From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Jul 26 2004 - 00:09:16 BST
Mark and all MOQers:
Joseph Campbell fans might like this one. And I hope someone fowards it to
Sam...
MM said:
Thanks for a great post rejecting Ken Wilber's half baked approach to
philosophy.
dmb replies:
Mark, your wierd attack is a respose to naked Pirsig quotes that do not
mention or refer to Ken Wilber in any way. I could easily dismiss it as an
emotional outburst, but there is a quote that directly contradicts you AND
raises an interesting issue. (For those who haven't been following, Mark is
upset that I don't like his ideas about "coherence" and has apparently
decided to "act out" by attacking Ken Wilber, who is my lover and close
personal friend.) The quote not only shows that Wilber and Pirsig are quite
compatible, it contradicts your specific attack on the perennial philosophy.
(Made in MF while discussing levels.) I suppose you noticed it too and
that's what has prompted your bizzare response? Whatever the case, the quote
in question comes from Pirsig's concluding remarks...
247 "Bradley's fundamental assertion is that the reality of the world is
intellectually unknowable, and that defines him as a mystic. So it has
really been a shock to see how close is the the MOQ. Both he and the MOQ are
expressing what Aldous Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy", which is
perennial, I believe, because it happens to be true."
dmb resumes:
I don't mind confessing that my ego puffed up when I read this. Its almost
exactly what I said and so almost exactly what Mark disputed as Wilberian
poison. The perrenial philosophy was batted down nearly every time I
mentioned it. So, as one can imagine, it was quite a thrill to see that
Pirsig has explicitly drawn the connection himself. And for Mark, seeing it
must have been the opposite of thrilling. (There were other quotes that seem
to contradict your ideas about coherence too, but I don't wish to beat a
dead horse.) Lots of very smart people have written about the perennial
philosophy, but just to get your goat, I'll use Ken Wilber's words to
explain it...
"THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY (the term was made famous by Huxley but coined by
Leibniz) - the transcentental essence of the great religions - has as its
core the notion of 'nonduality', which means that reality is neither one nor
many, neither permanent nor dynamic, neither seperate nor unified, neither
pluralistic nor holistic. It is entirely and radically above and prior to
ANY form of conceptual elaboration. ..Sri Ramana Maharshi had a perfect
summary of the paradox of the ultimate:"
The world is illusory;
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world.
"THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY is the worldview that has been embraced by the
vast majority of the world's greatest spiritual teachers, philosophers,
thinkers, and even scientists. Its called 'perennial' or 'universal' because
it shows up in virtually all cultures across the globe and across the ages.
And wherever we find it, it has essentially similar features, it is in
essential agreement the world over. We moderns, who can hardly agree on
anything, find this rather hard to believe."
"To begin with the premodern or traditional sources, the easiest access to
their wisdom is through what has been called the perennial philosophy, or
the common core of the world's great spiritual traditions. As Huston Smith,
Arthur Lovejoy, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and other scholars of these traditions
have pointed out, the core of the perennial philosophy is the view that
reality is composed of various LEVELS OF EXISTENCE - levels of being and
knowing - ranging from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. Each senior
dimension transcends but includes its juniors, so that this is a conception
of wholes within wholes within wholes indefinitely, reaching from dirt to
divinity." (Emphasis is Wilber's)
dmb resumes:
Right away we can see that the MOQ, Wilber and the perennial philosophy
share some fairly large and central ideas about the nature of reality: that
it is mystical, nondual and divided into levels of existence. They all
suggest that we, as human beings, can move up through these levels on the
way toward enlightenment or through the course of our personal evolution, if
you will. And I think this idea goes a long way toward clarifying the quote
that prompted this thread in the first place...
208 "The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term "God" is completely
dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic
freedom. The MOQ is not just atheistic in this regard. It is anti-theistic."
dmb continues:
Any reader can independently explore the full context of these remarks, but
for our present discussion it is probably enough to simply say that he is
responding to a description of the stages of evolution of religion and so
Pirsig is talking about a fourth stage or level of religion. And I think
there is a much simpler form of the same notion, also from Pirsig...
196 "The selling out of intellectual truth to the social icons of organized
religion is seen by the MOQ as an evil act."
dmb resumes:
Pirsig and the MOQ have no use for "Bible-babble" or "clap-trap", it is
atheistic, anti-theistic and does not agree with most kinds of traditional
Christianity, it drops the words 'spirit' and 'faith' AND YET it is not
opposed to religion per se, its agreement with the perennial philosophy
binds it firmly to tradition and it is MYSTICAL at its core. How much does
that rock?
Do Pirsig's comments on religion and the perennial philosophy open up an
interesting can of worms, or what? Where's Sam the priest and Wim the Quaker
with all this, I wonder?
Did I ever tell you about the time Marshall McLuhan overheard me arguing
about his work? I was standing in line for a movie, talking to a fool, when
McLuhan came over to help... Not literally, but that how it feels.
Thanks,
dmb
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