From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Sep 29 2003 - 00:33:45 BST
Sam and all MOQers;
dmb had said that "Pirsig wrote Lila because too many ZAMM readers were left
with the impression that Quality is just whatever we like."
Sam axed:
Doesn't Pirsig go into some depth about your last sentence, and the ways in
which it's both true and false? It's amazing that you come out with that
line!!
dmb answers with lines from Chapter 6,
"Rigel vigorouly soaped the warm wash cloth... He thought the Great Author's
respectful readers should have seen him last night dancing with Lila. They
probably wouldn't have minded though. Among HIS respectful readers
drunkenness and whoring were probably considered some form of "Quality".
Later Rigel says:
"You made a statement in your book that everyone knows and agrees to what
'Quality"is. Obviously everyone does not! You refused to define 'Quality',
thus preventing any arguments on the subject. You tell us that
'dialecticians who debate these matters are scoundrels. I guess that would
include lawyers too. That's pretty good. You carefully tie your critics
hands and feet so they cannot give you any opposition, tar their reputations
for good measure, and then you say'ok, come out and fight'. Very brave. Very
brave."
The author replies:
"May I come out and fight? My exact statement was that people DO disagree as
to what Quality is, but their disagreements is only on the objects in which
they think Quality inheres." Rigel asks, "What's the difference?" The author
says, "Quality, on which there is complete agreement, is a universal source
of things. The objects about which people disagree are merely transitory."
Rigel says, "WHAT universal source of things? ...By the way, how do you keep
in touch with that marvelous 'universal source of things'? Do you have some
sort of special radio set? Hmmm? How do you keep in touch. ... I'm waiting
to hear. How do you keep in touch with Quality?"
"There are answers," the author finally said, "but I don't think I can give
them all to you this morning." ...
With deep gravity Rigel says, "Please will you, in future days, consider the
possiblity that the 'Great Source of All Things', that speakds only to you
and not to me, is, like so many of your ideas, just a figment of yourown
fertile imagination, a figment that allows you to justify any act of your
own immorality as somehow God-given, I consider that undefined 'Quality' to
be a very dangerous commodity. Its the stuff fools and fanaics are made of."
"In the practice of law we come into contact with a fair-sixed number of
people who do not share traditional moral values, but feel rather that what
is good and what is bad is a matter of their own independent judgement. Does
that sound familiar? Well, we give them a name," Rigel continued, "We call
them criminals."
"One of the things that angered me most about your book (ZAMM) was its
appearance at a time when so many young people all over the country put
themselves above the law with criminal acts - draft dodgers, arsonists,
political trators, revolutionists, even ASSASSINS, all of them justifying
themselves with the belief that they alone can see this God-given truth that
no one else can see. You talked for chapter after chapter about how to
preserve the underlying form of a motorcycle, but you didn't say a single
word about how to preserve the underlying form of society. And so your book
may have been a big seller among some of these radicals and cult groups who
are looking for that sort of thing. They're looking for anything that will
justify their doing as they please. And you gave them support. You gave them
encouragement. I've no doubt that your intentions were good, but whatever
your intentions may have been it was the devil's work you were doing."
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