From: storeyd (storeyd@bc.edu)
Date: Mon May 17 2004 - 03:41:06 BST
Platt,
First of all, my "attack" was niether to be regarded as an attempt to "injure"
you, nor was it meant to be ignored. those who ignore criticism are bound to
be met with plenty more of it.
Second, I was using Jesus as an EXAMPLE, I wasn't saying Pirsig used
him...again, this is precisely the problem...you're not supposed to take the
example literally...we can use whoever we want: the Brujo, Buddha, Jesus, or
Socrates. The point of the EXAMPLE is to show that these rare, precious
figures, who, through dynamic insight, awaken to a higher degree of moral
awareness/being/value/quality, are at a qualitatively higher level of reality
than the society out of which they emerge; the criminal, who regresses to,
say, a biological level of reality, is qualitatively lower; but both levels
are foriegn to the social level, and so the social level confuses DIFFERENCE
with DEVIANCE, the higher gets misinterpreted as the lower, and the profusion
of DQ is stunted, repressed, frustrated, etc.
Thirdly, the "followers" you mention, enacting the medieval ethos of the
church-state, burning millions of witches, scientists, and mystics, weren't
followers at all...it has been the unfortunate success of Christendom to
perfectly pervert Christ's message, not only by failing to practice the
morality he taught, but by deifying him, commodifying him, idolizing him as
the sole son of God, reducing him to the Law. If we properly regard Christ's
life and teaching as a historical hallmark of dynamic emergence, as a sage
whose teaching was so radical, so beyond his time, so disruptive to the static
social order, that he was percieved as an alien, and that his message was
bound to be misunderstood...but also that the quiet wisdom he whispered was so
compelling, so unavoidable, that it couldn't be wiped out of history...then we
begin to see why Christianity spread like wildfire, and why there is an
important truth to be had from it.
Relax,
-Dave
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