I saw the photos of the kids who
were actually shot in the rampage, there were no jocks and only one
victim was a minority. All the victims resembled the shooters in some
way and all of them were nerdy kids who probably weren't very popular.
It seems they were shooting at their least favorite mirrors. They were
out to kill themselves in more ways than one. They were trying to fight
the Giant, but lacked the dynamism. And they were not ready to slay
dragons because they were still struggling with the basic issues in
"adjusting" to society. There were mental health issues, trouble with
the law, rejection by the air force and a very anti-social ideology.
Heroic Transcendence just wasn't in the cards. The Giant ate 'em up.
On the same page Pirsig notes that, "you can measure the quality of a
university by comparing the relative strengths of the celebrity patterns
and the intellectual patterns. you never get rid of the celebrities,
even at the best universities, but there the intellectuals could ignore
them and be in a class by themselves."
This helps in getting at the difference between the two levels. Pirsig's
decision to keep the movie rights say a lot about the difference too.
Remember he reasons that it would be immoral to sell the rights because
his book, an intellectual level artifact, ought not be taken over by
movie makers, who mostly work at the social level. This raises some
questions in my mind. He argues that even donstructing the MOQ was a
degenerate activity because it was bringing the mystical down into the
intellectual level, but he's able to reconcile himself to that. Why
can't he reconcile with Robert Redford in the same way?
I think Rich showed us how all four levels are involved in our e-mail
discussion of these issues. (In his "generally silly madness" post.)
Clearly there is no going around the social level, even for mystics and
intellectuals. And isn't it Pirsig's idea that the problem with SOM
science is not mediated by the social level? So what is the difference
between proper mediation up through all the levels and the degenerate
activity of pulling higher value pattterns down into a lower, less
evolved level? That's the main question. I'd really like to get some
other perspectives on this issue. How about a little help here? Can
intellectual hero also be celebrities, or what? How is a book publisher
more intellectual than a movie maker? See what I'm getting at?
And can I have your autograph?
David B.
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