From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Dec 21 2003 - 16:42:14 GMT
Platt,
> Looking at the world today one sees three forces of value engaged in a
> titanic struggle.They are radical Islam, Western European secular
> socialism, and American Judeo-Christian capitalism.
First, I have to question your use the epithets "secular" and
"Judeo-Christian" for, respectively, socialism and capitalism. They both
developed in predominantly Christian Europe. Marx, of course, was an
atheist, but Dorothy Day was not. On the other side, the 19th century
liberals (in the original sense, not as the word "liberal" is used today in
the US), were predominantly anti-clerical. (And in Acts, one finds a
communistic description of the early Christian society, for what that is
worth.)
As to choosing a social pattern based on the MOQ, I think the only important
reference from Pirsig would be his remark in the introduction to LC that if
he were to make one change to Lila, it would be to emphasize that it does
not provide final answers to specific moral questions.
My view is to base it on the Zen discussion in Chapter 30: that the best way
to let DQ flower is to put patterns to sleep. Now I disagree to some extent
with Pirsig with respect to intellectual patterns, but I agree that on
social questions, the MOQ answer is to put social patterns to sleep.
- Scott
>
> On this site we haven't radical Islam's ideology expressed, due in part I
> imagine to the language barrier. But, there can be little doubt that MD
> participants come down on one side or the other in clash between secular
> socialism and Judeo-Christian capitalism.
>
> Those on the secular socialist side rightly appeal to Pirsig's placement
> of the intellectual level higher than the social level whose static
> religious patterns are antithetical to the morally superior rule of
> objectivity and reason. Those on the capitalist side rightly appeal to
> Pirsig's identification of Dynamic Quality as the highest good of all, but
> whose creative power and drive towards freedom goes unrecognized by the
> intellectual level.
>
> In Pirsigian terms, the war on terrorism is a moral war--intellectual
> level vs. a static social level Islamic fundamentalism that uses the
> biological behavior of physical attack to attain its goals. "Intellectuals
> must find biological behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and
> limit or destroy destructive biological patterns with complete moral
> ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys germs, before those biological
> patterns destroy civilization itself." (Lila, chp. 24) Further, Pirsig
> writes to Anthony McWatt, "Destroying an inferior culture is better than
> allowing that inferior culture to become a threat."
>
> Is there anyone reading this who disagrees with moral rightness of the war
> on terrorism as morality is defined in the MOQ? If so, direct quotes from
> Pirsig's works will be needed to refute. Emotional responses based on
> personal dislike of the U.S. or Bush for alleged "arrogance" or "bullying"
> won't cut it. Of course, you can always try to show the MOQ to be wrong-
> headed, but that is a tall order because you will have to explain the
> existence of values somehow.
>
> The moral status of Western European secular socialism vs. U.S. Judeo-
> Christian capitalism is, as pointed out above, not so cut and dried in the
> MOQ moral hierarchy. Certainly Pirsig has low opinion of the moral status
> of the religiosity of Christian fundamentalists, although he laments the
> loss of the Judeo-Christian values of " . . . their optimism, their belief
> in the future, their codes of craftsmanship and labor and thrift and self-
> discipline that really built twentieth-century America. Since the
> Victorians disappeared the entire drift of this century has been toward a
> dissipation of these values." (Lila, chp. 17) Also, Pirsig is unwilling to
> shelve religious experience completely, saying, "The Metaphysics of
> Quality identifies religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality." (Lila, chp.
> 30)
>
> It is Pirsig's recognition of the "mystic" throughout the MOQ that argues
> most strongly in behalf of my belief that the MOQ rejects European
> secularism socialism Further, the fact that Pirsig ties mysticism to DQ,
> and socialism to the absence of DQ, strongly suggests he favors the
> openness and freedom of the U.S. capitalist system. Again, those who
> object to my analysis will should use quotes from Pirsig instead of
> repeating party propaganda.
>
> Finally, there's a marvelous similarity in a line from the MOQ and a line
> in America's Declaration of Independence. From the MOQ we read, "From the
> baby's point of view, something, he knows not what, compels attention.
> This generalized "something," Whitehead's "dim apprehension," is Dynamic
> Quality." (Lila, chp. 9) From the Declaration we read, "We hold these
> truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
> endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
> are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
>
> We're born free, created by DQ so we can experience DQ as life, liberty
> and the pursuit of happiness. It's my belief that DQ has also created in
> us a sense of beauty to guide our pursuit of happiness.
>
> Unless Western European secular socialism can somehow recognize and
> account for mystic DQ, it seems to me their moral status leaves something
> to be desired if one accepts the premises of the MOQ.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
>
>
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