From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 05 2005 - 15:44:23 GMT
I take it from your reply you pretty much dismiss most of ZMM. And where you
accept a conclusion (the melding of classical and romantic modes), you dismiss
the labor/consumer thesis that drove Pirsig too that conclusion.
You mention "personal behavior patterns" are independant of "marketplace values"
except "as measured by what people voluntarily pay for". I'm not sure the
distinction, but this is exactly the problem (adding, of course, "what people
labor for" as well, the "market" is both labor and consumption). And again you
seem to dismiss any effect of amoral SOMist thought outside the realm of the
"Intellectual-social" crisis. Yet, Fordist production, Platt, was an
"Intellectual" pattern that arose at exactly the moment Intellectual patterns
were being given dominance over social patterns. Fordist production IS an
amoral intellecutal pattern, just like the law of gravity. How on earth could
an amoral Intellect produce a wholly moral pattern in production?
Pirsig saw the cultural defect as one unchallengable in the current system, due
to an absense of language to address the problems. You keep saying "I don't
know what this means", and I'm not sure how to be clearer. Let me restate
Pirsig on this.
"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."
In this sentence, Pirsig sets the problem as one of cultural langauge ("[they]
don't know where to start because no one has ever told them there's such a
thing as Quality in this world"). ZMM and Lila were written "to tell them". To
give them a language with which to address (and solve) the cultural defects
brought on by SOMist thought.
The effects of enriching the language Pirsig makes clear in this quote.
"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."
Here Pirsig makes it clear that the defective institutions being challenged are
the result of a dominant cultural "rationality", and that true change can only
emerge from a shift to a new rationality, one based on Quality.
You think the crises of ZMM, the defects in production and consumption that
permeate the marketplace are either unreal or unimportant, and that the real
problem is more or less college professors. If that were all ZMM and Lila were
about, they would've been dismissed as a cranky old conservative rambling on
about "interllect'als". Thankfully, there is more to both books than that. And
thankfully, Pirsig's entire thesis in ZMM revolves are SOMist defects in the
biggest part of our lives, work and consuming. Not simply something for
talk-radio airbags to puff about, but real problems that effect everyone's
daily lives.
[Platt]
Amoral SOM intellect is helpless to condemn such biological behavior that, as
Pirsig says, threatens civilization.
[Arlo]
Because amoral intellect always opposes social patterns, and concern for others
over oneself is a social-level pattern (most often originating out of
religion). The entire Randian treatise that the highest goal of an individual
is to watch out for him/herself is an intellectual attack on social patterns of
compassion and community, such as those preached by the
Pay-Him-Lip-Service-Only Lord of the Christians.
Fordist production, factories, etc., as I've mentioned are the result of this
intellectual abandonment of social-level patterns. Pirsig intuits as much when
he says...
"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."
The "structure", dominant amoral Intellect, demands that they "perform a totally
meaningless task from eight to five without question". That is Fordist,
intellectual guided production right there.
The effect of this, Pirsig is clear about, meaningless labor gives rise to
meaningless consumption.
"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."
The relationship between the people who produce and the things they produce is
something totally ignored by an intellectual guidance that views people as
"assets" or "disposable", one that makes their task "meaningless". The result,
indeed, the very cultural observation that drove Pirsig's thesis, was the
"junk", overlayed with tinsel, but having no Quality that defined the
"marketplace".
You keep quoting Lila in hopes to distract away from anything Pirsig wrote in
ZMM, which as I've said earlier, you choose to either disbelieve or ignore.
I've tried reglancing over ZMM to see if Pirsig's real concern was as you say
"intellectual professors in the 50s and 60s sitting down for tea with
criminals", and I just don't find that at all. Certainly, this is one further
effect of the intellectual-social conflict, but to ignore all the other
ramifications of this conflict in our culture, indeed ones so important as to
drive the entire Quality thesis emergent in ZMM, is baffling.
[Platt]
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.
[Arlo]
??? The only times I've used the word "style" was quoting Pirsig. If you're not
sure about his use of the word, maybe you should re-read ZMM.
[Platt]
Nor do I see how you get "cultural language" out of the theme of Lila...
[Arlo]
Because I am talking about the theme of ZMM. However, if you wish me to provide
the same evidence in Lila, I can. Indeed, I have many times across many posts.
But I can sum it as such, the "languge" of a culture is the vehicle by which
the dominant "rationality" of the culture is transmitted, enforced and reified.
To date, the dominant "rationality" has been SOM. This rationality is
transmitted, enforced and reified through the language. Pirsig's solutions in
both books begin with giving people an improved language, one centered on
Quality, by which they can challenge the dominant rationality.
[Platt]
... 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."
[Arlo]
Yep, and the biological level concern only for the "self" (a necessary
biological pattern, I'll add) has been given intellectual support over
social-level patterns of community-mindedness, such as those espoused by Jesus.
[Platt]
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.
[Arlo]
Yep, I'm that good. I can solve poverty too, if you give me a few minutes...
[Platt]
It seems to me that what needs to be changed is what you have previously
suggested -- the premises on which our beliefs are built.
[Arlo]
Well, gal'darn... see, combine the two. The "premises on which our beliefs are
built" are transmitted, enforced and reifited through the "cultural language",
which comes from the dominant "rationality".
[Platt]
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.
[Arlo]
You're not the only saying it's not "stupid people". If only you'd see that
"adverstising" and production and consumption are also impacted by the "amoral
SOM, the dominant intellectual pattern", you'd see exactly what I'm getting at.
Instead, you choose to place the defects solely at the feet of "intellectuals'
tea parters", and not, as Pirsig did in ZMM, in the factories and on the
shelves.
Arlo
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