"A crucial feature of Royce's doctrine of interpretation was to develop a
cooperative form of mediation between what he called dyadic dangerous
pairs. In War and Insurance where this idea is developed extensively,
Royce, in a seeming reconciliation of a Hobbesian view of aggressive man and
a human view of a natural human sympathy, declares that "By nature, man both
loves and hates his neighbor."
Human individuals, says Royce, both nourish and inflame each other; one
cannot do without the other; but when together there is often a quarrel, for
each has a different quest or interest.
Royce writes "the dyadic, the dual, the bilateral relations of man and man,
of each man to his neighbor, are relations fraught with social danger. A
pair of men is what I call a dangerous community."
Indeed, in line with family process therapy, Royce notes that "when mutual
friction once arises between a pair of lovers or of rivals or of individuals
otherwise interestingly related.. the friction tends to increase, unless
some other relation intervenes..."
The resolution of the tension depends, for Royce, on establishing a new and
creative social tie between them, an enrichment of the community beyond the
two. What is needed, is an interpreter B, whose task is to interpret A's
interests to C and B's interest to A, therby creating, making conscious, and
carrying out a common or united will. If successful, C will create,
sustain, and increase harmony between A and B.
The interpreter, says Royce, has the function "to transform the essentially
dangerous pair into the consciously and consistently harmonious triad.
Royce calls the interpreter, the "Spirit of the Community".
Dr. Jackie,
Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities: Toward a Roycean Public Policy
Don't you think the role of the Zuni Shaman to his people fit this role of
interpreter? Interpreting the white man's world to his people?
At the same time, the white man's world interpreted a new meaning to the
tribal elders regarding this one persecuted individual - that it ain't might
that makes right. Or if it is, we're mightier than you and we say he
doesn't deserve to be hung for arguing with tradition.
And finally, the Zuni interprets his culture to the white man's world,
learning and teaching songs and histories handed down for generations and in
danger of being otherwise lost. The triad comes full circle.
When Steve Marquis plead as his reason for joining MD, his conflict with me,
he was seeking an interpreter. I think I understood that intuitively then,
but I didn't have this nifty intellectual underpinning to the process in
place, that Royce has given me lately. And thus a whole new way of
analyzing patterns occurs now that I had no way of seeing then.
This led me to two realizations this week, about the old conflict.
How best to describe that conflict is in relating it to what we already know
and agree upon. Namely, that when Rigel, definitely one of "those people"
who never quite got ZAMM, asks the captain, Do you think Lila Blewitt has
Quality? And the captain says "yes", in an automatic and intuitive way. By
Royce's analysis, he acts as an interpreter between that dangerous dyadic
pair, Rigel and Lila, who have followed their static patterns to the
inevitable conflictual place that pairs always come to.
This is one realization I made just this week, that takes the sting out of a
similar question about my Quality that arose, where Steve said I didn't have
any. More specifically, he stated the reason that he didn't care to
socialize with me as much as I wanted to socialize with him, was because I
was a low-Quality person.
That really stung. I mean if Steve had been just a Rigel, who really didn't
understand the MoQ, it'd be easy to diss his dismissal of moi.
. But Steve and I had been friends for more than thirty years, and the last
twenty of those years much centered upon RMP's writings and the question of
Quality in general. His was certainly and informed opinion.
If anybody's was.
It took me quite aback when he levied it at me with such force and
certainty. Like he had authoritative backup for the assertion. Something
that seemed to him, empirically verifiable.
It made me really mad.
For one thing, I thought that of all people, Steve ought to have a higher
opinion of me than would be met by a quick judgement of outward appearance.
He was pointing to my outward appearance as the obviation of my "romantic
quality". That is, in the world of surface appearances, I'm the beer can
shim in the handlebars of life.
We both knew that. But what changed suddenly, was his viewing of my
classical aspect. My intellectual Quality. There we had a sudden and
vicious conflict that I never suspected or saw coming. It was only this
week in re-thinking these old issues, that I realized an assumption I'd been
making that was completely unwarranted on my part. And in retrospect, was a
very foolish assumption as well.
I figured Steve had ample empirical evidence for my intellectual Quality,
even if I was a social zero. After all, he'd known me since I was 14 years
old. Longer than any other person in my life except for my family of
brother, cousins and parents. And closer than them because they'd live all
over and in various separations, but Steve and I were always close.
Close in proximity, but not emotionally. Steve was always part of my life,
but we were never really close. I don't even know his birthdate, or what
time of year it comes. Asking favors of Steve is always extremely awkward,
because he hates so much to be imposed upon that I feel bad in asking just
in seeing his face fall.
I used to visit him about four times a year when he lived in Sacramento with
his cat, working for McClellan on the F-111. I think I was, if not his only
visitor, I was his most regular. He had a great collection of Sci Fi books,
a genre we both loved. In hardcover and alphabetized on his shelves. I'd
loved to have borrowed them and read them, but I remember the pain that came
over his face when I'd hinted at such, at removing from his shelves a member
of his collection, his family.
