From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat May 03 2003 - 22:27:48 BST
Paul, Platt and all creatures great and small:
To answer the question, "does Lila have quality?" Pirsig wrote:
Biologically she does, socially she doesn't. Obviously! Evolutionary
morality just splits that whole question open like a watermelon. Since
biological and social patterns have almost nothing to do with each other,
Lila does and Lila does not have quality at the same time. That's exactly
the feeling she gave too - a sort of mixed feeling of quality and no quality
at the same time. That was the reason. How simple it was. That's the mark of
a high-quality theory. It doesn't just answer the question in some complex
round-about way. It dissolves the question, so you wonder why you ever asked
it. Biologically she's fine, socially she's pretty far down the scale,
intellectually she's nowhere.
Platt said:
That "intellectually she's nowhere" statement is a bugaboo that has
come up before. Some interpret it to mean Lila has no capacity
whatsoever to "manipulate language derived symbols" (Pirsig's definition
of intellect) which would make Lila a blithering idiot. Obviously she can
think and speak. Pirsig's hyperbolic phrase was simply meant to
dramatize the differences in level dominance in Lila's "being."
dmb says:
Bugaboo? Obviously NOT! Pirsig's book is largely an answer to the question,
"does Lila have quality?". Here we have a straitforward answer, an "obvious"
answer, one that "splits that whole question open like a watermelon", one
that "dissolves the question, so you wonder why you ever asked it". And what
does Platt do with this? He calls it a hyperbolic bugaboo!? Yikes. Its hard
to imagine that anyone could be more of a "blithering idiot" than Lila, but
there it is.
In a different context, in a religious context, we can see that Pirsig
expresses this same idea; that NOT everyone operates at the intellectual
level....
"Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the
rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal Dynamic Quality, a sign-post
which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see Dynamic Quality. The
danger has always been that the ritutals, the static patterns, are mistaken
for what they merely represent and are allowed to destroy the Dynamic
Quality they were originally intended to preserve." (chapter 30)
And in a political context, there are dozens of quotes about who is
intellectual and who are the "socially pattern-dominated people". FDR's New
Deal was intellectual, Woodrow Wilson's policies were mixed, Hitler is an
extreme example of an anti-intellectual reactionary, etc.. I could go on all
day, but I imagine this is already more than enough to see the point.
Thanks,
DMB
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