Pssst. Your slip is showing.
The first time I read Lila I thouhgt it was a little disappointing that he
didn't tell us more about what was on those slips of paper. But now I
realize that the contents of the card catalogue file is revealed simply by
reading the rest of Pirsig's book. Lila is made from the slips.
Pirsig would rather be a philosopher than a sailor...
"It would actually be easier to lose the boat than it would be to lose those
slips. There were about 11,000 of them. They'd grown out of almost 4 years
of organizing and reorganizing and reorganizing so many times... Their
overall subject he called a "Metaphysics of Quality" or sometimes a
"Metaphysics of Value" or sometimes just "MOQ" to save time."
Constructiong the MOQ was very important to him and it was also supremely
difficult. Its safe to say that it was his life's work, apparently he's been
at it for all of his adult life...
"This slip-world was quite a world and he'd almost lost it once because he
hadn't written any of it down and incidents came along that had destroyed
his memory of it. Now he had reconstructed what seemed like most of it on
these slips and he didn't want to lose it again."
I think the quote shows he was working on it before he wrote ZAMM or studied
at Chicago. Anyway, he's talking about reconstructing and reorganizing the
MOQ when he says...
"He was pleased to discover that the slips themselves made this organizing
much easier. Instead of asking "Where does this metaphysics begin?" - which
was a virtually impossible question - all he had to do was just hold up two
slips and ask, "Which comes first?" This was easy and he always seemed to
get an answer. Then he would take a third slip, compare it with the first
one, and ask again, "Which comes first?" If the new slip came after the
first one he compared it with the second. Then he had a three-slip
organization. He kept repeating the process with slip after slip."
So I think the question of which comes first is not about time or the
sequence of events, the question is about philosophical or intellectual
primacy. I mean, when he compares two slips, two ideas, he must be asking
himself which one needs to be explained or described first. One of them is
"first", not because its more important or noble or whatever, just because
the second will be better understood if it comes after the forst one.
Afterall, he's doing it this way instead of trying to answer that impossible
question, "Where does this metaphysics begin?"
And in answering that question with every slip, the slips told him where to
start his second book. In chapter two Pirsig is telling us how the rest of
the book is organized. He's telling us that it was organized by his Dynamic
"which-comes-first" method, which tells us that we have to understand his
metaphysic one chapter and page at a time. Its very much a don't-skip-ahead
kind of book. And then the very next chapter we learn about Dusenberry, his
Indians and Pirsig's participation in their peyote ceremony. First things
first. Of all the slips, why should these be first? Because its necessary
for all subsequent understanding perhaps? I think so.
DMB
PS to Diana and Y'all: I'm not going to suggest the re-reading program for
next month. Its not working at all. We should've had 4 insights, 3
epiphanies and 19 wows by now. Can't even get folks to follow a few simple
rules of the games, stick to the text and all that. Seems like some kind of
weird game to me. I've seen the method work in the classroom, in
coffeehouses, at conferences and in my living room. But it just isn't
working here. I thought there was a general problem with the conversation
and imagined that it might have to do with the fact that we don't share a
physical space. That's why I suggested the re-reading project, think it
might help to at least put us in the same literary space, put us all in the
same scenes and such. Plus the book is a novel and our discussions don't
seem to recognize that. Comprehension suffers as a result, no doubt. In
fact, this experiement has only demonstrated that many contributors are
perfectly willing to ignore certain ideas and even lack basic reading
comprehension skills. And that's just a recipe for a waste of time, not a
productive conversation. The project was elected in a record landslide, but
none of the posts got down into detail of those first three chapters. It
seems its too difficult to put aside one's pet theories, too difficult to
empty a cup for the sake of conversation, not even for a moment. What kind
of blindness is this? I really can't tell you how disappointed I am.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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