From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Jul 11 2005 - 17:09:44 BST
Hi Ed,
Just wanted to say thanks for the well-written, well-referenced and
thoughtful post, again. I wish you had time to contribute more
often. Obviously I find nothing to disagree with, and it will be
interesting to see if anyone objects to your interpretation of
Pirsig's words from the end of Chapter 13. That quote, and that
chapter, could not more clearly illustrate that societal ideals which
rend the fabric of society are immoral.
Thanks also for the Cambell reference, and for the passage from ZMM,
my favorite.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com On 10 Jul 2005 at 15:48, edeads wrote: Platt > I find no support in the MOQ for your ideas of limits on personal > wealth or eliminating the influence of wealth on politicians. The > MOQ principles for a moral society are based on intellectual values > over the social order -- democracy, trial by jury, freedom of > speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, of travel, habeas > corpus, and free markets. The the thrust of the MOQ is toward > dynamic freedom, not static limits. Ed You best reread Chapter 13. Your comments suggest there is no bound to personal pursuit of wealth despite the cost to others or to society. The MOQ does support limits on personal wealth when such activity becomes a detriment to society. Pirsig noted: Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at war with society, seeking to subjugate society, to put society under lock and key. An evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to do so, but it also contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens its people's physical health endangers its own stability, so does an intellectual pattern that weakens and destroys the health of its social base also endanger[s] its own stability. Better to say "has endangered." It's already happened. this has been a century of fantastic intellectual growth and fantastic social destruction. The only question is how long this process can keep on. Ed It is essential to look at effects. Imbalances will always exist, but gross imbalances will get you into trouble. We have seen the effects of gross imbalances -- for example inability to access health care. Taking this example, there remains the personal responsibility to personal health, but when I was at the emergency room I saw two young kids who were at the finance window in tears and this brought on there fighting with eachother over money. They didn't understand the greater forces at play, they thought it was their "fault" for not having enough money, so blamed eachother. It was sad to see. Right here in my affluent little town. One can enter the debates on the effects by looking at the statistics etc, and such is important to do. When I price out insurance, it is prohibitive. And when I learn that one of the largest incomes was the prize of a health insurance tycoon I understood a little better. One schmuck gets inordinate wealth while young kids cry and scream. We need to pay this schmuck handsomely because, at least to some, his services are important. But when he and his industry force insurance to be out of reach and cause kids to cry for financial reasons, not personal hardship, the impact upon society is evident. The effects are visible. Well, perhaps not quite visible enough; we need to study this more. As MSH asks, is the percentage of uninsured not yet quite high enough, does it need to go up another 5 percentage points, or perhaps will you be satisfied at an additional 7 percentage points because that will enable the additional trust fund for our mogul's great grandaughter, a dynamic pursuit. There is no check on an individual that is pursuing dynamic quality at the inordinate cost of others? His service is essential to some greater good? It must be OK if it is dynamic, is that the sole measure? To me, a defense of the dynamic pursuit of this mogul and those he represents is simply an intellectual level argument against society that has run amok. Clever perhaps in its legalistic views and justification, but it fails to consider the larger picture. It is not consistent with the MOQ. It is a blind fight for freedom. I'd rather see personal responsibility for personal health be taught to preclude, for example, the increase in childhood obesity. But this would preclude the inordinate profits to pharmaceuticals and insurance and the health industry, and those involved in junk food. But the information does exist to enhance one's own health and live longer. I personally like this road, enhanced health is dynamic and everyone can make healthier choices. Problem is, vested interests don't want people to take better care of themselves, otherwise they would be littering the media with far more information on how to do this, and stop suppressing the mal impact of junk food and medication, rather than promoting these items. So, we adapt, and we buy larger clothes for the kids, and spend more on their hospital bills when they get older, and more on their medications now. All for our dynamic mogul friends. High quality freedom indeed. More generally on the topic of Morality and Society, I'll set forth two quotes. One from Joseph Campbell and one from Pirsig. Both provide support in looking at the larger picture and synthesizing our activities with greater awareness. I found them similar and thought they not only hedge against the static codes of morality in which our society is now embedded, but also force a look at the foundation upon which our morality is based: From Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned the world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer. The twelfth-century troubadour poetry of courtly love was a protest against this supernaturally justified violation of life's joy in truth. So too the Tristan legend and at least one of the great versions of the legend of the Grail, that of Wolfram von Eschenback. The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature. There was something of this spirit in the medieval cult of the Virgin, out of which all the beautiful thirteenth-century french cathedrals arose. However, our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature. From Pirsig in ZMM At the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even perception, at the moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is no object. There is only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness of subjects and objects. At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical. ... What really counts in the end is peace of mind, nothing else. The reason for this is that peace of mind is a prerequisite for a perception of Quality which is beyond romantic Quality and classic Quality and which unites the two, and which must accompany the work as it proceeds. The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through. ... So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce that which will be a reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all. 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