From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Jul 13 2005 - 20:38:44 BST
Michael, Paul, Scott, and Reinier (who's listening in) --
Michael:
> You seem to label most MoQ'ers as nihilists, but how can
> that be, when the MoQ says that values and morals are real - indeed
> that they are built into the fabric of reality?
Paul:
> I am baffled by Ham's sustained tirade against "the nihilist MOQ"
> too. It is as if theism is nihilism's only alternative.
Scott:
> I agree with this criticism (of Ham). But I would also ask why do some
> MOQists (notably Pirsig) think that the only alternative to theism is
> anti-theism?
Gentlemen, you are obviously offended by my use of the word "nihilistic" to
describe the MoQ as postulated. You also object to the term "theism". I'll
admit to having problems with Theism as it is commonly understood, which is
why I've avoided it, just as I've avoided God. The problem has nothing to
do with the spiritual values associated with a transcendent Source, without
which I consider any belief system nihilistic.
And Scott is absolutely right: there is nothing inherently theistic in the
concept of an Intelligent Designer, Quality as the primary source, or
Essence as the ultimate reality. But there is certainly nothing
anti-theistic in these concepts. So what is the MoQers need to push for
anti-theism?
The universe may well have "quality" built into it -- indeed, it is a
masterful creation. But absent the individual's consciousness of it, and it
disappears. In any definition of the word "value", human sensibility is the
critical factor. Man is linked to his experiential existence and to his
Creator by Value. It's meaningless to say that the universe "evolves to
betterness", if man has nothing to do with it. Why, then, does Mr. Pirsig
avoid emphasizing -- let alone defining -- conscious awareness as something
apart from "Intellect" which occupies so prominent a place in his Quality
heirarchy? What is there about human consciousness that he's afraid of?
Even Steven Kaufman's "Unified Reality Theory" bases his reality on
consciousness, as have other "non-believers". Descartes began his
philosophy from the individual perspective, as did Kant and Hegel. But
their theories fell short of the transcendental. Here's a statement that
reflects my view of how nililism evolved in our culture. It's from law
professor Phillip Johnston's "First Things" You'll note he's not afraid to
use the G-- word:
"Secularized intellectuals have long been complacent in their apostasy
because they were sure they weren't missing anything important in consigning
God to the ashcan of history. They were happy to replace the Creator with a
mindless evolutionary process that left humans free and responsible only to
themselves. They complacently assumed that when their own reasoning power
was removed from its grounding in the only ultimate reality, it could float,
unsupported, on nothing at all. As modernist rationalism gives way in
universities to its own natural child-postmodernist nihilism, modernists are
learning very slowly what a bargain they have made. It isn't a bargain a
society can live with indefinitely."
I've quoted the above in an essay called "Philosophy is Dead", which will
give you a fairly complete idea of what I think nihilism really means, and
why I think "what nihilism isn't" should be the core of any valuistic
philosophy -- even Mr. Pirsig's MoQ:
www.essentialism.net/philosophy_is_dead.htm .
Thanks for the opportunity,
Ham
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