From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Mar 22 2003 - 19:10:31 GMT
Johnny, Sam, Wim and all:
Johnny Moral said:
How can you call the Trinity absurd when the MoQ has the identical trinity
in it? Surely you can see the analogy of Father and Son to DQ leaving SQ in
its wake. The concept of the Trinity came about from people trying to
understand the nature of God, just like DQ, SQ and Q came about from Pirsig
trying to understand the nature of Quality.
DMB says:
Father and son are DQ and sq? Huh? No, I don't think the trinity is
analogous to the MOQ for the simple reason that three ain't two. And the MOQ
really is a monism, the Dynamic/static split only being an analytical slice.
Beside the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, there is also Mary the mother, which
gives us a fourth. No. I'm afraid the Christian trinity and the MOQ's
divisions are compatible only by way of the most painful contortions. I can
almost hear your spine breaking as you bend over backwards to make it fit.
In any case, the main point of making a distinction between mythic and
intellectual thinking is to point out the two ways to read such doctrines;
the former as an actuality and the later as a symbol. This is precisely the
confusion that causes the literalistic and fundamentalist religions of our
time.
Johnny moral said:
And isn't the Fall analogous to the arrival of the intellect, or perhaps the
social level (we're still debating those), and leaving the biological bliss
behind? Isn't it more than an analogy, but a literal description of what
happened (perhaps apart from Satan the talking snake, God walking around
looking for them, etc, which are colorful and efficient ways of describing
the cause and effect of knowledge on people.)
DMB says:
Pirsig takes this on directly. in chapter 24 he doesn't use the phrase "the
fall", but he refers specifically to "original sin", which is an intimately
related concept and part of the same doctrine. He mentions this in the
context of a fair and impartial re-examination of "the old Puritan and
Victorian social codes". When these codes are "dusted off" to to see what
they were trying to do, we are operating at the intellectual level. The
codes are read as SYMBOLS, not as actual events. They no longer operate AS
myths. Again, this confusion marks death of the religions of the modern age.
"Biological quality is necessary to the survival of life. But when it
threatens to dominate and destroy society, biological quality becomes evil
itself, the 'Great Satan" of 20th century Western culture. One reason why
fundamentalist Moslem cultures have become so fanatic in their hatred of the
West is that it has released the biological forces of evil that Islam has
fought for centuries to control. ... Suddenly we have come full circle at
the Anmerican culture's founders, the Puritans, and their overwhelming
concern with 'original sin' and release from it. The mythology by which they
explained this original sin seems no longer useful in a scientific world,
but when we look at the things in their contemporary society they identified
with this original sin we see something remarkable. Drinking, dancing, sex,
playing the fiddle, gambling, idleness: these are BIOLOGICAL pleasures.
Early puritan morals were largely a suppression of biological quality. In
the MOQ the old Puritan dogma is gone but its practical moral pronouncements
are explained in a way that makes sense." (Emphasis is Pirsig's.)
DMB continues:
See? The mythology is not useful in a scientific world. Puritan dogma is
gone. But we can still re-examine them and glean the moral practicality in a
way that makes sense. This kind of intellectual refinement is what prevents
us from either rejecting or accepting myth and dogma blindly. As Campbell
points out, the atheist and the religious believer are both wrong insofar as
the both mistake myths for facts. To the atheists, the facts are not true.
To the believer, the facts are true. But the fact is that myths are not
facts. In any case, I think its clear that the MOQ makes intellectual sense
of "original sin" by describing it as biological quality, which is rightly
kept under control by social codes.
Of course, its more complicated than that. Both the fall and original sin
are part of the Garden of Eden and that, in turn, is part of the creation
story. As a guy very interested in mythology, I could go on and on, but I
won't.
Thanks for your time.
DMB
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