Happy Independence Day Steve! about 3 weeks late... On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 6:58 PM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>wrote:
> > > > Steve: > To my knowledge Pirsig never talks about responsibility, but he does > talk about freedom. In fact in his preface to ZAMM he describes > freedom as merely a negative and therefore a lousy goal, and he > describes ZAMM itself as offering a positive alternative to freedom > that can serve as a positive goal, namely Quality. > > Pirsig: > The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling > it “freedom,” but in the final analysis “freedom” is a purely negative > goal. > John: "Freedom's just another word, for nuthin left to lose" Some hippie chick sang that and I've always admired the thought. I think Bob might have gone a little overboard on his rhetoric on his quote. "the final analysis" hadn't actually been made yet. He shoulda said, his latest analysis. 'twould have been the truer statement. But I think Lila clears some of this up because if you equate intellectual and social freedom with DQ, you see it's a lot more than a merely negative goal. And even though the hippies didn't articulate it all that well (how could they? bein' as stoned as they were?) I think they were on to something our chemistry professor might have missed. When you're stuck in a stultifyingly static social system, breaking out of that system is the highest good imaginable from within that system. when you are in prison, Freedom is the only Quality you can imagine. And it's as positive as it gets. Pirsig: > It just says something is bad. Hippies weren’t really offering > any alternatives other than colorful short-term ones, and some of > these were looking more and more like pure degeneracy. Degeneracy can > be fun but it’s hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation. > > John: Well, if you can't make fun a serious lifetime occupation, what do you recommend? My old friend Steve used to work on the F-111. I think karma-wise, the world would be better off with fun-loving hippies. > Steve: > You see? The freedom you think I am undermining is something that > Pirsig thinks is a negative rather than THEE foundation for moral > responsibility, and he even hangs his hat on having offered us a > positive alternative for freedom. > > And like I said, I think Lila's introduction of "DQ" ties it all together nicely. In the final analysis... well, my latest final analysis. 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/md/archives.html