His cat just hid under the bed till I left.
When his dad died, and he moved onto the old family place on Sweetland road,
where he'd been born, with his new russian bride and new daughter, Lu and I
were about the only options socially for an extremely introverted
misanthrope and his non-english speaking wife, and thus the de facto society
that every family needs. And I'd been arguing for philosophically for
years with Steve.
I figured if nothing else, this was a pragmatic demonstration of the truth
of my assertion against rugged individualism. Oxsana came from a socialist
nation. She couldn't comprehend the non-social nature of Steve's
existence. His only surviving relatives were a 90 year old uncle and aunt.
If nothing else, Steve would be crazy to cut off my eager offerings of
social intercourse because it would make his wife very unappy. But I think
that really doesn't solve the true problem in a life-long argument with a
friend, that sometimes winning the argument means losing the friendship. It
becomes an unequal proposition when one side wins.
That's what Royce helped me to intellectualize with his ""when mutual
friction once arises between a pair of lovers or of rivals or of individuals
otherwise interestingly related.. the friction tends to increase, unless
some other relation intervenes..."
And that is why reading Steve's plea in the MD archives for intervention,
gives me a frission of new revelation.
Or as a famous person once said. "a realization is the most important thing
you will ever make.
The second revelation this week, regarding Steve's misunderstanding of me,
even though he knew me, he didn't really know me. Needs much, much more
explanation.
Almost enough for me to stop and say, "hey. Why burdeneth thou the MD, when
the MD never offered to cure your personal problems guy.?"
Because that is also part of the story. I did ask the MD for help. I did
then, and I do now. Even as Steve begs for an interpreter. He wanted to
know, "Is not the static reliance upon DQ itself a trap?" He was talking
about me. He was asking a legitimate question to which judgement is still
pending.
We could defer it to another day. But I"m feeling like addressing it now.
Due to that second realization and all.
The second realization, that Steve didn't know me as well as he thought he
did centers around a couple of small pieces of experience I had that I never
really described or explained to anybody in the whole world, except for Lu.
And even she doesn't quite get the entire context, in many ways. She was
never a student of George Sessions, for one thing.
George was one strong influence that Steve and I had in common. He mentions
him in his posting to MD as, one of those "some teachers should be
cloned". Steve went through Sierra College ahead of me and when I wasn't
much part of his life at the time because I was down south framing houses in
Visalia, newly married to my high school sweet heart and only girlfriend so
far. But later, I moved back up to Grass Valley and went to Sierra in
Rocklin myself. And took Logic from Sessions.
I've mentioned George before on this list. He co authored the book on Deep
Ecology. His master thesis was a refutation of the environmental movement
as anthropocentric. He was also a good friend of Gary Snyder, naturally,
living up the hill from Sierra. George had a big influence on a lot of
people. Some couldn't stand him, but those who "got him" loved him with a
big and unforgettable love.
If I need say anymore to commend him to this group, let me just say that it
was George who introduced Steve and me both to ZAMM and the philosophy of
RMP. This was in pre-Lila days, so I never found out what Sessions would
have made of the MoQ. He was a Spinozaist himself. Pantheist, if anything.
But make no doubt: a teacher of Quality.
And he really liked me.
But I didn't really know how to explain this to Steve. I felt it was an
important point in my defense, if my intellect was being attacked, that this
one teacher we both respected, respected me. Part of the problem is that
I'm sort of weird in those situations where I get a lot of (what I feel is)
undeserved affirmation. With Sessions, it happened twice.
Besides Logic, he taught a very interesting course called "Rationality,
Mysticism and the Environment." At the beginning of the course he'd explain
that most of the people in the class would quickly drop out, because this
was a very intensive course, with a lot of reading and a virtually
graduate-level intensity required. He recommended to me the course because
he'd enjoyed my participation in his logic class, and thought I'd benefit
from it.
He was right. I went into that course as an agnostic future attorney, and
came out a carpenter deep ecologist, so you could definitely say it changed
my life.
There we other people in the class who were also bright and knowledgeable.
More so than me. I came pretty much with a beginner's mind, a
fundamentalist background and a very conservative republican,
anti-environmentalist dad. But one thing that stopped me short, was a
little speech George gave one day about the relative intellectual merits of
individuals as a causative in society and told the class that as far as he
was concerned, John was probably smarter than himself in these matters.
It got quiet and my face burned and I didn't know what to say. I mean, what
would you say? Splutter and object? I couldn't. There was a certain sense
in what he was saying that I knew was true. I didn't know how to explain
it, but ideas had been pouring through me and into me and out of me that I
couldn't glibly dismiss.
But I couldn't really stand up and crow either because it seemed weird even
to me. And besides, who was George comparing me too? Not exactly the creme
de la creme of the intellectual crop. I was in jr college fer chrissake.
