Hi John B:
An excellent response to Roger on destructiveness. I especially look
forward to hearing about your experiences during your mystic retreat. (-:
The only bone I have to pick is with the following passage from your
post:
>I have several times pointed to the end of
> Ch 22 in Lila, where Pirsig promotes what I see as a fascist social order
> that is the antipathy of the Indian values that shaped modern America. This
> is the result of promoting order above other values. Order is fundamentally
> static. While we agree that neither dynamic nor static quality is an
> adequate basis for a metaphysics, Pirsig lost the plot here by allowing the
> collective a higher value than the individual. He suggests that it is more
> important to keep a modern city functioning than to cultivate the freedoms
> that will allow individuals to create even more dynamic social structures.
> I say he is wrong, by his own logic throughout the rest of the book, and as
> a moral judgement of quality that I make for myself.
I've reviewed Chap. 22 to see where Pirsigs says what you say he says
and couldn't find it. I also reviewed your essay in the Forum where you
refer to the same chapter and say that Pirsig speaks of "selves as
ridiculous" and "his vision of society in which memes compete for
privacy." I couldn't find those references either. Nor could I find any
suggestion "that it is more important to keep a modern city functioning
than to cultivate the freedoms . . . "
So to assert that "Pirsig promotes . . . a fascist social order" seems to
be wholly unfounded. If I've missed something I look forward to being
enlightened. Otherwise, I'll have to conclude that based on lack of
evidence your assertion is wrong.
Platt
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