From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Mon Aug 30 2004 - 20:13:50 BST
Ham Priday to Paul Turner, David Buchanan, et al
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 3:10 PM
Subject: RE: MD The individual in the MOQ
Paul said:
> The MOQ agrees with Buddhism that the self has no primary independent
> reality. Therefore the self cannot in any way be the *only* reality,
> which is the claim of solipsism. I may be wrong, having not read your
> thesis, but if you think that every thing, including the self, has "an
> essence" this may be confusing you with regards to the MOQ.
dmb added::
> There's another thing that may be confusing Ham. The MOQ concieves of the
> self in a way that defies Western common sense. It defies the idea of a
> subjective self looking out upon an objective world, (SOM) and all its
> permutations. The MOQ's self is more like the Buddhist's or the mystic's,
> which says we are one with the universe already, whether we realize it or
> not. We're it. Thou art that. Atonement. It is expressed many ways, but
the
> idea is basically that, yes, the essence of reality and the essence of man
> is exactly the same.
I've been trying to nail down what it is that fundamentally divides the MOQ
from Essentialism. After reviewing the posts on this thread, I think I've
discovered it. Our fundamental difference is not that I see Quality as a
derivation of a unified source that MOQers equate with the whole of physical
reality, although I consider that notion as extended empiricism. The basic
difference is your "collectivist" conception of man himself. The fact that
there is a need to discuss "the Individual in the MOQ" suggests that some of
us have a problem identifying the individual in Pirsig's stratified layer
ontology which breaks out Intellect (not the self) as the "highest
evolutionary" rung on the ladder. Defining man as a composite of biological
and inorganic patterns obscures the proprietary awareness (subjectivity) of
the individual and makes man's existential freedom questionable.
This became clearer to me when I read dmb's criticism of my interpetation of
the "Giant" analogy in LILA:
dmb said:
> The giant is a metaphor for the social level and is meant to
> highlight that level's independence from biological values and the
> advantages such a higher life form has over mere animal existence. This is
> part of Pirsig's attack on the Modern West's idea that "man is born free,
> yet everywhere he is in chains".
Even if "everywhere (man) is in chains", which is a gross exaggeration
reminiscent of Marxist protests, it does not destroy intellectual freedom --
unless, as I suspect, your understanding of Freedom (as a pattern?) is the
attribute of a group or movement in society at large. The remainder of this
quote seems to bear out such a collectivist view:
> Pirsig repeatedly points our that society
> makes us more free than the jungle will allow and that it has been
> disasterous to think of society as inherently oppressive. Again, this is
> meant to contradict Western common sense where, as Ayn Rand wrongly puts
it,
> "There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals".
I'm not an advocate of Ayn Rand's philosophy in general. But she was right
on her ideology of individualism. Consider this quote from "For the New
Intellectual":
"...from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we
have comes from a single attribute of man--the functioning of his reasoning
mind."
"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as
a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An
agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn
upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary
act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can
divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach.
No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his
brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are
private. They cannot be shared or transferred."
There is a trend in the Western world, particularly in the liberal
mentality, to view man's inadequacies and achievements in the collective
sense -- as a cause or movement in society. I'm afraid that Mr. Pirsig has
borrowed from this paradigm, making it almost impossible to discern man, the
individual, in this multi-layered heirachy of values. My philosophy of
Essence is individual-oriented, which is why I've called it totally
"subjective" Man -- you and I individually, not as a group species -- is
the primary "dynamic agent" in the realization of Value through the exercise
of personal freedom. This core idea of Essentialism is missing in Pirsig's
MOQ, and extending Quality to absoluteness does not work as a teleology.
Since man is the subject of all experience, and cognizance of reality is
proprietary to the individual, this must be the starting point of any
philosophy.
Hence, I must take issue with the MOQer's insistence in putting Quality
first. Neither Quality nor Value can exist without individual sensibility,
and nothing exists without a Creator.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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