From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Dec 21 2002 - 21:41:51 GMT
Oops! I wasn't quite done when the post sent itself. Here's the finished
message.
Thanks to Barritt, Davor, Maggie, Matt, Sam and all readers:
Matt said:
...if logos is believed to be emergent from the mythos, then the change
between the levels is not discrete. ... A continuation, possibly in a
different direction, but still a continuation, not a sharp, discrete break.
This is why, by the end of ZMM, Pirsig favored the Sophists, not the
Socratics.
Pirsig says in ZMM:
"The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is shaped by
these legends [the mythos], that our knowledge today is in relation to
these legends as a tree is in relation to the little shrub it once was.
One can gain great insights into the complex overall structure of the tree
by studying the much simpler shape of the shrub. There's no difference in
kind or even difference in identity, only a difference in size." (Ch 28)
DMB says:
This is a critical issue. As I said, putting our MOQ glasses on "only makes
ZAMM more clear and specific" and "resloves some ambiguities". The quote
above, for examaple, was written before the term "static levels" was
invented, which changes it dramatically and clears things up. "The
structuring of morality into evolutionary levels suddenly gives shape to all
kinds of blurred and confuesed moral ideas that are floating around in our
present cultural heritage." (163)The distinction between social and
intellectual static values removes the ambiguity so that the difference is
not analogous to a shrub and a tree, but to the sand and a tree. The
distinction is as sharp as between inorganic matter and living creatures.
BUT, and this is a really, really huge point, "This 'mythos over logos'
thesis agreed with the MOQ's assertion that intellectual static patterns are
built up out of social static patterns of quality". (378) This is what
Descartes failed to notice, what SOM fails to notice, what the Chairman
failed to notice and it is missing link that Pirsig uses to resolve so much.
There really is no problem with the logos being BOTH emergent from and
different than the mythos. In fact, the problem of SOM and so many
misunderstandings here stems precisely from not seeing this relationship
properly. Going back to the Sophists and Presocratic philosophers is aimed
at making that relationship easier to seems to be at the heart of Pirsig's
quest.
Because DQ drives this evolutionary process, this relationship has to be
seen in the larger static/Dyanamic framework too. Which brings us to Sam's
comments.
Sam said:
However, in this last post you are bringing in an 'outside' authority -
Campbell - which I think is a mistake at this point in our discussions.
(BTW, where does Pirsig refer to him?) I think that for the time being we
should just stick to what Pirsig says and not try and either support or
criticise it. In other words the objective is clarity (about Pirsig's
position) not truth (is what Pirsig says correct).
DMB says:
I have to insist that Campbell be considered fair game in this discussion.
Pirsig mentions his MASKS OF GOD in the final pages of Lila (P401) as a way
to understand idols, ritual and the mythos. Campbell's relevence to the
issue can hardly be overestimated and only helps to explain things. I might
employ some outside voices, but its just to get at Pirsig's meaning.
Sam said:
.............The question I would pose is this: why does there have to be an
'essence' of mythology, and what is it in your manner of thinking that leads
to that necessity?
DMB says:
Hmmm. I don't know if the "essence" of myth is what I'm trying to get at
here, exactly, but I think I know what you're asking. I'd say its not a
necessity, it is an observation. From the Guidebook, page 23...
"In the spiritual traditions of both the East and the West - I am thinking
not about particular religions, but about the mystical element to be found
in them all - we find the claim that eventually one must let go of the
activities of thought and imagination in order to enter regions of
consciousness that such symbolic activity cannot reach. The journey then
becomes no longer a matter of metaphysical musing and horizontal ramblings
but a matter of vertical plunging (or rising) toward what T.S. Eliot
referred to as 'the still point of the turning world'. We might say the
journey becomes journeyless."
Sure, there are plenty of differences between myths, religions and spiritual
traditions, but there is a central core that says one must take the plunge.
This is the hero's journey. The aim of the journey is a unitive experience,
a mystical experience. And if "DQ is identified with religious mysticism"
(Lila P377) and "Quality is the primordial source of all our understanding"
(Lila P378) and "Quality is the generator of everything we know" (ZM 354)
and rituals are "a static portrayal of DQ, a sign-post which allows
socially-dominated people to see DQ" (Lila chapter 30) then you can start to
see what I mean. We get the same idea in ZAMM, the Guidebook and Lila. From
volume three of THE MASKS OF GOD...
"It is a law of our subject, proven time and time again, that where the
orthodoxies of the world go apart, the mystic way unites. The orthodoxies
are concerned primarily with the maintenance of a certain social order,
within the pale of which the indivdual is to function; in the interest of
which a certain 'system of sentiments' must be instilled in every member; in
the defense of which all deviants are to be, one way or another, either
reformed, deformed, or liquidated. The mystic way, on the other hand,
plunges within, to those nerve centers that are in all members of the human
race alike, and are at once the well springs and ultimate receptacles of
life and all experiences of life." (P449)
This Campbell quote really gets at it, eh? Pirsig's ideas about ritualistic
religion are echoed here. The idea that DQ is the source of all we know is
seen here. We see the cultural immune system. We see the distinction between
social level patterns and DQ in it. Pirsig and Campbell don't speak in the
exact same terms, but they're both saying many of the same things. I shall
return to him in our quest to understand the Sophists in another post. This
one is long enough.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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