Howdy partners:
I have to address an issue that seems to be clouding our conversation. The
issue is (gasp) the use of peyote. It won't go away. Normally i don't mind
playing the scapegoat, but in this case I think it will only obscure what
Pirsig is trying to say. If anyone wants to express outrage at the person
who said favorable things about peyote use, well then you should send your
hate mail to Robert Pirsig or the publishers at Bantam. I didn't write Lila,
just quoted it. As I see it, the peyote experience just happens to be part
of what Pirsig reports. And it just happens to be the part some folks would
apparently like to throw away.
Imagine the disaster that would result if a motorcycle mechanic simply
tossed out or ignored the parts he didn't like. Imagine the results if a
scientist simply ignored or minimized the data he didn't like. Imagine an
actor who refused to speak certain lines. Or a judge who only noticed some
of the laws. Imagine a philosopher who simply tossed out or ignored the
parts he didn't like. Each of these cases would be outrageous and
irresponsible, no? I'm just trying to make sure we have ALL the parts before
we hit the open road. Otherwise we could have a terrible accident.
Yea,.. that's it... Its.. a saftey issue. : )
TODAY'S POINT: THE PEYOTE EXPERIENCE OUGHT NOT BE CONFUSED WITH "VICE".
I think Marco rightly made such a distinction with respect to alcohol. And I
generally agree with his most recent post. (Except that thing about time. If
Pirsig presented TIME as an issue in the first three chapters, I missed it.
Also... Has someone suggested that peyote is the ONLY way or that its the
ONLY necessary element in the vision quest? If someone did, I missed that
one too.)
The issue of drug abuse, alchoholism and addiction simply doesn't come up in
the first three chapters and none of those things is relevant to what
happened to the author during the peyote ceremony. This is about the MOQ,
not the war on drugs.
I'm afraid that providing an answer requires a Pirsig quote from chapter
24....
"The hippie rejection of social and intellectual patterns left just two
directions to go: toward biological quality and toward DQ. The
revolutionaries of the sixties thought that since both are anti-social, and
since both are anti-intellectual, why then they must both be the same. That
was the mistake." (That destroyed the movement before it really got
started.)
"Back in the fifties and sixties Phaedrus had shared ths confusion of
biological quality and Dynamic Quality, but the MOQ seemed to help clear it
up."
These quotes come from deep in the book and he's waited to explain lots of
other things, like the four static levels and the moral codes, before he
finally makes those points. He doesn't mention peyote or LSD explicitly, but
its clear enough. Pirsig admits that he suffered from the confusion between
biological quality and DQ, until the MOQ cleared it up. We haven't come to
the part about the levels yet and so I won't go into much detail, but let me
just say...
Vice cops are a good thing because social values should be in charge of
biological static quality. But Pirsig's use of peyote was
intellectual/spiritual and vice cops have no business controlling those
higher levels. Social restraint of the intellect is immoral, not to mention
unAmerican. Back in the first three chapters Pirsig even refered to the
prohibition of peyote use as a violation of religious freedom. (Which is
deliciously ironic if you stop to consider the fact that Indian mysticism
gave us the very notion of religious freedom in the first place.) He tells
us about the vast intellectual web too. This ain't no party. This ain't no
disco. This ain't no foolin' around.
Pirsig's participation in that ceremony was certainly NOT a degenerate act,
it wasn't about physical pleasure and it can't rightly be classified with
other "vices". As Cory rightly points out, the bar scenes display vice quite
nicely and they only serve as a contrast to the teepee scene. Peyote is not
addictive, its effect is almost entirely in the "mind" and it has very few
physical side effects except it may cause one to vomit. The taste is
horrible. Not exactly a hedonistic delight. Its not fair or smart to make
blanket statement about "drugs". And then there is the issue of abuse and
misuse...
SMALL POINT: The Indians used peyote long before they had to transport it up
from Mexico in the 19th century. The only thing new about their relationship
with the plant was the logistical problem of harvesting it. This problem
were created by the new political boarders imposed by the expanding United
States. Thanks to the Louisiana Purchase, the war with Mexico and the
settling of the west, among other things, the Indians had been cut and
fenced in.
SMALL POINT about wide practice: There are specialists in Ethnobotany that
pay close attention to "de-hallucinogenic" plants. Lots of different
cultures have used lots of different plants to achieve the same kind of
vision quest. (None of them used crack or heroin.) I wouldn't go so far as
to call it a universal, but most cultures in most times have practiced such
religious ceremonies. (Anyone remember my Christmas post about Santa's magic
reindeer? Deer piss. Yum. And it gets even more shocking than that! Quite
XratedBut you don't want to know.) The awesome power of such experiences was
also nearly universally recognized and often these plants were used only by
the most high ranking members in the society. Sometimes only one person was
allowed. This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. That's how religion was
found.
Thanks for your time. DMB
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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