Steve, He talks about metaphysics > as a degenerate activity that takes one out of the mystical reality. > So there is this tension: on the one hand he says one cannot escape > metaphysics and on the other that metaphysics is an escape from > reality, but we also cannot escape from reality if reality is Quality. > All this makes me think that there is a sense of irony about Pirsig's > use of the term metaphysics that Bo is taking the wrong bits > literally. > > What do you think? > >
I think you make some damn interesting points there, but I don't know if Pirsig really says metaphysics is unavoidable, I think it's more like he says its irresistable, to certain types of minds. Just like alcohol and bar ladies are not fundamentally and universally inevitable, but if you're bent that way you're bound to indulge yourself or what is life for anyway? Now in my humble judgement, I think Bo's problem is of two-fold complexity. First, he's got that kind of mind. Remember DeWeese and the jiggling light switch? Remember the artistically bound and glued table that "just sort of builds? Remember the great and lasting friendship between these two minds, Phaedrus and DeWeese; minds that were so different they could barely comprehend each other, and yet felt drawn toward each other anyway? That's a classic understanding interacting with a romantic. Bo relates more strongly to ZAMM, because that's closer to his personal battles and problems in his actual life. He can relate to the classic/romantic conflict and it's resolution his resolution. The second discrepancy comes from being a non-American, and the main conflict in Lila that is explicated is between Victorian and Indian values, I think Bo has a harder time with because that's foreign to his upbringing. Here's a quote from one of my other favorite authors, Ed Abbey, to illustrate what attracts me as an American: "Eternal recurrence, announced Nietzcshe. Time for the mountain men to return. The American West has not given us, so far, sufficient men to match our mountains. Or not since the death of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Dull Knife, Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, Little Wolf, Red Shirt, Gall, Geronimo, Cochise, Tenaya (to name but a few), and their comrades. With their defeat died a bold, brave, heroic way of life, one as fine as anything recorded history has to show us. Speaking for myself, I'd sooner have been a liver-eating, savage horseman riding with Red Cloud than a slave-owning sophist sipping tempered win in Periclean Athens. For example" Me too Ed. Me and Ed and Bob get that. I'm not sure Bo does and I'm not sure there's any way of explaining something that is "in the blood". Genetically and Environmental programming together make for a pretty set pattern. John 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/
