Jonathan was direct about two main points, first things first and
ceremony/ritual. Some of JM's comments are reproduced below, but the first
issue is about Pirsig's dynamic selection process and the slips of paper
(chapter two) and the second one is about the differences between the bar
scene and the teepee scene.(chapters 1 and 3)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Marder [SMTP:marder@agri.huji.ac.il]
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 5:56 AM
> To: moq_focus@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MF first things first
>
[David Buchanan] In reference to the slip selection process, JM
said...
> The point is that there are no real rules, or rather, the rules are what
> one
> comes to after GENERALIZING the choices that have been made. This seems to
> be
> the whole essence of the Quality idea.
> The other theme that emerges is that the first choice is not necessarily
> the
> best one, and rearrangements are always permitted.
>
[David Buchanan] Hmmm. Not sure what you mean by "GENERALIZING the
choices". But it seems that "rules" or static part of the process were the
slips themselves and the over-riding question of where to begin a
metaphysics. Any number of different thoughts might occur to him as he looks
at each slip, especially since each slip is different than the next. He
knows the aim is constructing an explaination and so that part is static.
The slips and the ideas on them are also static. But each time he asks
"which comes first?", there can be a million different reasons for picking
one slip over another. That's the dynamic part. In other words, he had the
data a goal to organize it. That's the static side. The method of
organization was a dynamic process. But I think he had to do it that way
because it is so complex and interconnected and so organizing with only
logic and reason would be nearly impossible. But I think we want to be
careful not to confuse "dynamic" with arbitrary or capricious. And even in
the dynamic process, I imagine logic and reason are still operating on some
level. Its a kind of "lucid logic" or "speed thinking". I mean, he can't be
so dynamic as to forget how to read and its the ideas on the paper that he's
looking at, so the intellect is engaged on some level.
Yea, re-arrangements are permitted. I really like that part about
how the program is data. The ultimate re-arrangement is a new metaphysic,
eh? Lila is so rich.
> ============================
> David, let me ask you to look back at my post of 24th March, where I
> compared
> the teepee "ceremony" and the bar-room "ceremony" (picking up Lila).
> Specifically, do you accept that both scenarios are ritualistic (as you
> put it,
> the same actions and words repeated over and over)?
> Can you please explain what you see to be the difference between the
> teepee and
> the bar-room, and is this difference mystical?
>
>
[David Buchanan] OK, Jonathan, I've got your 3/24 post in my hand
and will respond to that first.
I must start with a correction. JM says Pirsig ate peyote during
the youth culture of drug experimentation. But Pirsig tells us that only
anthropologists had ever heard of peyote at the time of his experience. The
hippies just hadn't been invented yet.
JM finds the teepee scene dull, saying "There's no detail, no
colour". And i guess that's just a matter of opinion. Personally, I wish
he'd gone into much more detail about havingg sex with Lila. I love the
dirty parts best. But seriously, JM says the bar scene is more exciting and
"much more vivid" and calls it "Pirsig's other description of a drug-related
ceremony". And here's where I start to have trouble..
You really can't compare beer with peyote. And normally I'd like to
give people a break on this because peyote use is pretty rare and most folks
just don't know much about it.
But we're supposed to have read Lila before coming to this forum and
we just re-read the first three chapters, where the distinctions are so
clear and detailed. Even the details of the setting and atmosphere of those
two contrasting chapters tell abou the differences...
In the teepee he felt at home, felt connected to the people there,
felt he discovered his secret other half, he really loved the songs, warmed
by the friendship and the fire and spun an intellectual web wider than ever
before as his mind turned to complex realities and transcendental....where
something new opened up.
At the bar he was motivated by biology, which doesn't care about how
loud, rude, tacky or fake she is. There's conflict with "that bitch Debbie"
and the Victorian moralizer doesn't like it much either. The captain wakes
full of self-contempt and confusion. He has to scramble across a cold, dark
and slippery deck just to get his clothes back on and light a fire. He has
to put construction of the MOQ on hold until he gets rid of her.
The difference between the teepee and bar scenes? Oh, let me count
the ways...
I wouldn't use the word "contempt", but since you mentioned it let
me go a little further with JM's 3/24 post. Directly after describing the
two scenes as two different "drug related ceremonies", he goes on to say...
"While the teepee 'ceremony' sounds harmless, humanity also invented
other ceremonies like burning witches and sacrificing children."
Frankly, this kind of thing makes me angry. Its dishonest and
conspicously irrelevant. Peyote ceremonies simply have nothing to do with
torture or murder. It would be a case of guilt by association, which is
rarely valid, but you're the one who invented the association. Frankly, I
think its ridiculous. And it angers me because its dishonest and it only
distracts us from genuine discussion of the issues.
DMB
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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