Tim to Andre:
a few pages from the end of 'Lila': "All this twentieth century sanity
wasn't as interesting as the old days of his incarceration but he was
getting a lot more accomplished, at the social level at least." It is
the 'social' that brings the 'staying power', right?
Andre:
No Tim, I think it is experience that maintains the 'staying power'.
Tim:
I think maybe it helps to keep other people's concepts out of DQ, but as
you live, I think you NEED certain concepts to make it into the utter
present somehow.
Andre:
I have no idea what you mean by this Tim. you need concepts to make it into the
utter present... somehow? You are making things very complicated. You sound
like a person with a sense of the absolute as its guide and desperately want to
make the concepts fit somehow...the present. This is getting very messy and one
of the reasons why William James was furiously against Hegel, Royce and all the
Absolutists.
Tim:
my pages don't line up, but I remember him talking about the government and how
the solution wouldn't be some big govt. program...
Andre:
Yeah, just above the quote I gave ye. The narrator in ZMM sees the 'solution'
not in Govt. programs because that kind of approach starts at the end and
presumes the end is the beginning. Social values 'become' right only if
individual values are right. 'Programs of a political nature are important END
PRODUCTS of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying
structure of social values is right'. (ZMM,p291)
Tim:
That is, the point is still to get back out: one, in submission to the
mystic/dynamic reality in the utter present, and two, to ahve something
intelligent to say to the lower, social pattern.
Andre:
Again you keep on confusing me.'...submission to the mystic...'? You mean
direct experience? and then to have something 'intelligent to say...'?
How about reading about Phaedrus' surrender to Quality(mystic)(all of ZMM) and presenting us with the MOQ?(all of LILA)...something intelligent to say... .
Tim:
Do we agree that Pirsig would have hoped that others would find higher Quality
from his efforts?
Andre:
Well, yes and no! As Pirsig suggests (in response to the question of
recommending to someone to read ZMM): 'There is a possibility it will make you
a better person. If the next question is:'What do you mean by better?' The
answer should be. 'You'll have to read ZMM and LILA to find out'. ( LC, Annot:
105)
Tim:
I shouldn't ignore this, but ... let me just say that 'trapping' is
probably a lighter word to me than to you, like thinking of the MoQ and
religion together. This might help: sometimes when I try to think of
what 'I' am, I think I am 'trapped'. So it isn't that trap is
inherently bad or anything, just that some traps are more confining than
others.
Andre:
Well Tim, this does sound a wanky to me but I think I know what you are driving
yourself nuts with, because I think you got the things backwards:'This
self-appointed little editor of reality is just an impossible fiction that
collapses the moment one examines it. This Cartesian 'Me' is a soft-ware
reality, not a hardware reality'. (LILA, p204)
'The word 'I' like the word 'self' is one of the trickiest words in any
metaphysics... . The MOQ says it is a collection of static patterns capable of
apprehending Dynamic Quality..if you identify the 'I' with the intellect and
nothing else (as Platt does) you are taking an unusual position that may need
some defending'. (LC, Annot:130)
'The MOQ, as I understand it, denies any existence of a 'self' that is
independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns. There is
no 'self' that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the self''(LC,
Annotn:29)
Needles to say Platt (as well as Ham, Mary, Jane, and some otherws here on and
off contributing), in his defence, uses SOM constructions to justify his
convictions which is all good and well, but it is reflecting the
integration,identification and subordination to social patterns of value. I am
becoming more and more convinced that SOM, by virtue of the MOQ, is being
relegated to becoming part of the mythos, the social level realm.
Getting back to you feeling trapped when thinking of 'I' this should be a
Quality response by Mr. Pirsig. You, who are capable of apprehending DQ. You
are not condemned to what SOM has led you believe you are...it is loads of
hypnosis and social conditioning...the (personal) Phaedrus references are there
in both ZMM and LILA.
Barry Gibb sang 'Be who You Are'. The first Zen patriarch in China, when asked
by the emperor who the bloody hell he thought he was, answered 'I do not know'.
I am sure, after reading his blog sometimes, Barry will love this answer.
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