From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 28 2004 - 00:26:59 GMT
Sam, Chin and all MOQers:
Sam Norton began:
If I can be persuaded that the MoQ does in fact allocate value to people as
such, then that will be a significant step forward in my understanding of
it, and that is a good thing. ...my (deliberately provocative) assertion
was: according to the MoQ, the worst thing about 9/11 was the loss of the
ideas in all the victim's heads. Which seems to be morally absurd - but
which seems to me to be a logical consequence of...the MoQ.
dmb says:
Yes, it would be absurd, but I don't think such a position is a logical
consequence of the MOQ. If we assume its not crucial that each of the
victims was a living being capable of responding to Dynamic Quality, and it
we assume that the forest is of no value only the various levels of trees
within it, (this is me politely filling the holes in your argument) and if
we assume the grief and suffering of the loved one's victims, the economic
losses and the negative effects on the political culture are all unimportant
compared with the loss of ideas within the victims heads, then your
conclusion still doesn't follow becasue it assumes those ideas exist nowhere
else and will be lost to the world as a result of that tragic death. But
more to the point...
Sam said:
Now, an assumption lying behind this is that there is no 'thing' in the MoQ
which corresponds to what we would normally describe as a 'person', ie when
we think of a person - Jane Doe - that which we call 'Jane Doe' can be more
accurately characterised by the breaking down of that conglomeration of
patterns of values into the constituent parts. ...There is no 'locus of
value' corresponding to Jane Doe, and therefore, in considering what is bad
about the murder of Jane Doe, according to the MoQ, the worst thing is the
loss of the IDEAS in her head. Jane Doe does not have value in her own
right, irrespective of those patterns of value of which she is composed,...
dmb says:
I think that you're looking for a soul in the MOQ and, not finding one, are
horrified at the moral implications of its absence. The "locus of value" is
something like our basic idea of normal waking consciousness, of the
self-aware person who seems to be pondering these issues, am I right? And
this is the metaphysically problematic little self, the Ayn Randian
individual that is rejected by the MOQ, Buddhism and science, see? I think
that if this assumption has to be replaced by Pirsig's conception of the
self if one wants to ask about the value of people within the MOQ. See?
Otherwise there is only confusion as we would be talking about two entirely
different concepts of "person" and "self".
Toward the end of Anthony McWatt's epilogue, Pirsig addresses the issue of
compassion and it seemed that his thoughts on the matter would be relevant
to your question. Rather than ask specifically "what's the worst thing about
9/11" we could broaden it and simply ask why we should care about anyone's
tragedy or why we should care about people at all. Pirsig makes three points
about compassion...
(1) The MOQ seems to classify compassion as a pattern of social cohesion
driven by strong biological emotions. When these two are combined with
intellectual patterns of quality the result is a strong force for the good,
as in the abolition of slavery. When compassion opposes intellectual
quality, however the result can be foolishness or even evil.
dmb says:
I heard a radio interview with a psychologist that pretty well confirms
Pirsig's description here. Contrary to what many people think, compassion or
empathy is not a highly refined cultural trait or the mark of good
character. Its very basic stuff and operates largely on a biological level.
Body language alone can evoke empathy and it seems to be a natural and
spontaneous response with powerful advantages when it comes to survival.
Fear, for example, is the kind of thing one needs to recognize in a big
hurry and without a lot of formal education. We instinctively recognize and
respond to the expression of fear in others before any thought process can
occur. Later these instincts are mollified and refined by the higher levels,
but compassion is not particularly noble in and of itself. Hilter had
compassion for the German volk, you know? It entirely depends on how far
that compassion extends and such.
(2) Genuine compassion and talk about compassion often have different
purposes. When compassion is talked up intellectually there sometimes
emerges a certain aroma of unction and piousness that makes me suspicious.
Some preachers use compassion the way Uriah Heep [Heep is a character in
Dickens' David Copperfield] uses humility, i.e. to advance themselves.
dmb says:
A friend of mine recently did this very thing with respect to 9/11. He used
"talk about compassion" to advance his own point of view, even to the point
of taking on a rather pious tone now and then. The thing that really killed
me about his constant reference to the attacks as a justification for the
invasion of Iraq was that it seemed to rest on the assumption that he's more
compassionate than me and that if I only felt more deeply for the victims,
I'd then support the war too. I thought he was irrational and he thought I
was heartless. The thing is, it doesn't exactly take a moral genius to
discern the horror of 9/11 and only a monster could fail to be moved by it,
but emotions do not a foreign policy make. And in another radio interview I
heard about how fear shuts down the higher cognitive functions and creates a
kind of cloud in the mind. I think this explains my friend's attitude as
well as the recent election. Anyway, here's the clincher...
(3) The narrative of ZMM is dominated by the compassion of the narrator for
his son even though he doesn't talk about it as such, and when Phædrus says
Lila has quality he is speaking compassionately and is held in contempt for
this by Rigel [the lawyer character epitomising social values in LILA].
Rigel is arguing that Phædrus' compassion for Lila is damned foolishness.
Phædrus struggles in subsequent chapters to show that it is intellectually
sound.
dmb says:
Naturally, I was quite pleased to find that my interpretation of Pirsig
matches Pirsig's interpretation of Pirsig because nobody knows what Pirsig
thinks better than Pirsig. ;-) But the interesting part here is that the
"objects" of compassion are so very central to both books and that the MOQ
is, among other things, an attempt to show that such elaborate
demonstrations of compassion are intellectually sound. Whether or not he
fully succeeds in doing this, I think the attempt all by itself makes it
nearly impossible to conclude that the MOQ is indifferent to the loss of
life or is otherwise unconcerned with people.
Thanks.
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