From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 18:22:00 BST
Squonk
Welcome among the sane, now you are making some sense.
(not about racism though)
On 2 Jul. you wrote:
> I wish to state that in my view, Mr. Pirsig is in no sense racist. His
> ideas have been ignored and modified by many people, most notably
> Skutvik. In Skutvik's very personal view of the Metaphysics of
> Quality, the intellectual level is specifically differentiated
> experience and reason. To use his precise words:
> "the intellectual LEVEL emerged with the Greeks and is the S/O divide
> or reason"
> This position is not that of Mr. Pirsig.
Lila page 261 (Bantam Press. Hardcover):
"Phaedrus remembered now that it had bothered him a little that in the
Odyssey, Homer seemed at times to be equating quality with celebrity .
Perhaps in Homer's time, when evolution had not yet transcended the social
level into the intellectual, the two were the same.
I need not write in bold or capital letters for such a great linguist as yourself
to understand? Homer was Greek and experts believe him to have lived a
thousand years BC and Pirsig says that evolution had NOT YET ...etc
Celebrity - a social value - was regarded as the highest good. Another few
centuries and the transition took place.
> The assertion states that Chinese and Indian intellect did not exist
> until it was introduced from the West. This view is not even held by
> Western philosophers. It is certainly not held by squonk, Paul, or Mr.
> Pirsig:
This is described in Lila where he follows the RT trail, but first this.
> 'For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the
> intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
> collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
> brain, that stand for patterns of experience.' Lila's
> Child
I don't deny that the annotating Pirsig has said so, but MOQ becomes
impossible if the intellectual LEVEL is identified with mind, which again is
equalled with INTELLIGENCE (one of those terms that can be made into a
metaphysics MOI)
Now back to the RT (=Aretê or Quality) part which begins with the assertion
that a similar term prevailed with the Hebrews as "arhetton". I take it to mean
that the original Semitic idea was that existence was various "static"
manifestations of this dynamic entity before they had their own SOM in
which Arhetton became THE GOOD GOD which had created a material
(godless) evil world. However this "som" did not make it into a force that
came to dominate society like in the West.
The same RT in the name of "dharma" dominated the Eastern tradition with
different gods upholding the various aspects of existence, but Pirsig doesn't
compare this to the static hierarchy of the MOQ only asserts that the Hindus
has reached a dynamic/static harmony which is foreign to the Western
(SOM) tradition where "...progress seems to proceed by a series of spasms
alternating freedom and ritual".
All this - which makes perfect sense in the SOL interpretation - becomes
impossible in the mind variety. As if those people aren't as mindful or
intelligent as anyone else - and "intellectual" in the sense of being able to
work the S/O divide as a useful TOOL, which is the way it should be treated
in the West too, but we are in SOM's grip as you demonstrate so painfully
well.
> PIRSIG: "It is important for an understanding of the
> MOQ to see that although 'common sense' dictates that
> inorganic nature came first, actually 'common sense'
> which is a set of ideas, has to come first. This
> 'common sense' is arrived at through a web of socially
> approved evaluations of various alternatives. The key
> term here is 'evaluation,' i.e. quality decisions. The
> fundamental reality is not the common sense or the
> objects and laws approved of by common sense but the
> approval itself and the quality that leads to it."
> Lila's Child Note 97
Of course: A metaphysics (theory of everything) crystallize all of existence in
its mold, but if the Quality Idea is seen as an all-intellectual pattern we are
faced with the paradox of a part containing the whole. Heck even DQ
becomes a static intellectual pattern! No, it has to be something that is not
at home in intellect ...but you as a crypto--somist resists this. Btw. Pirsig
says that a "set of ideas" is socially approved. Even ideas are treated at the
social level.
> Chinese and Indian intellectual history is harmonised with western
> intellectual history by the Metaphysics of Quality. Chinese
> intellectual history of over 4,000 years has less differentiation
> between subjects and objects, and it has a variation of logic based
> upon the meaning of words rather than Pythagorean derived numerical
> harmony. Indian intellectual thought is embedded in apparently
> superfluous (to Western minds) religious and social custom, which in
> essence shares a common root with Chinese intellectual history far
> beyond 4,000 years.
Total agreement!
> The correct Metaphysics of Quality unifies all intellectual patterns,
> and fully recognises the Quality of Chinese and Indian intellectual
> history. In fact, the correct Metaphysics of Quality draws heavily on
> Asian intellectual tradition, emphasising harmony.
Ditto!
> I do not wish to suggest that Skutvik knowingly asserts racist
> doctrine. I feel his views are largely a matter of his own cultural
> blind spot, and a very large degree of socially approved evaluations.
> Those who support him contribute to his evaluations. That is quite
> understandable and easily overcome by openness of thought and a
> willingness to explore ideas beyond one's own limited sphere. But
> Skutvik's insistence upon a racist assertion has been a considerably
> long one, and goes as far as his belief that his own very personal
> view of the Metaphysics of Quality is the 'proper' Metaphysics of
> Quality. Thus, the proper view for Skutvik is one that has deep racial
> and divisive undertones which completely deny intellectual history to
> Asians.
> Failure to address this issue may be very damaging to our Chinese and
> Indian friends, not to mention many other excellent intellectual
> traditions of the World. We also suffer a tremendous and staggering
> loss if we ignore our friends intellectual history. That was a
> motivation of F.S.C Northrop, and it has arguably ripened in the
> excellent work of Mr. Pirsig. squonk
> Where standards differ there will be opposition.
> But how can the standards of the World be unified?
You may not be as silly as you seem my dear antagonist. I also agree with
your about Wilber.
Skutvik. (if you insist, but my surname is in the E-mail address and no
secret. Why don't you reveal your own for a change?)
.
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