Greetings,
DAN:
"Hi Struan
By using foundational value-situations, Pirsig effectively eliminates any
reference to 'good' or 'bad', 'positive' or 'negative' situations and
instead seems to institute scales of value, from low to high. Instead of
saying "sitting on a hot stove is bad" Pirsig states it to be low-value,
which does not necessarily equate with 'bad' or 'negative' unless taken as
subjective."
Hi Dan. I confess that I'm not sure what your point is in the context of my
comments, but I have to
say that your claim that Pirsig, " eliminates any
reference to 'good' or 'bad', 'positive' or 'negative' situations," is wrong
from the quotation on
the cover page of ZAMM, "And what is good Phaedrus, And what is not good -
Need we ask anyone to
tell us these things?" right through both his works to the last paragraph of
Lila, "Good is a noun."
The whole point of the exercise is surely to throw some light on where
morality (good and bad) comes
from and what it is, hence 'an enquiry into morals.' I can't see any way
that Pirsig could have made
it more plain than starting with it, finishing with it and subtitling his
second book with it - or
am I missing something?
Hi Struan
Being "an inquiry into morals," Pirsig's second book deals with morality as
value, not morality as 'good' and 'bad'. Clearly this is Pirsig's message. I
am not sure why this is unclear to you or why you do not see relevant
context between my comments and your passage I cited. If something is not
good, is it bad? Does it then have negative value? I submit this is not what
Pirsig wrote about in either of his books. Rather he proposes reality as
Good, or as Bucky Fuller wrote... both good and bad are essential to 100%
regenerative universe and both are "good."
Dan
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:10 BST