From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Tue Jul 05 2005 - 17:05:57 BST
Matt, Paul and all Moqians.
After umpteen exchanges with you two over the SOL I have a
sense of having arrived. Matt have been talking about the MOQ
for several weeks and have also demonstrated that he
understands what I have been driving at for nearly a decade.
Fantastic!
Anyway, what we have arrived at (at least regarding Paul,
hopefully Matt will participate too) is the following logical
arrangement:
1)
The Greek cultural upheaval marks the emergence of what - in
MOQ - is called the intellectual level.
2)
This upheaval is in ZMM described as the emergence of the
Subject/Object Metaphysics (SOM).
3)
Thus when we speak about MOQ's intellectual level we speak
about SOM.
4)
The MOQ rejects the SOM which means both its subjective and
objective aspect.
(A 5th point may be that after the COMPLETE rejection, the
MOQ no longer is part of its own intellectual level, but it follows
more or less naturally)
At least one of these points must be faulty to break my logic
which concludes that the incomplete rejection of the SOM
(leaving its subjective half unscathed) is behind the resistance to
seeing that the SOL is the MOQ.
******************
If Paul responds he will possibly zoom in on # 1 and repeat that
the (western) intellectual level starting with the Greeks doesn't
provide a definition of it, but in the letter to Paul ....
Pirsig says:
> Just when the evolution of the intellectual level from the social level
> took place in history can only be speculated on (.....). But if one
> studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies the sayings of
> primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is conspicuously absent.
> The world is ruled by Gods who follow social and biological patterns and
> nothing else.
See he doesn't speak of any western intellect ... or western
society for that matter. The absence of intellectual value in the
early books of the Bible is matched by the same in early Greek
literature ("The Iliad" for example), thus the intellectual level
emerged as described in ZMM.
In the same letter Pirsig also says:
> From a philosophic idealist viewpoint there is nothing but intellect.
> From a Zen viewpoint it is a part of the world of everyday affairs that
> one leaves behind upon becoming enlightened and then rediscovers from a
> Buddha's point of view
This is what I have been saying: To you (Matt and Paul) there is
nothing but intellect. Everything - including the MOQ itself - are
intellectual ideas. But from a MOQ (Zen) viewpoint intellect is
part of the static development (the world of everyday affairs) that
one leaves behind upon understanding the MOQ (becoming
enlightened) and then looks back upon in a SOL light
(rediscovers from a Buddha's point of view).
****************
There has been an anti-objectivism trend in the West for a long
time and people believe they are "Zen" when joining that
movement, but when a philosophy appears that is just as anti-
subjectivist it is met with perplexity ...or with efforts to transform it
into another new-ageism variety. This is why Matt had such easy
play with DMB and Anthony, but became baffled when confronted
with my real MOQ.
Its rejection of both objectivism AND subjectivism is the shocking
part of the MOQ and what I believe the out-of-hospital Pirsig
didn't dare pursue. In ZMM he avoided it by creating a narrator
who merely tells about Phaedrus; how inconsiderate and reckless
he was. Next - in LILA and the MOQ - by ignoring the original
insight that intellect is the S/O generator.
The explanation may be that Pirsig's own obsession was with the
Quality=Reality issue (funnily that part is completely ignored) and
it overshadowed everything else, but ZMM succeeded in that
respect, and also in proving that Phaedrus was a most sane
person with ideas that caught the attention of millions all over the
world, therefore Pirsig could have started on the MOQ from that
axiom on ...and with the original insight about intellect..
Enough!
Bo
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