From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sun Jul 31 2005 - 03:42:16 BST
Hi Platt,
Another thread rename. I think you'll agree that we let our respective views on
Iraq stand. However, I do want to explore a bit more the notion of "cultural
diversity" and how it would be viewed by the MOQ.
I'm going to repost just the lead in pieces from our discussion, then offer some
additional thoughts.
[Platt previously]
I would suggest "high quality" and cultural perspectives do no necessarily go
together, a less "I" centric Eastern view being a case in point..
[Arlo previously]
Why is a less centric "I" a lower Quality perspective?
[Platt previously]
Because it fails to recognize individual rights which go hand in hand with
the intellectually-based rights Pirsig mentions -- free speech, free
press, freedom of worship, freedom of travel, etc..
[Arlo previously]
Do you feel that your "high Quality" views are NOT cultural perspectives?
Wouldn't you say that exposure to "our" cultural perspectives can expose
other cultures to "high Quality" perspectives they may not have developed?
[Platt previously]
I like to think, as you do, that views are high quality not because they
come from any particular culture, but because they meet the criteria of
truth at the intellectual level. Those criteria, I submit, are just as
universal as 2+2=4.
[Arlo previously]
Pirsig had this to say about Western, dialectial reason: "And now he began
to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he
gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had
lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena
of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and
wealth...but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal
magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an
enemy of it."
I'm assuming Pirsig considers the Eastern perspective more representative
of being "a part of the world". His entire treatise, ZMM and then the MOQ,
came directly out of being exposed to another cultural perspective, both
historically (in the case of Ancient Greek) and personally (in the case of
his travels East, and studies in India). He may not have agreed with every
alternate cultural perspective, but exposure to the high Quality ones led
to ZMM.
[Platt previously]
What Pirsig found was no so much that we're all one big happy kumbaya
family (a view shouted from the housetops by every environmentalist on the
planet) but that the scientific criteria of truth which, while a very high
quality intellectual pattern, contained a devastating oversight -- no
provision for morals. To see his work otherwise is to degrade its
uniqueness and importance.
[Arlo]
To your first point of contention, that a less "I" centric culture is less
Quality, I'd offer again Pirsig's words stating that the dialectical West
exchanged for power and wealth "an empire of understanding of equal magnitude"
in understanding what it means to be part of the world.
To your second, that intellectual Quality are "above culture", I offer this from
ZMM: "The term logos, the root word of "logic," refers to the sum total of our
rational understanding of the world. Mythos is the sum total of the early
historic and prehistoric myths which preceded the logos. The mythos includes
not only the Greek myths but the Old Testament, the Vedic Hymns and the early
legends of all cultures which have contributed to our present world
understanding. The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is
shaped by these legends, that our knowledge today is in relation to these
legends as a tree is in relation to the little shrub it once was."
Early in ZMM, Pirsig had this to say about intellect: "My own opinion is that
the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much
different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are,
but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that
*context* of thought, ghosts and spirits are QUITE AS REAL AS atoms, particles,
photons and quants are to modern man."
Notice here that Pirsig is saying that Quality intellectual patterns are context
dependent. They are not external and independent, but rooted in the culture in
which they emerge.
Intellectual patterns are not divorced from cultural mythos. Indeed, Pirsig
makes it clear that cultural valuations are behind what we see and what we
don't see. From Lila: "When Phaedrus started to read yacht literature he ran
across a description of the 'green flash' of the sun. What was that all about,
he wondered. Why hadn't *he* seen it? He was sure he had never seen the green
flash of the sun. Yet he *must* have seen it. But if he saw it, why didn't he
*see* it? This static filter (social semiotic values) was the explanation. He
didn't see the green flash of the sun because he'd never been *told* to see it.
... The culture hadn't told him to so he hadn't seen it."
Just as evolution within a culture depends on individuals with different
experiences remediating that experience back into the social milieu, so too can
it benefit from individuals with not only different experiences, but different
value-generated saliences and thoughts mediating that experience into the
social milieu. It can help us "see" that which our culture is "blind to".
Now, of course the strawman argument is that if we place value on cultural
diversity, we must be cultural relativists. There are high Quality intellectual
patterns we can learn from other cultures, and low Quality ones. We must not be
afraid to judge "foreign" cultural values, but nor should we ignore them as
having nothing to offer.
Had Pirsig never been exposed to, what are undoubtably, "non-white, non-western"
cultural-intellectual values, we would not have ZMM and Lila. In his case, he
was able to weave a synthesis that enlarges both perspectives. Indeed, a
central premise in Lila is how exposure to Indian cultural values shaped, and
strengthened, not just frontier values, but eventually American values as a
whole. Were it not for the Indian, we would not be who we are.
A second strawman is that I'm arguing this flows unidirectionally. Exposure to
Western high Quality cultural-intellectual patterns can improve the static
intellectual patterns of other cultures. And they would be right to reject our
low Quality intellectual patterns.
In sum, "2+2=4" or the "law of gravity" are not acultural intellectual patterns.
They are intellectual patterns valued highly by our culture, but they do not
exist independently of it. They are real only in the context in which we think.
Just as the "ghosts" were to the Indians.
Pirsig from ZMM:
"In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too,
you know."
"What?"
"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic—the number system—the principle of
algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly
they seem real.
Any other thoughts?
Arlo
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