But still. It weighed with me when Steve and I had philosophical
discussion. Sure, I ain't a genius. But I ain't chopped liver neither.
I even tested George's opinion of me somewhat. After my divorce, I went
back to Sierra, and got involved along a whole new lilne of social
development. That was when I met Bill, grandson of Neal, and the
InterVarsity episode which landed me Lu. But I dipped my toes in the
philosophical waters again. Those days I was mainly involved with college
for the free showers in the gym and the library open till 10:00. I was
living in the back of my truck, beside a stream and about as close to
homeless as a guy can get. I took Intro to Philosophy just to see if George
remembered me and on the first day of class, talking about the potential for
Philsophy to change the world he pointed at me as one of the most brilliant
minds he'd encountered.
Naturally I dropped the class and never talked to George again.
I mean, who could possibly live up to that kind of billing and expectation?
My brain seized and my heart pounded and I got out of there as fast as I
could.
But years later when my friend Steve is accusing me of low-Quality, I'm
thinking back to that experience... And I get all huffy to myself thinking I
shouldn't have to remind Steve of this.
But just this week, I realize... wait a minute. Did I ever tell him that
story? I don't think I did. On one hand, how embarrassing, on the other,
what a cool guy I am to not go all braggin' on myself like some people do.
Fools will want unwarranted status,
Deference from fellow monks,
Authority in the monasteries,
And homage from good families.
"Let both householders and renunciants
Believe that I did this.
Let them obey me in eerie task!"
Such are the thoughts of a fool
Who cultivates desire and pride.
The way to material gain is one thing,
The path to Nirvana another.
Knowing this, a monk who is the Buddha's disciple
Should not delight in being venerated,
But cultivate solitude instead.
The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations
by Gil Fronsdal as recently posted by Marsha the beloved.
Part of this revelation of mine involved an even earlier frustration with
Steve, when my first wife Deanna and he had conversed about me, and my
character, and they both concurred that I thought I was smarter than others,
which was annoying to them both. She told me this later in a way of rubbing
my nose int he poor opinion of myself in the eyes of my friends.
It hurt, at the time. I admit. And part of that same old hurt was an idea
in my mind that "why doesn't Steve understand that my opinion of my own
intellect isn't completely unfounded? That there's some evidence for this?"
But along with my realization of his ignorance of George's opinion of me
this week, I also realized I'd made a hugely unwarranted assumption that
time as well. This involving our common boarding school experience.
Steve was a couple of years ahead of me. A Junior my Freshman year, and
Senior and friend to me my Sophmore. A visitor and rescuer from doldrums in
my jr and sr. years, coming to visit in his dodge 440 charger with the
quadrophonic 8 track blasting black sabbath.
I was at that school mainly because of a friendship with a guy who was the
star of the place - Johnny Eggers. His mom was the school registrar, his
dad the jobs coordinater and construction teacher I worked for. I'd known
Johnny when we both went to VHM in Santa Cruz, an SDA parochial school,
grades 1-10 where we'd been in eighth grade together and became good
friends, even though he was perfect in every way and I was not.
He's a Dr, today, btw. Predicatably. He got nothing but A's his whole life
except for a C in English by a teacher who was notorious for giving nothing
but. Really pissed him off.
Everybody in the whole school and world knew that Johnny Eggers was smart.
Our school had this ceremony where he was up in front of the school, getting
an award for getting the highest scores on his college boards, but
unbeknownst to any, I'd actually scored higher.
His mom explained it to me, since I'd qualified for a National Merit
Scholarship, she'd assumed I'd fill out the necessary paperwork and send it
in and I'd get the scholarship and they'd have a ceremony then.
She assumed wrongly. But in a way it was embarrassing for her. It appeared
to an objective observer that she'd slighted the one who beat her son in the
great game of intellectual measurement.
Furthurmore, in a visit to her in the year following my graduation, she
assured me that I'd gotten the highest SAT's in her ten years of being the
school registrar. Steve was included in her reign, so being of the extremely
intelligent person I am, I was able to reason that I'd beat his objective
intellectual measurement so his disparagement of my intellect was completely
unfounded.
I didn't say this, at the time. Or ever, for that matter. Till now, that
is. But it wrankled a bit.
Till this week when I realized Steve didn't know that stuff. Even though
we'd been friends a long time, most of our relationship had centered around
him, and his problems, his issues. I knew him pretty well. He didn't know
me at all.
I needed an interpreter.
Steve needed an interpreter.
We both looked to MD.
He got his answer then. He really respected the thinking on this forum.
The high quality intellection impressed his socially-starved soul. He said
he could barely keep up with the intellectual quality he found on this
list. Why he understood, that Robert Pirsig HIMSELF sometimes communicated
with members of this list, affirming what they thought.
So therefore, in a conflictual situation like he had, it was natural to
appeal to authority. It would be natural to pay attention to the designated
authority had to say about his problems.
I wonder what that was? I wonder what response he got?
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