andrew_russell/fs/ksg@ksg.harvard.edu
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 18:13:09 +0100
andrew russell/fs/ksg
03/23/98 02:20 AM
To: lilasqd@hkg.com
cc:
bcc:
Subject: Re: LS The Lila Squad
Struan, friend,
You asked us in a recent email to "point out why I've missed the point and
to put me right."
Gladly. Let me preface this by saying I've only read Lila 1 1/2 times and
have not looked back at the specific passages you cite, although I am
reading it again now, and will look at this book through the lens you
suggest and get back to you at a later date about that.
But for now let me take up what struck me as critical points you discussed
a few days ago.
>A few weeks ago I revisited Pirsig's books in an attempt to understand
>how the Metaphysics of Quality might be applied to practical moral
>dilemmas. I thought that the best way of testing it as a theory would be
>to look at its practical consequences for mankind.
I, too, think of this topic often, and have recently tried to address it by
reconciling parts of Pirsig's thought with the humanist and whatever
limited metaphysical thought that exists in the writings of Karl Marx. I am
slowly trying to send what connections I find particularly relevant to the
Squad (see my Pirsig and Marx postings and the insightful replies by our
friends in the Squad of the past week).
>After all this is the
>system which for Doug Renselle is a "profound discovery" which "I see
>world legal structures eventually adopting." Such a grandiose claim,
>needed looking into and so look into it I did.
World legal, economic, and political structures already utilize Quality.
Quality, for me, isn't a type of religion or dogma that has proponents and
detractors. It is what guides the choice of an employer in selecting a new
hire from a pool of applicants. It is what institutions who give grants
(i.e. National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, IBM ,
etc.) use to guid their process. Quality is not new. it is not unique to
Pirsig, and he certainly can take little credit for its use. It is a term
Pirsig uses to describe what exists in natural processes.
>It soon became clear that this was simply emotivism in disguise. Pirsig
>cleverly picks and chooses which level of evolution to apply in which
>context and in doing so exposes the complete futility of his quest for a
>new ethic. There is nothing here beyond the 'boo/hurrah' of his own
>feelings, the discarding of a dualist metaphysics and determinism, both
>of which were abandoned long ago by modern scientific philosophy, and
>lastly, the complete misunderstanding of modern physics itself.
Just because modern sci. philosophy has abandoned dualist metaphysics and
determinism does nto mean that contemporary society and traditoinal legal,
social, and cultural institutions have followed suit. Pirsig repeatedly
discusses how his system tries to transcend rational non-emotive research
and thought (like the problems of Dusenberry and of the field of
anthropology) to incorporate what you call emotivism, but can also be
described as the expression of his conscience. As for levels of evolution,
I find it best not to analyze Pirsig's thought as an island unto itself.
This is an important point you raise. Pirsig and the MoQ (for me, and other
LS members or Pirsig's other readers may disagree) are more easily
understood in a broader context. Ken Wilber details this context in _A
Brief History of Everything_, and discusses the problems of dealing with
interacting factors on different evolutionary levels. If you fit Pirsig's
MoQ into Wilber's structure of everything (which is detailed in his chart
on the opening page of the book), it is much clearer. The book is a
discussion of the interaction of worldviews, evolution, and Spirit.
Evolution, says Wilber, is Spirit recognizing itself in a constant
unfolding. I feel that Quality fits in well here. Spirit can perhaps be
compared to Tao, Geist, or in some senses, Quality. It is a direct,
individual, mystical feeling, and is just another name for that feeling
that has been the subject of most religions throughout world history.
See <http://www.shambala.com/wilber> and read some of the essays to get a
sense of Wilber on Spirit.
>In the context of the American civil war Pirsig claims that, "an
>evolutionary morality argues the North was right in pursuing that war
>because a nation is a higher form of evolution than a human body," and
>so the hundreds of thousands of lives were justifiably lost because the
>higher level of evolution (society) prevailed over the lower level
>(biology).
>In the next paragraph and in the context of capital punishment, Pirsig
>goes on to claim that in the case of a criminal who does not threaten
>the, "established social structure," it is plain that, "what makes
>killing him immoral is that a criminal is not just a biological
>organism. He is not even just a defective unit in society. Whenever you
>kill a human being you are killing a source of thought too."
I agree that Pirsig misunderstands this issue of reconciling killing
(murder) and evolution. I would submit to you that there are no moderate
schools of thought on this issue that are completely consistent.
>What seems to utterly evade Pirsig is the fact that the hundreds of
>thousands who died in that civil war were also a, "source of thought
>too," and that therefore by his own criteria the war was morally wrong
>because the ideas lost through these deaths were at a higher
>evolutionary plane than the nation they were sacrificed for.
I don't follow. How do you conclude that the ideas lost were at a higher
evolutionary level than the country? I dont see any way of knowing at what
evolutionary level their ideas were, apart from the observation that they
thought to get a gun and risk their lives to defend their families and
country. This seems to indicate the opposite of whta you state.
And here
>the philosophy becomes even more muddled because it would be possible to
>argue (as Pirsig hints at) that the ideas of equality which drove the
>war on were morally superior to the nation and the ideas of those who
>defended it.
