Matt said:
...And, additionally, the reason why Pirsig avoided extensive reflection on
care, and particularly about love, might be a reaction-formation to the
hippies. Even as Pirsig wrote, he sensed something a little off about the
hippie movement, something to beware rhetorically of, and by the 90s it became
obvious that if he wanted to bridge-build at the cultural level between
conservatives and liberals, it would be with the word 'value' (which
conservatives seem to have co-opted and think liberals had abdicated) and not
'love,' which conservatives still were reacting to in the hippie context. To
formulate philosophical propositions with 'love' at the center would move too
close to the 'soup of sentiments' that he wanted to avoid." Taking things into
account explicitly, being self-conscious, seems to be central to philosophical
articulation.
dmb says:
Right, questions about particular word usages have to take in considerations
like the context in which he is writing and the purposes for which he is
writing. Words like "love" are overloaded and highly charged in our world. The
"free love" of the hippies refers to sexual freedom. And yet the religious
right use "love" to mean anything but that. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Jesus
loves you. I love New York. I heart the Huckabees too. Love is the answer. All
you need is love. Can't buy me love. What world needs now is love, sweet love.
It's the only thing there's just too little of. "I'm lovin' it!" is one of the
latest slogans for McDonalds. Given this cultural context and Pirsig's purposes
in writing, do we really need to wonder why he would choose not to rest very
much on that word? I don't think so. Given the context and his purposes, it
would be very bad taste to use "love".
Plato had a moral hierarchy based on different kinds of love, the love of
pleasure, the love of honor and philosophy, as we all know, means love of
wisdom. This maps onto the MOQ's biological, social and intellectual levels
pretty neatly, although Pirsig talks about them in terms of levels of value or
static quality instead of love. If Quality is what you like, liking is positive
regard and love is unconditional positive regard, then it's not exactly wrong
or crazy to think that Quality is what you love. But you can't talk like that
and still be taken seriously. Again, it would be a bad artistic choice, bad
taste, aesthetically bad. And for Pirsig, those are certainly among the factors
that make up intellectual quality (along with clarity, elegance, agreement with
experience, explanatory power, etc.).
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