Hi, Diana and Squad,
Just to clear up some points (and to aleviate any hurt feelings)... ;)
diana@hongkong.com wrote:
>
> Denis, Bo and squad,
>
> Denis wrote
> > I have trouble understanding why the beginning of this post is so
> > different.
>
> Yeah, but look, it wasn't my fault, okay.
Sorry, sorry, not on the head, please... :^) As I told you, I hadn't
read your answer, and didn't mean it in any scolding way (well, perhaps
a little...)
> I was trying to get my head
> round Pirsig and there's a fundamental contradiction in his morality.
> Basically there are five codes and the fifth code says "oh and by the
> way ignore these codes".
>
> It's a paradox and the paradox goes like this:
>
> To be moral you should rationalize your actions based on the four levels
> To be moral you should not rationalize at all
>
> Bodvar is trying to fudge it but I think that's the wrong way to go. I
> think we should face up to the paradox and solve it, if we don't it will
> keep haunting us.
>
You've got a point, here.
>
> I think Pirsig is well aware of the horizon d'attente, even if he
> doesn't use that phrase. I think it's precisely what he was concerned
> with ZMM and Lila
>
BTW, I couldn't think of a good translation the other day, so I used the
french term. A good one would be : the horizon of expectation.
> If he had said:
> "We are now dealing with morals on the basis of mysticism."
> nobody would listen (apart from some new age fruity loops)
>
> But what he said was:
> We have decided that mysticism is rational (because it is empirically
> verifiable). So, we are now dealing with morals on the basis of logic
>
> Much better! But it's tricky because the rational proof of something's
> existence does not prove that that thing itself behaves rationally. But
> then, if he hadn't made it "scientific" he would never have wormed his
> way into the intellectual mindset. Reason is the basis of the SOM;
> Dynamic quality is associated with religious mysticism. That's a
> non-starter for somites. Even if they do "sorta get it", they want it
> explained in their own language. Which is fair enough actually. Pirsig
> makes Zen palatable to intellectuals in a way that Herrigel, Suzuki etc
> don't.
>
Yes, the importance of any intellectual immunity system is not to be
underestimated. Before reading 'Lila', I had almost no success in
presenting Pirsig views with convincing evidence, and the only person
who agreed to read it didn't seem overwhelmed by it, even if he agreed
that it had a few good points. The main answer was : interesting, but
not worth changing my views.
The possibility of sustaining a dialectical discourse is a prerequisite
for convincing most intelligent people on this side of SOM (and, it
would seem, even on the other). We're still living in the shadow of
Socrates.
> The first moral imperative sounds quite scientific:
>
> *To be moral you should rationalize your actions based on the four
> levels*
>
> That could be latched quite easily, it's not too far ahead of our
> current mindset. It's a minor step forward, from thinking your pile of
> sand is the whole world to throwing piles of sand at other people. But
> if you don't include the paradox then it's not the full moral theory.
> You still have to step back and see the whole desert.
>
> *To be moral you should not rationalize at all*
>
> That seems harder to accept. Both in itself and because it contradicts
> the first one. But to learn about morality you must grasp both of them
> ... is that it? The MOQ's morality is more subtle and complex than
> either one of these imperatives taken individually.
>
> You want an example? Take Picasso. Picasso was an artistic genius and
> therefore highly moral (nb morality in the MOQ goes well beyond the
> narrow range of moral issues that the SOM restricts us too). He was a
> genius because he broke all the rules. So breaking rules makes you
> Dynamic? Depends whether you break them because you can't manage them or
> because you've transcended them. First Picasso devoted himself to the
> study of all the masters who had gone before him. If you look at his
> early work it's like a catalog of artistic styles dating back to the
> Renaissance. He knew all the rules and followed them precisely. He
> studied them, practised them, mastered them brilliantly and then, when
> he was sure it was the right thing to do, he broke them. The same theory
> can be applied to other kinds of morality.
>
> So the paradox is resolved. You don't just study the codes sometimes and
> sometimes you don't. You study them so thoroughly that they become part
> of your nature and then you naturally transcend them. Socrates had it
> right.
>
> Diana
Wonderful work, Diana ! Finally, it's you that clears up my head from
its muddled thoughts. I think this Zen idea of getting the static
patterns perfect is just what I lacked in my understanding of the good
the MoQ brought to our lives. Learning the MoQ won't make us perfect at
first, but studying it like we do in here will surely help us getting
some solid moral background.
Nothing without work, and there's no such thing as a free lunch. :)
In the end, I still think we shouldn't try to define morals on the basis
of reason (that would be too static), but we still have to understand
what they are and the way they interact, perhaps to build theories even,
and conflicting ones too (evolution will take care of those), if we want
these books to have their full impact on our lives. We can't lead people
to morality, but we can show the way, and the MoQ is the only worthy
tool I ever found for this, that has the power to convince people under
the current paradigm. I really think that was Pirsig's aim all the way :
"But he realized that sooner or later he was going to have to stop
carping about how bad subject-object metaphysics was and say something
positive for a change. Sooner or later he was going to have to come up
with a way of dividing Quality that was better than subjets and objects.
He would have to do that or get out of metaphysics entirely. It's all
right to condemn somebody else's bad metaphysics but you can't replace
it with a metaphysics that consist of just one word."
Lila, p. 123
Not if you want to convince people, that is. Give people a metaphysics
to understand their static moral conflicts, and then point to the
problem-solving attitude : get dynamic ! The contradiction is only on
the surface. Pirsig doesn't say "oh and by the way ignore these codes".
What he says is : "Once the horizon of expectation is reached, let the
DQ come forth."
Work, and then, illumination.
Even science, as much as some people deny it, works this way. It did it
an awful good, and I hope it will work for us, too. Dynamic morality,
isn't that what Pirsig preached for all along ?
Denis
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:45 GMT