[Marsha]
But I would like to know what you think too. What is the message here?
[Arlo]
I would say the message is "you can't have one without the other".
Pirsig has described his books as "the path to enlightenment" (ZMM)
and "the path back" (LILA), and I think that any attempt to isolate
or even dismiss one as being "unnecessary" or "unimportant" is very
problematic. Trying to apply LILA without the understanding (or
"enlightenment", as Pirsig calls it) of ZMM is like trying to heal a
gunshot wound by covering it with a band-aid; it does not address the
root problem.
Do I think that simply reading ZMM induces "enlightenment"? While I
suppose it *can*, my guess is that its not so machinistically causal.
In ZMM, he describes *his* path to enlightenment, and walking that
path alongside him may certainly guide others to the same. But like
Pirsig later describes about his peyote experience in LILA, one has
to be *open* to enlightenment, if one merely walks along blinded by
preconceived prejudices, expectations and whatnot, one will likely
walk away feeling "enlightened" without really becoming so.
There is an evident historical danger to seeing the inscribed tablets
of prophets, the words handed down to us by those who have achieved
enlightenment, in the misunderstanding and reification of these
"words" as containing the "meaning". On a much larger scale, it
harkens towards the "spirituality/religion" split, one being the
pursuit of enlightenment, the other being the reified words of others
who have achieved enlightenment. When we let the latter forgo the
former, we are in for a world of trouble, not only in having a
"cult-like" deification of another's words, but (as I've suggested)
in not understanding the meaning or importance of the words in front of us.
Or, if you don't "get" ZMM, you are going to understand LILA from a
S/O perspective that renders the framework of LILA not only
erroneous, but dangerous, because "applying the MOQ" from that
vantage point is, as I suggested, applying a band-aid to a gunshot
wound. You have to dig deep to find that bullet. Then extract it.
Then, and only then, can you apply dressing to the wound.
That's my take, anyway.
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
