From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 11 2003 - 15:46:12 GMT
All:
Yesterday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to ban certain forms of
political speech 60 days prior to an election has motivated me to take
a second look at Pirsig’s assertion that the ideal of free speech
constitutes a victory of the intellectual level over the social level:
"Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
intellectual order over the social order—democracy, trial by jury,
freedom of speech, freedom of the press." (Lila, chp. 13)
In yesterday’s Supreme Court decision we see intellect stepping in to
muzzle free speech. Indeed, in communist and socialist countries, i.e.,
countries supposedly "intellectually guided," free speech is usually
curtailed, often completely. (Some socialist European countries have
laws banning so-called "hate" speech.)
So on the one hand we have Pirsig crediting intellect for removing the
shackles from what one can say in public while on the other hand we see
an intellectual Supreme Court and societies under intellectual control
clamping down public speech like the Victorians of old. (We won’t even
go into politically correct speech codes on campuses imposed by
intellectuals.)
But there’s more to this conundrum. Who does Pirsig point to as being
responsible for America’s emphasis on freedom? To Indians--uneducated,
nonintellectual native Americans:
"And as Phaedrus’s studies got deeper and deeper, he saw that it was to
this conflict between European and Indian values, between freedom and
order, this his study should be directed." (Lila, chp. 3)
To further complicate matters, Pirsig attributes freedom not only to
intellect and to intellect’s opposite, but to something indefinable
called "Dynamic Quality:"
"Its (DQ’s) only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil
is static quality itself—any pattern of one-sided fixed values that
tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life." (Lila, chp.
9)
Three separate and competing forces in the MOQ are cited as being
responsible for the ideal of free speech—the literate, the illiterate,
and something beyond both--Dynamic Quality.
I’ve long held a suspicion that Pirsig’s attribution of democracy, free
speech, trial by jury and freedom of the press to intellect was
questionable, especially when he identified communist and socialist
countries as "intellectually guided" and stated unequivocally that the
"Metaphysics of Quality supports this dominance of intellect over
society." (Lila, chp. 22) Seeing how this "dominance" suppresses free
speech casts doubt on this part of Pirsig’s thesis.
When you have a court packed with so-called intellectuals deciding that
the U.S. Constitution provides for unrestricted sodomy (about which the
Constitution says nothing) but allows restrictions on political speech
(which the Constitution expressly forbids), questioning intellect’s
legitimacy in controlling society seems not only appropriate, but
vitally necessary to anyone who cherishes individual liberty. Even the
radical right Rush Limbaugh and the radical left American Civil
Liberties Union agree on wrongness of the Court’s scholarly attack on
free speech rights.
An aesthetic approach to the issue finds the rough and tumble of free
political speech immensely satisfying in the same way that Pirsig loves
the dynamics of New York City:
"That, Phaedrus thought, is how the MOQ explains the incredible
contrasts of the best and the worst one sees here. Both exist here in
such terrific intensity because New York’s never been committed to any
preservation of its static patterns. It’s always ready to change.
Whether you are or not. This is what creates its horror and that is
what creates its power. Its strength is its looseness. It’s the freedom
to be so awful that gives it the freedom to be so good." (Lila, chp.
17)
Would that all intellectuals understood that! But I’m afraid when it
comes to society, their instinct is to "control."
Platt
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