Hi y'all,
Go to the bathroom or hold on to your britches this may be a long one...........
A disappointed DMB says in his last post,
> 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.
Amen.
You ended your first post of the month with "the MOQ was spun and woven that night in the teepee, right?"
Wrong. Lila p 40 to 42
"Then the peyote illumination came: They're the orginators!"...From that ORIGINAL PERCEPTION [my
empasis] of the Indians as the originators of the American style of speech had come an expansion:
The Indians were the originators of the American style of life. The American personality is a
mixture of European and Indian Values. When you see this you begin to see a lot of things that have
never been explained before."
This SINGLE insight is then fleshed out with examples of it in American culture until near the end
of chapter three where alone in italics we read:
Freedom.
"That was the topic that would drive home this whole understanding of Indians. Of all the topics his
slips on Indians covered freedom was the most important. Of all the contributions America has made
to the history of the world, the idea of freedom from a social hierarchy has been the greatest."
then chapter three then ends with...
"And as Phaedrus' studies got deeper and deeper he saw that it was to this conflict between European
and Indian values, between freedom and order, that his study should be directed."
The MoQ is only mentioned one time, in chapter two, and then just as a name for "all those slips" it
is never mentioned in Ch 3 and never within the context of the ceremony.
Chapter two ends.
"He took the whole DUSENBERRY topic section out. The slips were getting brown around the edges and
the ink was turning brown too, on the first slip. It said: "Vern Dusenberry, Assoc Prof., English
Dept. Montana State College. Died, brain tumor, 1966, Calgary, Alberta."
He'd made the slip, probably, so he'd remember the year.
This suggests to me that these are the oldest slips in the boxes which could not have been created
much earlier than the late 50's before he met Dusenberry while teaching at Montana State College. So
to suggest that, "the MOQ was spun and woven that night in the teepee, right?" based on the contents
of the first three chapters of a book that was not written or published until almost 40 years later,
one that was created from slips " about 11,000 of them... grown out of almost 4 years of
organizing and reorganizing and reorganizing ." the task which probable did not occur until the late
80's, and most if not all of these slips probably did not even exist at the time of the ceremony,
is TO CREATE PURE FICTION.
It's source, in my opinion, is "one's pet theories" in this case yours. I've quickly re-skimmed
the first three chapters and can find no instance of the words, mysticism, mystic and their kin but
by your second post we read:
> I'd really like us to zero in on the meaning of the peyote ceremony.
> I think is important for a zillion reasons, but mostly because its seems to
> be at the heart of everything and at the same time mysticism is so widely
> misunderstood.
> Anyone else see the levels between the lines here? The visuals are
> biological, the emotions are social, the analysis of complex realities is
> intellecual and the dissolution of the self is the full-blown mystical
> experience, direct perception of DQ, no?
Only if, one is a student of and beliver in mysticism, a student of and/or user of hallucinogens,
and has read the rest of Lila, and has " pet theory" on how these all interrelate can these few
pages be interpreted to mean what you say Pirsig means. Yes indeed, " What kind of blindness is this?"
Others have spoken to the social risks of this position but I would like to expand on this post by
Ryan to Cory:
> Society is there to control biology, correct?
> well to some people the use of drugs could be classified as biological
> drugs and alcohol alter our biology and chemistry
> remember if biology destroys society according to the MOQ this would be
> immoral.
And ask, "What is the risk to the MoQ of tying hallucinogens, organic or inorganic chemicals, too
closely to mysticism and then equating mysticism directly to Dynamic Quality?" The risk is that
"Science" takes up the challenge of the MoQ , does an in-depth study of the mystic experience, and
finds that 99.999% of all mystical experiences can be directly related to specific and unusual
inorganic and organic patterns or values existing in the person at the time of experience. Now we
have a MoQ level 1 or 2 pattern of values claiming to be the source of all reality. Not possible
according to the MoQ. Self refuted, bye, bye, MoQ. Science has laid waste to whole established
mainstream philosophies with a lot less than this. For a philosophy that seeks to be flexible,
contingent, metaphysical, and pragmatic this sounds like a pretty risky strategy. Luckily it's not
Pirsig's. For the MoQ to be metaphysically valid it must be able to contain or embrace mysticism or
the mystical experience which obviously has been and continues to be one aspect of human
experience. That does not mean that it must BE or IS mysticism.
****************************************
Now on to the Indians, a subject with which I have had both direct experience and studied to some
degree. His insight that "The American personality is a mixture of European and Indian Values" and
that it was, in part, formed during the westward expansion by Europeans acrossed the Great Plains
is both valid and under acknowledged. I say , in part, because the direct and historically
documented integration of Indian values into American culture came nearly a hundred years prior to
Lewis and Clark even exploring the area where Plains tribes roamed. These "freedom" and "democracy"
issues which were integrated into of the forming of the US government, The Declaration of
Independence and Constitution are directly traceable to Eastern tribes that had cultures much
different than the mythical "Indians on horseback attacking Hos and Little Joe on Wagon Train." It
is not until the last few pages that my 1986 version of "Atlas of the Ancient Americans" even
mentions the Plains Indians and when it does it starts like this:
"The colorful mounted nomadic tribes of the Great Plains are comparatively recent cultural
developments. Horses were not available to America Indians until they begin to escape or be stolen
from 16th-century Spanish outposts in the Southwest. However, by the 18th century many tribes had
adopted the horse, and had adapted to full or part time buffalo hunting and a nomadic way of life on
the vast grasslands of the West.
As the native cultures of the Prairies and Plains were developing, Euro-American attitudes about
American Indians were also changing. By the early 19th century romanticized positive images had
replaced earlier more negative attitudes. As the West opened up to exploration and immigration,
these new development converged, and the scene was set for the establishment of the MYTH [my
emphasis] of the Plains Indian as the romantic archetype of all American Indian culture."
So those who would romanticize and promote this myth claiming that "what comes first" in a "time
sense" has little place in the development of the MoQ or in the blending of Indian and European
cultures in America are placing the proverbial "cart" before the very instrumental but late arriving
" European horse."
So when Ten Bears claims " I know every stream and every wood between the Rio Grande and the
Arkansas" his "freedom" , in this case to roam these vast distances, was in part made possible by
the horse that his great grandfather stole from a European. His freedom and his culture was also
predicated on condition he travel armed , usually in groups, was willing to fight, or if outnumbered
able to flee, and stayed the hell out of Apache territory. Or Sioux. Or Cheyenne. Or whatever
other tribe or tribes that bordered his domain that he stole food,women, or horses from. So his
freedom and his culture was at least in part a direct result of the arrival of the Europeans, His
freedom had very real limits, it had to be fought for, and it could have, and did from time to time
cost him his life even before the vast immigrations of Europeans that led to the end of this way.
enough
3WD
PS: Those looking for a good read and a novel experience which may give some insight into another
clash between Europeans and "Others", Barbara Kingsolvers latest novel "The Poisonwood Bible" in
now out in paperback. It is set in the Congo and illustrates that while America somehow broke its
European yoke and achieved a nation founded on freedom, others have not fared so well and all the
caring in the world cannot necessarily change that.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:20 BST