Hi Roger and Squad
I'm still working on your post of last Friday. Will post a reply ASAP. In the
meantime:
ROGER:
> Personally, I have been amazed by the deviation from these MOQ concepts this
> month.
> We started with several rebels trying to put social values on top of
> intellect, then several
> members tried to put socialist egalitarianism forward as a system
> intellectually superior
> to freedom. Next, morality itself was dismissed as too ‘relative’. Several
> folks are now
> saying we should follow gut or instinct , and the latest assault accuses
> Pirsig of being a
> sexist due to his use of plot devices.
>
> (By the way am I the only one that sees the common threads of
> misunderstandings in the
> above?)
It seems like Social value is making an attempt to subvert Intellectual value,
which is not unexpected as there is a very strong Social content within the Squad
as well as a powerful intellectual content.
What did surprise me and made me retreat into some serious thinking over the
weekend was the sexism accusation. I still don't fully understand it.
Lila Blewitt is a literary device as is Rigel and, to a great extent, so is Phaedrus
himself - even the name Blewitt seems to be a play on words. Pirsig has
introduced the Metaphysics of Quality in novel form - in much the same way as
Satre and Camus did with existentialism. The interplay between the characters
was constructed in order that aspects of the MoQ could be reinforced by
reference to their different attitudes and reactions. This showed the inadequacies
of the "S-O" (??) way of thinking and acting and how, with the introduction of
Quality as THE fundamental source this situation could be rectified. Lila WAS
redeemed in a sense.
If Pirsig had been writing his autobiography I might have agreed with Mary and
others but this was not the case.
It was interesting that the other active women members of the Squad were in
general disagreement with Mary's accusations whilst many of the male members
of the Squad seemed to be in agreement - at the risk of a severe flaming it would
appear that a certain amount of politically correct thinking (social value) and new-
manism (also social value) appears to have sneaked in the back door in an
attempt to mug intellectual value. Ah well!!
Horse
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
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