Applying ethics to historical examples is VERY TRICKY and not as black and
white as you and Kevin Sanchez, in his insightful discussion of the problem
of Hitler and Quality, treat it. You could argue that the ideas of equality
were the basis for creating this country and thus superior in their pure
form. But you could also argue that the nation and the ideas of those
defending it (do you speak of the Union or Confederacy? there are crucial
differences) embody the original idea of equality and are thus superior
because they (attempt) to incorporate ideal and actual.
Historical analysis can only be accurate if a more complex understanding of
historical context (i.e. economic, international, pressures) is taken into
account. Not doing this leads to inaccuracy and confusion. The Civil War
was not just about equality. It was also about money money money. Pride.
tradition. a way of life. the future.
> But by what criteria do we decide which ideas take precedence?
Again, I would see Wilber as an authority, and not Pirsig, on the
comparison of ideas at different evolutionary levels. His explanations are
clearer. But unfortunately, there is no formula, there is no E=mc2 of
ethics. This is what you seem to be looking for. If there were we wouldn't
be in this discussion. The criteria lie in the relative depth and span of
the ideas.
>Far from being in a position where it is possible to say that, "I see
>world legal structures eventually adopting this ethical system," we are
>looking at a structureless mish mash of nonsense.
I disagree with you here. It is YOU, and not "we", and most definitely not
I, who are looking at mish-mash. If you are going to give your
interpretation or opinion on this, express it as such, not as "Our"
opinion. You don't know what I'm looking at. If YOU are looking at a
mish-mash of nonsense, fine. But what I am looking at, right now, is the
words of a man (you) who is struggling to understand the words from another
man's (Pirsig) struggle to understand something that cannot be defined or
subject to conventional methods of analysis.
So please, use "we" only in a speculative or conditional sense (e.g. we can
see, or we may be looking). The way you use it here is not only
innaccurate, it puts words in my mouth.
In practical terms,
>how could we possibly advocate a system which could allow the killing of
>a mental retard to provide organs for a genius who would die without
>them, simply because the genius appears to be on a higher evolutionary
>level? Or the destruction of millions of Jews by the Nazi party because
>their biological bodies and possibly even their (static) society and
>traditions were dominated by the dynamic intellectual idea of a super
>race. This is utterly bizarre and surely no system of ethics can work on
>such an arbitrary criteria.
>The fact is that Persig is using an ethical system based upon pure
>emotivism to pick and choose which value layers he chooses to read into
>any given context, in a vain attempt to give rational credibility to his
>emotional urges and it is by this method that he is able to fit, "all
>the moral conflicts of the world . . . . . (into) this kind of
>framework".
There is no way to give rational credibility to something non-rational.
This is Pirsig's basic problem that he went insane trying to resolve (ZMM).
To try and resolve it in the complex, multi-variable field of ethics
confuses things further. It is a very difficult question.
I find it helpful to frame it thus: how do we give a social system a human
charateristic (like conscience or Quality) that cannot be defined? The
answer is, we can't. It is an impossibility. Quality is not, to me (and
again others, incl. Pirsig, may disagree), too useful for institutional
ethics. It is like aesthetics in the sense that it is personal and
individual. So the way around the impasse in my question is to educate and
develop individual conscience, to nurture our own perceptions of that
feeling or essence which Pirsig calls Quality, and apply them from the
bottom up, not from the top down. I believe this may be the source of some
of the problems you raise.
>For these reasons alone the Metaphysics of Quality is of no concern to
>anyone seeking an ethical framework.
Like you, I am seeking an ethical framework. Nobody in the history of
mankind has found one that works perfectly. I have found that in doing
this, it is easier to put the MoQ into Wilber's structure than to try and
fit our distorted rational reality of 1998 into the MoQ.
Pirsig's writings, his explanations of a deep mystical feeling in the
relation of our minds to the world, are not infallible. They are not the
be-all and end-all of modern ethical and social thought. ZMM and Lila are
not the gospels of the 21st century. They are the ramblings of a madman
that make tremendous strides in our struggle to understand why the world
seems so empty and how intuition and direct feelings and yes, emotions,
guide our not-quite-rational lives. They are a brilliant synthesis of
unique feelings and intuitions with metaphysics, religion, and ethics. In a
world that claims to be rational but really isn't.
>For these reasons alone the Metaphysics of Quality is of no concern to
>anyone seeking an ethical framework.
Finally, don't tell me what is or isn't my concern in my search to
understand ethics. I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THIS, not you or anybody else.
The minute you start telling people what is and isn't of their concern,
you're telling them how to think, and that's when all the trouble really
starts.
If you want to state your opinion, fine. If it challenges people to think
deeply about their personal convictions, even better. But in stating your
opinion, or an argument, state it as such; not as a self-evident fact.
I would love to hear your opinion on what would be of concern to an
ethicist who has escaped, but certainly not discarded, rational thought. I
believe that any ethics that cannot be guided by an individual, and thus in
part by emotion, is irrelevant to our society.
Sincerely yours,
Andy Russell
"Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page
menu and no food."
- Robert Pirsig
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