[John]
So good is an intellectual concept that represents patterns which promote
living and life as a whole. Evil is an intellectual concept that represents
"the death force" that Pirsig refers to. That which hates life and dynamicism.
[Arlo]
Well I don't think "good" and "bad" ("high quality" and "low quality") are
intellectual patterns, but this evaluation is the "beginning response to
Quality" evident at ALL the MOQ's levels.
"Evil' on the other had is a typically a social evaluation. I doubt many
mathematicians would refer to something that trips up their theories as "evil".
"Evil" is typically deployed as a means of social coercion, or inciting
national and/or geopolitical identity. At the least, its a deliberate emotion
provoker, which adds no meaning to "low Quality" apart from its emotional
pandering.
I think if you go through and in every case you were going to say "good" you
say "high Quality", and in ever case you were going to say "bad" or "evil" you
say "low Quality", you'll find the meaning does not change, but you do drop the
socio-emotive baggage.
In this vein, I do not think S/O-thinking is "evil", but it is "low Quality".
If we extract this to the idea of "harmonious with reality" or "attuned to
nature", we better say simply "high Quality". Once we do that, we can see that
high and low quality evaluations exist throughout the MOQ's hierarchy, it is
not a "high Quality" cosmos into which "man" comes with the potential for "low
Quality".
It is important to keep in mind that such evaluations are focus-dependent. A
biological pattern (say a dog) will make a different set of "good/bad"
(high/low quality) evaluations than a human focusing from a socio-intellectual
perspective.
A "hammer", then, is high or low Quality from where you focus in from. Remember
the beer-can shim in ZMM? Pirsig appraised that as high Quality ("harmonious
with reality" or "attuned to nature") while for John it most certainly was NOT.
But I would venture that even John would appraise the same piece of metal as
"high Quality" in an evaluation about its quality in keeping beer fresh and
good tasting.
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