From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Sep 20 2003 - 20:44:49 BST
Hi Guys,
What strikes me about Pirsig is the opportunity he helps to bring into
existence.
This opportunity is to create an alternative language to the
language of SOM. I agree that Rorty is probably not going to give us
the level of help we need if the world is going to pull back from more
barbarism.
But I think we are getting a distorted picture of Rorty here when we seem to
be
analysing fragments of his thought, it seems to me that the Rorty critics
are not
familiar with the full body of his work, I have read most of Rorty and feel
that
this reading was entirely worthwhile, that his main concern is to enable us
to value the humanities on an equal footing to the natural sciences. This
seems
very important. But I would like to thank him and march on further forward
than
he seems prepared to go. In the UK Robert M Young has also tried to enrich
our
conceptions of what it is to be human by talking about existence in its full
biological,
cultural, historical, social, personal context. He is also an advocate of
Pirsig. See this essay:
http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap131h.html
What I would like to take from Pirsig is an approach to life that clearly
weighs it up
in terms of dynamic and static quality. The fragile static structure of the
world, its
ecology, has to live hand in hand with the creative yet also dangerous
motion of dynamic
quality. The creative and destructive are surely closely related. Freedom is
somehow released
by both but perhaps in opposite directions. Two static patterns like
galaxies crash into each other
and we have a very dynamic situation. You build a bridge over a river and
you increase freedom
of movement in a positive direction. SOM creates a fracture between the
valuing subject
and valueless objects from a quality experience, as if you could split the
two. As Nietzsche mocks:
a thinker is someone who makes the real more simple than it is. MOQ is all
about doing less damage
to the real with its dynamic and static split, where their connection is
surely obvious, the dynamic is what
lays the static down in its patterns. And above all value is clearly
applicable to both sides/poles of the split.
hence a more human world. With MOQ we surely become more aware of the value
of all the static
patterns that make up our current situation and world, and how they
interconnect, appear at certain
historical points and also come into conflict. But dynamic value also
enables us to value change and the unique
dynamic potential of each individual precisely because of their individual
uniqueness. Everything becomes part
of the movement, an organic whole, like a tree, where the oldest parts make
up the trunk, and the tips are
new shoots, often represented as a flame tipped tree in alchemy. For the new
shoots to reach this height
everything else had to be build up on the roots and trunk first. We have to
start seeing the whole cosmos as
a purposeful story if we are going to value the whole cosmos. Democracy,
property rights, the national cause,
religion, human rights, etc have all had there good and bad days, but we
have surely got to achieved a level
of awareness where we really start to value human beings as the most
significant achievement of the work
of dynamic and static quality, or freedom/creativity/imagination and
limitation/form/repetition. We also need
to start some real education, interested in thinking, interested in putting
together all parts of knowledge
rather than fragmenting them. The current fragmentation of knowledge is the
greatest demonstration of the
eventual inadequacy of SOM. How else did we get from the value of the human
soul to the man-machine,
or the sacredness of the earth to its current destruction and excessive
resource exploitation?
I love science, I like a bit of modern technology, but it is also the worst
example of SOM thinking when
it is not seen for the simplification of reality it is. Currently it
dominates our thinking. It fails to offer any
values that can challenge inequality and over consumption. Capitalism has
run its course, it is now a threat
to our existence. It enhances inequality. Inequality is now a world wide
security threat. In Capitalism you can
use human beings as a means rather than an end. I.E. as a means to making
wealth, a wealth that is no longer
shared on an equal enough basis. And in the structure of companies, based on
the command structure of an army,
you teach people the acceptability of inequality, and how to be a part in a
machine, and how to live without
responsibility and taking decisiions for themselves. More equality, less
authority and command, democracy at
work as well as in government, and therefore much better education for all
if everyone is going to be part
of all decision making processes. Any objections?
Regards
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:13 PM
Subject: RE: MD MoQ platypuses
> Andy, Patrick, Matt and all:
>
> dmb says:
> In terms of Pragmatism, Pirsig compares his ideas with James. He makes a
> distinction between the two because practicality and social satisfaction
> itself has no way to avoid the moral nightmares of the 20th century. And
> this is true because there had been no way to make a distinction between
> social and intellectual values. This distinction might be seen by the
Rortys
> of the world as some kind of unreliable abstraction, but I think that is
> exactly where they go wrong. Its not abstract. The clash between these two
> worlds is real enough that millions have died because of it. This is where
> Pirsig's kind of pragmatism excells, I think. It is a very useful and
> practical distinction and sorting out the two is very much at the heart of
> his brand of pragmatism. It corresponds not to some eternal Truth (with a
> capital "T"), but merely corresponds with history and experience, which is
> all we have according the MOQ. We don't go so far as to say what it is
> exactly that holds together in a glass so that we might satisfy our
thirst,
> but experience shows over and over again that glasses hold water. And so
it
> is with ideas. They hold water or they don't. Pirsig's pragmatism is
> practical and situational without being amoral, without allowing evil to
> flourish. Rorty's brand of pragmatism seems unable to do this in any
> coherent way. Quite the opposite. "Cash value" doesn't cut it because evil
> is so often very profitable. Rorty seems bent on destroying the
distinctions
> that would make possible a principled oppostion to nightmares like war and
> genocide. Pirsig's levels have a way of sorting out these things. And I
> think this is the sense in which he is a pragmatist. I think it has very
> little to do with theories of literary criticism or linguistic practices,
as
> Matt seems to think. (If there is a place for literary criticism here,
> surely it would be in criticizing the literary half of Pirsig's books, in
an
> analysis of the themes and characters contained in the fictional aspects
of
> his books. That seems the most obvious way to apply literary criticism
here,
> but I've never seen such a thing. And that's really unfortunate because I
> think we are only discusssing half of Pirsig's work, only dealing with
every
> other chapter. I've tried to get such conversations going more than a few
> times, but they are never any takers. Anyway, those kinds of things happen
> at a level of abstraction that has very little to do with why people kill
> each other. There is no blood dripping from our Ivory towers, but it
surely
> flows in the streets of Baghdad. Deconstructionism never killed anybody.
If
> the current gang had any genuine respect for human rights and democracy,
> things would be different. The only search for knowledge I see in this
crowd
> is the search to discover how OUR oil came to be under THEIR sand. When
> Pirsig's distinction between the social and intellectual levels is applied
> to the current situation in the world, it becomes pretty darn clear that
the
> current administration is a step backward and represents a real danger to
> real people. Or so it seems to me.
>
> In chapter 24 of Lila, Pirsig wrote:
> "What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague, amorphous
> soup of sentiments known as "human rights". You were also supposed to be
> "reasonable". What these terms really meant was never spelled out in any
way
> that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for them. He
> knew now that the reason nobody ever spelled them out was nobody ever
could.
> In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no
meaning.
> There is no such thing as "human rights". There is no such thing as moral
> reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else. This soup
> of sentiments about logically non-existent entities can be straightened
out
> by the MOQ. ...According to the MOQ these "human rights" have not just a
> sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential
to
> the evolution of a higher level of life. They are for real."
>
>
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