Platt, you say:
<Pirsig never hesitates to use the term "good.
Lithien:
i agree. in fact, the last paragraph of Lila is very powerful:
"Good is a noun. That was it. That was what Phaedrus had been looking for.
That was the homer, over the fence, that ended the ballgame. Good as a noun
rather than as an adjective is all the Metaphysics of Quality is about. Of
course, the ultimate Quality isn't a noun or an adjective or anything else
definable. but, if you had to reduce the whole Metaphysics of Quality to a
single sentence, that would be it."
i also agree with the passage you quoted Pirsig saying:
<Its only perceived good is freedom and its
only perceived evil is static quality itself--any pattern of one-sided fixed
values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life." LILA,
Chap.9.
lithien:
i think the key word here is "perceived" for as we are part of the static
levels...evil would then seem to be for us that which destroys life. if we
were part of Dynamic Quality this "evil" would not be perceived as such.
but then you add:
<That's about as clear as it can be. Dynamic Quality is good, static quality
that tries to kill the free force of live is evil. Life is good, death is
evil.
lithien:
my contention is that the dynamism in Dynamic Quality sometimes kills life
and as such would be considered evil in our limited perception whereas it
would only be the necessary change for more life to be renewed in time.
one of the things which attracted me to Lila and the MOQ was the resolution
of good and evil in its simple higher or lower level situations. what i was
asking is the same question we always get stuck on. where does this evil
come from? what is the provenance of evil? what makes a Hitler or kids
that ambush their classmates or a Jeffrey Dohmer?
where does this impulse to destroy life originate?
it is difficult for us to analyze since we are part of the levels and see it
as "evil". we get bogged down on the biological level as if that would
explain it or the intellectual level because it was planned but, that still
doesnt explain it.
do you understand my question or is there something im missing here?
Lithien
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