Thanks to Dave Thomas we have some KEY quotes from Lila. I'd like to
offer a few thoughts on the quotes, as they relate to POWER and the MOQ.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David L Thomas [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 11:48 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: LS The Choice: Dynamic/Cooperative Power or
> Static/Competitive Power?
>
>
> "Morality is not a SIMPLE set of rules. It is a very complex struggle
> of
> CONFLICTING patterns of value" L-P 193.
>
[David Buchanan] If it were a simple set of rules we could make
claims like "war is good because its Dynamic" or "war is bad because it
destroys the DQ potential in living beings". Instead WAR is the violent
"struggle of CONFLICTING patterns of value". In the case of the present
Serbian war,
its easy to see how complex the struggle can be. Yugoslavia was
composed of several ethnic, religious and language groups. There are
Croates and Serbs. There are Slavs and Albanians. There are Catholics,
Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Muslims. The region straddles the
border lands between the Christian West and the Islamic world. The area
also borders Eastern and Western Europe. Its iron curtain land. Very
complex and ancient patterns of value are involved in the conflict.
> When the United States drafted troops for the Civil War everyone knew
> that
> innocent people would be murdered. The North could have permitted the
> slave states to become independent and saved hundreds of thousands of
> lives. But an evolutionary MORALITY argues that the North WAS RIGHT IN
> PURSUING WAR because a nation is a higher form of evolution than a
> human body, and the principle of human equality is an even higher form
> that a nation. John Brown's truth was never an abstraction. It still
> keeps marching on." L-P 160
>
[David Buchanan] I think the KEY phrase in the quote is
"evolutionary morality". Without it there is no way to tell a Dynamic
revolutionary from a criminal thug. John Brown was a rabid zealot and
murderous outlaw by conventional standards. I love this quote because it
supports my view that freedom is the only thing worth dying or killing.
Preservation of the potential of Dynamic Quality in human beings is the
first and best justification for war.
In the case of Serbia, the Western Democracies are justified in
trying to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Nato is trying to stop
the elimination of Albanians from lands desired by Serbian
ultra-nationalists. I think the Serbs are acting immorally for many
reasons, but essentially I think they're criminal and not evolutionary.
> " When societies and cultures and cities are seen not inventions of
> "man" but as HIGHER ORGANISMS than biological man, the phenomena of
> WAR and GENOCIDE and all the other forms of human exploitation become
> more intelligible. "Mankind" has never been interested in getting
> itself killed. But the super organism,.. who is a pattern of values
> superimposed on top of biological human bodies, doesn't mind losing a
> few bodies to protect his greater interest" L-P 218
>
[David Buchanan] This is the quote the fascists and
Cosmotheists love best. But "more intelligible" is not to be equated
with 'morally acceptable'.
Even though societies and nations are HIGHER ORGANISMS, Pirsig's
moral codes still apply when judging them. Just as murder is a crime yet
self defense is a moral obligation so it is a crime for one nation to
destroy another yet national defense is a moral obligation. Each culture
ought to have basic rights just like each individual has basic human
rights. The U.S. destroyed many languages and cultures as it expanded
across North America. There's no doubt that the world lost priceless
treasures because of that "Manifest Destiny" genocide.
> " From the Metaphysics of Quality's point of view this devouring of
> human
> bodies is a MORAL ACTIVITY because it more moral for a social to
> devour a biological pattern than for a biological pattern to devour a
> social pattern."
> L-P219
>
[David Buchanan] Pirsig also says static patterns alone can't
"perceive or adjust to DQ. Only a living being can do that." In the
quote above Pirsig seems to favor the social over the biological
patterns. In the quote before that he casts the social as a Higer
Organism Yet only a living being can adjust to DQ. Only a living being
can evolve Dynamically. You know, the fifth moral code. So at certain
points Pirsig refers to persons as biological patterns; mere meat
puppets of the social super-organism. At other times individuals, as
participants in the intellectual level, are the most highly evolved,
cutting edge of reality. But it isn't a contradiction as much as the
expression of the values of the various levels. The preservation of a
society is more moral than the lives of a few individuals - according to
the values of SOCIETY. The Giant values the individual organism only
insofar as it can serve the Giant. The intellectual level is beyond its
reality and the Giant doesn't value it at all.
DAVID B. (the other dave)
> MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
