From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 16:39:41 BST
Hi Johnny,
JOHNNY
...I think compassion is that higher state of intellectually realizing
everyone's
> equal worth and dignity and that a selfish romantic love comes much more
> naturally, mixed as it with jealousy and fear and other base emotions.
RICK
I think this is a bad comparison because you're using a juxtaposing a
purposely flattering picture of compassion against a purposely unflattering
picture of romance. I don't think that romantic love implies 'jealousy and
fear and other base emotions' anymore than I think that compassion implies
hypocrisy (as some have suggested).
Moreover, I don't think compassion *needs* to be 'intellectually realized'
at all, as I have said, I think it exists quite comfortably on the social
level.
JOHNNY
I'm
> with steve that it's through loving individuals that we first experience
> love (as a baby and as a species) and then we intellectually apply that to
> people that we learn are our equals.
RICK
But the love we know as a baby (for our mother I presume you mean) isn't
'amor'. It's a biological thing. All 'individual loves' aren't alike.
What makes amor unique is that it is an individual, loving an individual,
on the basis on their individual characteristics (what Pirsig might call
their 'ideas') as opposed to merely on the basis of their status as a social
pattern.
> RICK
> >Moreover, And if you'll go back in this thread to the original J.Campbell
> >quotes I posted, you'd see historical evidence which supports this
notion.
> >Notions of agape were written in the scriptures 1000 years before amor
> >appeared on the scene. How would you explain this chronological
emergence
> >if romantic love is 'included, negated and transcended' by compassion?
JOHNNY
> But the notions of amor didn't need to be written down, they were
> biologically based.
RICK
No, you're getting confused with 'eros' again.
JOHNNY
They didn't get written down till language and
> literature were developed enough to support poets and songs, and not just
> religious texts.
RICK
But didn't you just say that as a species we learned compassion through
individual love? If that's right, how could the language and literature be
developed enough to support poems and songs about compassion before it's
developed enough to support poems and songs of individual love? Did our
language learn compassion before we did? Now of course, as Sam pointed out
at the beginning of this thread, lyrics like the "song of solomon" did speak
of individual love (albeit for God). So the vocab for amor was out there.
It's just that amor itself wasn't...yet.
JOHNNY
> So the existence of social romantic love doesn't mean you don't have to be
> intellectually compassionate, the existence of compassion doesn't mean
that
> you stop being romantic, and the existence of social romance doesn't mean
> that you stop being biologically lustful.
RICK
Except I don't think romance is principally social or that compassion is
principally intellectual. I think compassion is social and that romance is
the more highly evolved pattern (4th level for Sam; top of 3rd-level for
Pirsig).
> >RICK (to Wim)
> >Interesting. I see it just the opposite. I think that amor requires
more
> >of a conscious choice in the sense that you are now choosing BETWEEN
> >individuals on the basis of their particular individual characteristics.
JOHNNY
> Cool, I'll take Jennifer Anniston then, or maybe one of the Olson Twins.
I
> didn't realize I could choose ANY individual! That's totally awesome.
RICK
Who are you talking to Johnny? You see my quote... does it say "ANY
individual"? Of course not. I think you'll find argument is a much more
difficult and rewarding endeavor when you respond to what your interlocutor
actually says instead of making up your own responses and then answering
those. Obviously the choice will be limited to those people whom you
actually encounter in life in a significant enough way to get to know their
personality. However, keep those Olson twins dreams alive J because
improbable as may be... you really never know (just ask Larry Fortensky).
take care
rick
If you want to make enemies, try to change something. - Woodrow Wilson
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