Arlo said to Marsha:
.., intellect exists to free people from social chains. A MOQ recognizes the
necessity of maintaining a foundation, however, and not dismantling the stable
patterns of value that support the emerging agency made possible by structure.
...But if you think the mouse or amoeba is somehow 'freer' than you, less
imprisoned, or otherwise unencumbered by chains, then by all means, Marsha, I
fully encourage you to abandon all patterns.
dmb says:
Well, I suppose it's futile to try to talk sense with a person with thinks
static patterns of quality are both ever-changing AND a kind of prison. It's a
cage made of clouds, apparently. It's like trying to discuss water with someone
who thinks ice is hot and steamy. Even Sarah Palin would blush at this level of
incoherence.
In the MOQ, static patterns are not a prison. They are the world as we know it,
arranged in an evolutionary moral hierarchy. They are static patterns of VALUE,
of QUALITY.
Marsha had said:I not only agree with Mark that language is a kind of prison,
but I also think patterns are a kind of prison."To the extent that one's
behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But
to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's
behavior is free." [LILA}
dmb says:
Yea, but in the very next line, Pirsig says, "The MOQ has much much more to say
about ethics, however, than simple resolution of the Free Will vs. Determinism
controversy. The MOQ says ..VALUE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL GROUND STUFF OF THE
WORLD..." (LILA 156)
He is saying "that not just life, but EVERYTHING, IS AN ETHICAL ACTIVITY" (LILA
157) "What the evolutionary structure of the MOQ shows is that there is not
just one moral system. There are many." (LILA 158) "But in the MOQ all these
sets of morals, plus another Dynamic morality, are not only real, they are the
whole thing." (LILA 159) "A human being is a collection of ideas, and these
ideas take moral precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value. They
are at a higher level of evolution than social patterns of value." (LILA 160)
"...: societies and thoughts and principles themselves are no more than sets of
static patterns. ...Does Lila have Quality? ...Evolutionary morality just
splits that whole question open like a watermelon." (LILA 161)
Pirsig goes well beyond the free will thing and wholly rejects the SOM view
that morals are "just subjective. He puts traditional morals in perspective, in
a larger context, saying that it is a relatively narrow brand of morality and
largely represents the conflict between biological values and social values.
This expanded framework is used to answer the question of Lila's Quality. It's
used to describe the MOQ's conception of the self as a complex ecology of
static patterns, the constitution of which defines the limits of one's ability
to respond to DQ. And I think you can see by the continuous page numbers that
Pirsig is continuously expanding this ethical picture to explain what he means
by saying these sets of morals are not only real, they are, along with DQ, the
whole thing.
And that's what Mark and Marsha condemn as a kind of prison? That's a rather
ghastly reversal. What could be more starkly different than the MOQ's assertion
that life and everything else is an ethical activity? Static patterns of
quality are the bars of cage? Static patterns of value are worthless? A species
of the good is a kind of evil? Yea, well I guess that goes along with saying
static patterns are ever-changing and ice is defined by its liquidity. But it's
not just that it makes a huge mess of things conceptually. It's not just
incorrect or nonsensical, like saying two plus two equals blew. It's also a
moral nightmare. In the MOQ, anti-intellectualism is a rejection of the highest
level of static quality. It is a condemnation of the most evolved set of moral
patterns. It's wrong both technically and ethically.
He finishes the chapter explaining that the whole 20th century has been a
"struggle between social and intellectual patterns". He's talking about
politics and war, religion and science, and the conventional realities right
here on earth. Many chapters are devoted to this kind of socio-political
discussions. It seems very hard to believe that Pirsig would spend all that
time developing a moral hierarchy and an ethical analysis just to condemn it
all. His root expansion of rationality was aimed at increasing the square
footage of his prison cell? Not likely.
No, this evolutionary morality is supposed to split the book's central question
open "like a watermelon". Lila does and does not have Quality. Biologically,
she does, but she's intellectually nowhere and pretty far down the scale
socially, Pirsig says. She's got the Dynamic thing going on, but in a
dangerous, unZen sort of way. Rigel is the social level prig and the the
captain is the intellectual. Rigel and the captain don't bomb each other's
cities, but we can see a personal version of the social-intellectual conflict
in their relationship, or lack thereof.
Is this not what the book is about? Lila gives us a full-blown set of ideas.
It's still built around the undefined DQ but it's also full of nuts and bolts.
It has a coherent structure and a point a purpose. It's hardly ever appropriate
to invoke "not this, not that" when we're talking metaphysics or discussing a
published text. Those things ARE intellectually knowable and they are not
supposed to be ineffable.
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