From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Nov 05 2005 - 01:20:27 GMT
> [Arlo previously]
> ZMM was not about morals, it was about values. One could argue they are
> manifestations of the same thing. A "moral" is a value pattern.
In Lila, Pirsig argues that indeed morals and values are the same.
> Even so, if SOM had no provision for morals, personal behavior patterns,
> how could "marketplace values" be unaffected?
Marketplace values are independent of personal behavior patterns except as
measured by what people voluntarily pay for. By personal behavior patterns
I was referring to such patterns as setting fire to cars in protest
against the social order or knocking up and then abandoning one's
girlfriend. Amoral SOM intellect is helpless to condemn such biological
behavior that, as Pirsig says, threatens civilization.
> What? The only "problem" of
> SOM was in how intellectuals hobnobbed? I don't even recall this being a
> central issue of ZMM? Whereas, production and consumption are used
> throughout the book. From examples using rotisserie assembly, to welding,
> to repairing motorcycles, to mechanices, to shopkeepers, to the very
> summation for ZMM...
>
> "The real ugliness lies in the relationship between the people who produce
> the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar
> relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they
> use."
If the message of ZMM was that some patterns (relationships) are ugly and
others beautiful I agree. But that's hardly earthshaking, i.e., worth a
whole book.
> Or, when Pirsig says of the underlying cultural defect, "The "it" is a kind
> of force that gives rise to technology, something undefined, but inhuman,
> mechanical, lifeless, a blind monster, a death force. Something hideous
> they are running from but know they can never escape."
The "it" is identified in Lila as SOM, the force of an amoral metaphysics.
> It's that "force" that was the central issue of ZMM, not who
> "intellectuals" invite over for tea.
The force of SOM was the central issue of Lila, exemplified by: "Phaedrus
remembered parties in the fifties and sixties full of liberal intellectuals like
himself who actually admired the criminal types that sometimes showed up."
(Lila, 24) That's the crisis, not whether McDonald's pictures of hamburgers
are real.
> And finally, Pirsig is clear about this "force" manifesting itself in
> production ("People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless
> task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that
> it be that way. There’s no villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live
> meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and
> no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure
> just because it is meaningless.") and consumption ("Put the two together
> and you get a pretty accurate basic description of modern American
> technology: stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized
> typewriters and stylized clothes. Stylized refrigerators filled with
> stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized houses. Plastic stylized
> toys for stylized children, who at Christmas and birthdays are in style
> with their stylish parents.")
Thankfully in Lila Pirsig moves on to much greater issues than whether
refrigerators should be offered in colors, or if cars should be stripped
of chrome. What concerns him in Lila is the "social deterioration of
America" and the survival of "civilization itself," a bit more serious
than concerns about "style."
> You mention concern over my view that "symbols", altering the language, can
> change the world, saying...
>
> [Platt]
> Again you blame language for what you see as a "crises" in the
> marketplace. You seem to think by changing the symbols we use, we can
> change the world. That's what propagandists believe.
>
> [Arlo]
> It's what Pirsig believes. For example, in ZMM he states...
>
> "The true system, the real system, is our present construction of
> systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn
> down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that
> rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a
> systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced
> that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves
> in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so
> little understanding."
>
> And, if that's not convincing enough, he also has this to say...
>
> "technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort
> to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know
> where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as
> Quality in this world and it’s real, not style."
>
> That, right there amigo, is the crisis and the solution. Note that Pirsig
> is not "calling everyone stupid", he is saying very clearly that the
> cultural language is defective, has no means of recognizing Quality, and
> providing a language for this is exactly what ZMM and Lila have been for.
For the life of me I don't see how you get "cultural language" out of a
distinction between Quality and style. Do you want to ban the word
"style," defined as "a distinctive quality, form or type of something" or
"the state of being popular?" Surely that can't be your purpose. Nor do I
see how you get "cultural language" out of the theme of Lila which is
that we're living in a moral and social nightmare because "The
intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to become free of the
social level, has ignored the social level's role in keeping the
biological level under control." Thus we see riots in Paris and Mar Del
Plata. Perhaps you can offer some examples of how a change in the cultural
language, in the words we use, can solve those problems. It seems to me
that what needs to be changed is what you have previously suggested -- the
premises on which our beliefs are built.
> [Platt]
> Could it be you don't accuse me of this stuff because I don't consider
> people too dumb (or too busy) not to see through so called "manipulative
> advertising?" If it's the OPPOSITE of what you say, then people are indeed
> smart enough not to be fooled by advertising, and thus it presents no
> "crisis" as you seem to think.
>
> [Arlo]
> Not according to Pirsig. In ZMM he was very clear about the cultural defect
> that was preventing the seeing of Quality.
Yes, as I've been saying, the cultural defect is not stupid people or
advertising or style but something much more significant and ominous --
amoral SOM, the dominant intellectual pattern.
> "People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from
> eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be
> that way. There’s no villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live
> meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and
> no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure
> just because it is meaningless."
>
> And... "he knows that buried within it are grotesque, twisted souls forever
> trying the manners that will convince themselves they possess Quality,
> learning strange poses of style and glamour vended by dream magazines and
> other mass media, and paid for by the vendors of substance."
>
> Finally, to repost one quote extended... "don’t know where to start because
> no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and
> it’s real, not style. Quality isn’t something you lay on top of subjects
> and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be the
> source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must
> start."
>
> People are not stupid, they "don’t know where to start because no one has
> ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real,
> not style."
If ZMM were nothing more than a screed against advertising, modern
production and style it wouldn't have survived more than a day. Pirsig would be just
another cranky luddite. What fascinated ZMM readers, at least this one, was
Pirsig's attempt to reconcile romantic "style" with classical pragmatism, or art
with science, using Quality as the glue between these two seemingly opposing
worldviews.
> I think in my last post you missed the ZMM reference when I mentioned
> tinsel, accusing me instead of being Mr. Grinch robbing the world of
> baubles (before I after I inter everyone at Gulag Archipeli-arlo?)
>
> [Platt]
> A Christmas without tinsel? Please. The world you seem to want is a world
> without any useless baubles at all, a world without ribbons and wrapping
> paper and syrupy greeting cards.
>
> [Arlo]
> Cue music... "You're a mean one, Mr. Arlo."
Now that's funny. Thanks for the laugh. :-)
Platt
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