Re: MD Beyond

From: james marshall (edgarj@shaw.ca)
Date: Thu Mar 11 2004 - 13:04:19 GMT

  • Next message: Platt Holden: "Re: MD Beyond"

     Hi Wim,

    Thanks for asking and I hope this is responsive to your question. Pirsig
    claims that it is immoral for a lower pattern of (Dynamic ) Quality to
    dominate a higher one. Yet the lowest of Pirsig's evolutionary categories
    of value, the inorganic patterns of value clearly dominate the social
    patterns. For example, is it not the case that the inorganic significantly
    determines human activity? NASA defers to the inorganic in its scheduling
    of space shots. Am I to understand that rocks and typhoons as patterns of
    inorganic value are immoral? When I was working in the Philippines, even
    the destructive SQ v SQ biological and social patterns of an ongoing civil
    war took a backseat the dark clouds of a typhoon moving across the South
    China Sea. Where is the immorality in this scenario of dominance and
    subordination?
    Inorganic Patterns of Value have been defined in this Forum as "... those
    substances, reactions and physical laws involving matter and energy. They
    span a historical continuum from simple to complex and are usually
    considered under the study of physics." ( Margaret Hettinger. Beyond Lila:
    Defining "Social" in Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality. 1998). It is this
    compartmentalization, this assignment to a category of bounded study (and
    thinking) that denies "what is" and that is that the inorganic patterns are
    neither moral or immoral in a paradigm of evolutionary goodness. They just
    are.
    Carlin points to human arrogance and conceit, and the assignment of the
    inorganic to the bottom of the heap of patterns of value goes a long way to
    understanding why it is reasonable to take Carlin seriously. I think it is
    the case. To the planet we are a surface nuisance about to be shaken off
    like "a bad case of fleas" despite our claims to intellectual prowess.
    Jim
     
     
    -------Original Message-------
     
    From: moq_discuss@moq.org
    Date: 03/11/04 00:07:28
    To: moq_discuss@moq.org
    Subject: Re: MD Beyond
     
    Dear Jim,
     
    How do you connect George Carlin's eco-rant, which you reproduced 10 Mar
    2004 16:38:31 -0800, with Pirsig's Quality levels? He may be right if we
    only consider biological patterns of value. But how about social and
    intellectual patterns of value, that are on a higher level of (Dynamic)
    Quality according to Pirsig?
     
    With friendly greetings,
     
    Wim
     
     
     
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