Hi All, Herein presented is a conceptual similarity between "upaya" and "rhetoric". Much of what follows is preaching to the faithful. I am referring to Upaya as presented by Mahajana Buddhism, and Rhetoric as presented by Pirsig in ZMM. I will let you look the hindu word up, but briefly, upaya encompasses methods for conveying awareness, often in terms of enlightenment. As such, it can reside in both words and actions used by one individual in the training of another. While rhetoric typically relates to the use of words, there is no doubt that the manner in which such words are spoken is also part of rhetoric. Both practices also require demonstration through personal actions and not dictation using some overiding Truth.
The way I relate Upaya to Rhetoric is in terms of their purposes. Both are presentations of attitude (or Intention), rather than truths. One must not confuse Pirsig's use of Rhetoric for that form of speech used by lawyers or politicians. There is a big difference between a sign pointing to a McDonald's and a sign pointing to a watering hole in the desert (or a sign for the next rest stop on a freeway) and both could be seen as rhetoric. However the Rhetoric as Pirsig presents it is the presentation of the Good. Those pronouncing on the Good were Sophists, and as Pirsig states: "They were teachers, but what they sought to teach was not principles, but beliefs of men. Their object was not any single absolute truth, but the improvement of men." (ZMM Chapter 29). Upaya is often evaluated in terms of the results justifying the means. That is, one can mislead the student to bring about his enlightenment. In fact, Buddha is said to have done this by presenting concepts directly polar to the concepts held by the student. However, if the intent is to alert the student of a doorway he/she can walk through, then such deception is short lived since no dogma goes with the student once he/she is through the door. In today's world such "trickster" methodology is considered somewhat negatively, especially when personal gain is the motivation. However, in a more ideal conception of Rhetoric, the Sophists were more interested in presenting the Good than in gaining the goods. Therefore such Rhetoric was the presentation of personal awareness and not a dogmatic Truth. The strength of conveyance of such awareness required convincing arguments. Within the Rhetoric of ZMM, Rhetoric was a presentation of The Good (Quality), and such presentation went by the guidelines of "Virtue". The new school of Greek thought, starting with Plato (since Socrates did not write anything) proclaimed on the existence of something outside the measure of man, that being Truth. There was a paradigm shift in which there was personal interest in promoting the concept of Truth as the "ultimate" reality. According to Plato the Truth could be arrived at through dialectic and represented a entity existing above all else. As Pirsig puts it: "Therefore there is a battle between Rhetoric and Dialectic, or, Good (Quality) and Truth." (ZMM Chapter 29). The fundamental difference here is that Rhetoric arises from the individual, whereas Dialectic subjugates the individual through the promotion of some unyeilding deterministic power. It is the difference between shining like the sun (Rhetoric) and reflecting like the Moon (Dialectic). As the story of ZMM goes, Quality exists not within the objective arena, but within the personal arena; such an arena is devoid of the objectivication of subjects into objects. There is some discussion of the term Arete as it relates to Quality, which is the drive towards excellence, again reflecting a personal responsibility to oneself. Such responsibility is expressed through Rhetoric. However, as the conceptual framework of ideas became stronger and were taught dogmatically with a set of rules, there was a shift in perception from ones personal relationship to the world to one's duty to the world. The subjective Self becomes the objective self, and the value of such objectified Self is determined through objective means or Dialectic. The consequences according to Pirsig was the elevation of an impersonal Truth to the highest level encompassing Quality. While he does state that our current technology through science was a result of this shift, he also states that much was lost in the process. Instead of Quality through rhetoric, we have Truth through analysis. This, in my opinion, can also be seen as a shift from an attitude of personal expression to one of governed expression. For, while one can pronounce the Good, one must uncover the Truth. Such a metaphorical shift may explain the modern Western view that everything real must be measurable through empirical methods and that much of the universe exists in a deterministic fashion. Indeed using the notion of an extreme submission to the subject/object dichotomy Pirsig relates to the reader that Aristotle was the prime suspect in the eradication of a "Quality approach" in the West. This was done by categorizing and sub-categorizing everything; this could also be seen as objectifying reality into objects, where the objects have quality rather than Quality producing objects. In this way, man is distinct from his environment in a subject/object view gone extreme. Plato is described as the instigator of such Universal Truth, and sought to engulf Sophist ideals within its reality. While this may be an oversimplification of historical events, the rhetoric provided by Pirsig does allow one to appreciate Quality. Pirsig chose to describe Quality in these passages within ZMM, as that which encompasses Truth. Truth is born from Quality, and can be considered a static apparition of Quality. Such a statement cannot be taken as Truth, but as a rhetorical expression of the Good. 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
