dmb says:
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".
Andre:
Agree dmb (as usual). The only time when 'love' is discussed (as far as I can
make out) is at the breakfast table with Rigel and Phaedrus and Bill after the
night in the bar. The 'act of love' (biological quality) is muddled with who
really did who in (LILA,p 78) and overlaid with social qualities such as honor
and respect (which the 'act of love' supposedly destroyed).
And this is only the beginning when Phaedrus simply asked Rigel to become a bit
more specific about the 'act of love' perpetrated by Lila with this bank
employee.
It is a hot/cold potato and to suggest that the omission of the idea of love
detracts from Pirsig's work because he does not use it as a central theme seems
a bit misguided to me.
The word "love" as is the word "God" is too conventionally, statically embedded.
("_Forget_ God".Rigel says in half frustration because he knows that Phaedrus will explore the use
and meaning of that one as well).(ibid, p80)
It seems perhaps more useful to suggest that Pirsig, in the MOQ, places the idea of love
in a greater, more expanded context, namely the Buddhist term "compassion". Now
Pirsig does not explicitly mention Buddhist compassion (karuna) in ZMM or LILA, as
Anthony notes in his PhD (p163), but to not 'recognize it' between the lines is to miss
the aim of the koan (or, in a different context, of poetry I suppose).
"Compassion is defined by Rahula (1959, p 46) as representing universal...
'love, charity, kindness, tolerance, and such noble qualities an the emotional side'
qualified by the following advice:
If one develops only the emotional neglecting the intellectual, one may become
a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intellectual side neglecting the
emotional may turn one into a hard-hearted intellect without feeling for
others. Therefore, to be perfect one has to develop both equally. That is the
aim of the Buddhist way of life: in it wisdom and compassion are inseparably
linked together.
"In the context of compassion, Pirsig (2002e) states: 'No I have never thought
about it until now' though he does make the following three points:
(1)The MOQ seems to classify compassion as a pattern of social cohesion driven
by strong biological emotions. When these two are combined with intellectual
patterns of quality the result is a strong force for the good, as in the
abolition of slavery. When compassion opposes intellectual quality, however the
result can be foolishness or even evil.
(2) Genuine compassion and talk about compassion often have different purposes.
When compassion is talked up intellectually there sometimes emerges a certain
aroma of unction and piousness that makes me suspicious. Some preachers use
compassion the way Uriah Heep...uses humility, i.e. to advance themselves.
(3) The narrative of ZMM is dominated by the compassion of the narrator for his
son even though he doesn't talk about it as such, and when Phaedrus says Lila
has quality he is speaking compassionately and is held in contempt for this by
Rigel... . Rigel is arguing that Phaedrus' compassion for Lila is damned
foolishness. Phaedrus struggles in subsequent chapters to show that it is
intellectually sound'. (ibid)
Pirsig argued that a metaphysics that does not make the world a better place to
live in useless. The MOQ is designed to improve the world a little bit. Through
the heart, head and hands.
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