First, a passage or two from the end of chapter 13....
"The structuring of morality into evolutionary levels suddenly gives
shape to all kinds of blurred and confused moral ideas that are floating
around in our present cultural heritage. ... Like the stuff Rigel was
throwing at him this morning, the old Victorian morality. That was
entirely within one code, the social code. Phaedrus thought that code
was good as far as it went, but it didn't really go anywhere. It didn't
know its origins and it didn't know its own destinations, and not
knowing them it had to be exactly what it was: hopelessly static,
hopelessly stupid, a form of evil in itself." ...
"Everybody thinks those Victorian moral codes are stupid and evil, or
old-fashioned at least, except maybe a few religious fundamentalists and
ultra-right-wingers and ignorant uneducated people like that. That's why
Rigel's sermon seemed so peculiar. Usually people like Rigel do their
sermonizing in favor of whatever is popular. That way they're safe.
Didn't he know all that stuff went out years ago? Where was he during
the revolution of the sixties."
"Where has he been during this whole century? That's what this whole
century's been about, this struggle between intellectual and social
patterns. That's the theme song of the 20th century."
As the book concludes, at the end of the last chapter Pirsig writes...
"THE MOQ TRANSLATED karma AS EVOLUTIONARY GARBAGE. KARMA IS THE PAIN AND
SUFFERING THAT RESULTS FROM CLINGING TO THE STATIC PATTERNS OF THE
WORLD."
He discusses two IMMORAL ways of killing these static patterns, one is
suicide, another is...
"...what Phaedrus called a KARMA dump. You invent a devil group, Jews,
blacks or whites or capitalists or communists - it doesn't matter - then
say that group is responsible for all your suffering, and then hate it
and try to destroy it."
"Back in Kingston Rigel's whole breakfast sermon was a KARMA DUMP."
"If you take all this karmic garbage and make yourself feel better by
passing it on to others that's normal. That's the way the world works.
But if you manage to absorb it and not pass it on, that's the highest
moral conduct of all. That really advances everything, not just you. The
whole world. If you look at the lives of some of the great moral figures
of history - Christ, Lincoln, Gandi and others - you'll see that that's
what they were really involved in, the cleansing of the world through
the absorption of karmic garbage. They didn't pass it on. Their follower
sometimes did, but they didn't."
Then, as he's taking the doll/idol to shore for the ritual, the object
speaks to him, telling him how its all going to work out, how everybody
wins.
"Whew, this was some ido, Phaedrus thought. Sarcastic, cynical. Almost
vicious. Was that what he himself was really like underneath? Maybe it
was..."
"You're the winner, you know," the idol said. "...by default."
"How so?"
"You did one moral thing on this whole trip, which saved you."
"What was that?"
"You told Rigel that Lila had Quality"
"You mean in Kingston?"
"Yes and the only reason you did that was because he caught you by
surprize and you couldn't think of your usual intellectual answer, but
you turned him around. He wouldn't have come here if it hadn't been for
that. Before then he had no respect for her and a lot for you. After
that HE HAD NO RESPECT FOR YOU, BUT SOME FOR HER. So you gave her
something and that's what SAVED YOU. If it hadn't been for that one
moral act you'd be headed down the coast tomorrow with a lifetime of
Lila ahead of you."
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