SQUAD:
At the begining of part IV, Pirsig asks Sarah, "Is Quality a part of
Greek thought?" Sarah, the Classics scholar who'd orginally asked if he
was teaching "quality", answered by saying, "Quality is EVERY part of
Greek thought." Later he wonders if her plain answer had deeper
meaning. He wonders if she's wise like a Zen master. He wonders if her
answer is like some kind of koan. "Quality is every part of Greek
thought." It sounds too general and sweeping to have any real meaning,
but she's a CLASSICS scholar and likely knows (knew?) how to answer in a
more detailed way. But she didn't.
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"Plato is the original Buddha-seeker who appears again and again in each
generation, moving onward and upward toward the "one". Aristotle is the
eternal motorcycle mechanic who prefers the "many"." The battle between
Plato and Aristotle is the struggle between the Goodness and Truth. It's
also the fight between the Romantic and Classical ways of understanding.
The winner in this conflict shapes the intellectual level according to
its own vision. Or perhaps the MOQ is a peaceful merger? Phaedrus the
Platonist and the Aristotleian narrator are fused together in the end,
aren't they?
But Phaedrus really thinks Aristotle is an asshole and in the
provocative letter to the chairman, "He said he wasn't sure, but the
thesis on Quality appeared to turn into an anti-Aristotelian thesis".
He claimed the anti-thesis was properly Hegelian because it would
over-turn the entire philosophical world. He said it was revolutionary,
of Historic proportions and would add to University's prestige. He said
in the letter that his thesis would synthesize East, West, Science and
Mysticism! It was "just outrageous."
He saw that the committee members were concerned with oughts, values and
Quality, but stopped at Aristotle. They were stuck on his rationalism
and couldn't relly get at a proper sense of values or Quality because of
it. The chairman had only graduated two Ph.D. candidates in his time,
and they were carbon-copies of the Aristotleian tyrant. And Adler loved
Aquinas too much. When Aquinas married Aristotleian metaphysics with
Christian theology, he gave us the worst of all possible world views and
sank the intellect back into the social level. I knew philosophers like
this at school. Puke!
"The mythos that says the forms of this world are real but the Quality
of this world is unreal, that is insane! And in Aristotle and the
ancient Greeks he believed he had found the villains who had so shaped
the mythos as to cause us to accept this insanity as reality." In the
narrative connecting the thoughts about Aristotle, the bike's chain
guard is caught up in the chain, so that what was designed for saftey
has itself become dangerous. Same with Aristotle, if you know what I
mean. The bike struggles to keep up with the traffic, its getting dark,
cold and lonely. They had just come from Crater lake, where the absence
of beer cans is distracting. The park seems like some kind of fake
museum of pre-white America. He says the sunlight is frigid and the wind
is motionless. The narrator lets us know how Phaedrus FEELS about
Aristotle. Frigid sunlight and motionless wind are meaningful
contradictions. Its a poetic paradox that gets at the problem with the
rationality of Aristotle. He describes the ghost of Aristotle speaking
down through the centuries - "with the desiccating lifeless voice of
reason." By Aristotle's criterion General Motors produces pure art, but
Picasso didn't.
Aristotle's rationality has won, but the essential Buddha-seeker keeps
showing up to protest it. There have always been protesters, generation
after generation. Any "transformation procedure" from SOM to the MOQ
entails study of the Platonic/Romanitic/Mystical view through history.
The MOQ was dormant in it the whole time. The alternative has been
developing and evolving along side its evil little brother all through
history. The ghosts of Plato and Aristotle were there when Alexandria's
mysticism lost to Rome's rational logistics and genius for organization.
They were there when the Christian church was taking shape. They were
there at the re-discovery of the ancients, at the beginning of the
scientific revolution, and they fought hard in every Romantic movement.
There must be countless smaller battles that were not recorded by
history. Its also a personal struggle for everyone, isn't it?
While Phaedrus was certainly an idealist, maybe even a Solipsist, his
radical views are tempered by those of the narrator, whose love for
solid welds and proper tools practically declare him a materialist. And
as they are joined together into a unified whole, room is made for the
"one" AND "the many". Goodness and Truth are both involved in motorcycle
maintainence. Just sitting and just fixing are seen as the same. Zen is
just the Japanese form of the Sanskrit word "Dhyana". Substance and
form become the "material reflection of a spiritual reality." Then we
have both Plato and Aristotle, the "one" and "the many", Dynamic and
static Quality.
DMB
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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