Hi Gary, Bo & All:
> Pirsig's Quality and Wilber's Integral vision can help us make a world that
> resonates with The Good, The True, The Beautiful and The Just. There is
> not a good reason to battle between Pirsig and Wilber. This competition,
> this "it must be one or the other", is itself a failure brought on by the
> use of the two-value logic of Aristotelian systems. The path to sanity is
> the recognition that we must go beyond the black VS. white mentality. It
> is not a choice of one OR the other. This is a false choice brought on by
> allowing ourselves to be trapped by the rules of using A-logic. The choice
> is: BOTH. The choice is to blend absence with presence and produce the
> gradation of light and dark, and the multitude of colors that really is to
> be seen all around us. The hard task is to realize that we have to blend
> the two. Both Pirsig and Wilber are tool makers and map makers. We need
> them both. Guide your life not only by one. If you listen to the voice of
> Pirsig, it will tell you that quality is found in not static limitation but
> in Dynamic expansion and integration. Which will lead you to Wilber's
> Integral vision.
Well, you may be right. But I'm not totally convinced, first, because I
have great respect for Bo's interpretation of the MoQ, and second,
because when I listen to the voice of Pirsig, I don't hear anything about
God and swooning and singing praises and erotic embracing. I hear
instead:
"He remembered it had been spring then, which is a wonderful time in
Montana, and the breeze blowing down from the pine trees carried a
fresh smell of melting snow and thawing earth, and they were all walking
down the road, four abreast, when one of those raggedy nondescript
dogs that call Indian reservations home came onto the road and walked
pleasantly in front of them. They followed the dog silently for a while.
Then LaVerne asked John, "What kind of dog is that?"
"John thought about it and said, "That's a good dog."
"LaVerne had been asking the question within an Aristotelian
framework. She wanted to know what genetic, substantive pigeonhole of
canine classification this object walking before them could be placed in.
But John Wooden Leg never understood the question. That's what made
it so funny. He wasn't joking when he said, "That's a good dog." He
probably thought she was worried the dog might bite her. The whole
idea of a dog as a member of a hierarchical structure of intellectual
categories known generically as "objects" was outside his traditional
cultural viewpoint.
"What was significant, Phaedrus realized, was that John had
distinguished the dog according to its Quality, rather than according to
its substance. That indicated he considered Quality more important.
Now Phaedrus remembered when he had gone to the reservation after
Dusenberry's death and told them he was a friend of Dusenberry's they
had answered, "Oh, yes, Dusenberry. He was a good man." They
always put their emphasis on the good, just as John had with the dog.
A white person would have said he was a good man or balanced the
emphasis between the two words. The Indians didn't see man as an
object to whom the adjective "good" may or may not be applied. When
the Indians used it they meant that good is the whole center of
experience and that Dusenberry, in his nature, was an embodiment or
incarnation of this center of life.
"
Maybe when Phaedrus got this metaphysics all put together people
would see that the value-centered reality it described wasn't just a wild
thesis off into some new direction but was a connecting link to a part of
themselves which had always been suppressed by cultural norms and
which needed opening up. He hoped so." (From LILA, Chap. 32)
Wilber would no doubt cite this as a prime example of the pre/trans
fallacy. But for me, Pirsig's voice is authentic. It strikes a deep,
responsive chord in my soul. It avoids the "let's all join hands and sing
Kumbya" emotionalism of the drug-sotted Hippie culture and the
weekend retreat Buddhology favored by incense-burning, pyramid
worshipping New Age Californians who hold Wilber up as the Second
Coming.
We Pirsig followers may be cultists, too. But, I think Pirsig's suggestion
to shift one's outlook from "that's a mixed breed dog" to "that's a good
dog" is more profound and has less chance of being corrupted than
Wilber's exhortation, "And this earth becomes a blessed being, and
every I becomes a God, and every WE becomes God's sincerest
worship, and every IT becomes God's most gracious temple."
Jonestown anyone?
In any event, your's was "a good post," quality through and through.
Thanks for joining the group and giving us the benefit of your thoughts.
Platt
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