From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Fri Dec 13 2002 - 22:27:49 GMT
Dear Sam,
You asked David B. (and me?) 9 Dec 2002 19:18:13 -0000 to have 'a crack at
outlining what [he thinks] Pirsig thinks about ritual'. After trying to get
agreement on that, phase 2 would start 'on the question of rephrasing
theology in MoQish and other matters of ritual concern' (or -as I would
phrase it- 'on an evaluation of religious rituals we are involved in
ourselves based on our MoQ'). I am indeed more interested in this second
phase than in agreeing on Pirsig's ideas.
What Pirsig writes about (religious) rituals refers primarily to their role
in giving birth to the intellectual level:
'These rituals may be the connecting link between the social and
intellectual levels of evolution. One can imagine primitive song-rituals and
dance-rituals associated with certain cosmology stories, myths, which
generated the first primitive religions. From these the first intellectual
truths could have been derived. If ritual always comes first and
intellectual principles always come later, then ritual cannot always be a
decadent corruption of intellect. Their sequence in history suggests that
principles emerge from ritual, not the other way around. That is, we don't
perform religious rituals because we believe in God. We believe in God
because we perform religious rituals.' (chapter 30)
In a sense what he writes earlier in the same chapter about 'ritualistic
religion' can be seen as an application of that insight:
'Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the
rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal of Dynamic Quality, a signpost
which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see Dynamic Quality.'
So for those on the brink of participating in the intellectual level,
(religious) rituals point to intellectual truths and beyond, to Dynamic
Quality itself.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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