This was originally sent to the Lila Squad and rejected. Diana suggested I send it here instead.
Hello Squad Roger posed two questions. Q. Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? A. No. Q. Were the 4 levels of MoQ discovered or created? A. Created. I feel compelled to say that I still find more Dialectic than Rhetoric in the Lila Squad. Most of the posters seem possessed more by the spirit of Aristotle than by the spirit of the Sophists, despite their alleged devotion to Pirsig's Quality (which is the Arete of the Sophists). Pirsig's most important message is that Quality can NOT be defined, it is simply beyond the grasp of man's mind, and he's right. Stop attacking this message with your Dialectic swords, you Aristotle-possessed people (and you are all possessed by Aristotle whether you know it or not). Your Dialectic swords will do you no good, for Quality is impenetrable. You cannot cut Quality up into bloody, namable chunks (T-bone, rib-eye, boston butt) and then sell it as intellectual steaks in the modern intellectual meat markets we call universities. Maybe you butchers/professors/intellectuals can fool a few people into buying your "choice cuts" but the few true Sophists of the world know all you are selling is a primitive form of communication known as language. I know we are stuck with the spoken and written word for now, but while we are we should strive for excellence in its highest incarnation, Rhetoric, not its lowest, the vile Dialectic. Dialectic people remind me of attorneys, trying to build their case with every trick in the book. Dialectic people are always trying to tear down everything in the name of their holy "Truth" and they have thrown "Good" in the back seat. Good belongs in the driver's seat, not the back seat. Good over Truth. It's a major point of ZMM that seems shockingly *ignored* in both LS and MD. Perhaps because most people are content being possessed by the spirit of Aristotle. Truth is God to these people. Good should be God. I've pointed this out before, but isn't it funny how suggesting to an intellectual that Truth is not supreme gets the same kind of affronted, knee-jerk reaction that you get when you suggest to a Christian that God is not supreme. Too many people here at Lila Squad whip out their Dialectic swords every chance they get, to chop things up into namable, Aristotelian chunks. Therefore most of the posts are not that enjoyable to read. I see too many Aristotelian laundry lists. If we started honing our Rhetoric rather than our Dialectic, maybe things will change. I appreciate that some of the posters try to imbue their posts with a bit of humor, but the attempts at humor often come across as fake to me (much like the fake, false stuff that drove Phaedrus crazy near the end of chapter 30 of ZMM), almost like an attempt to cover up the banality at the core of most of these posts, the kind of banality you find in tech manuals, those tedious books that give a name to everything and tell you how to put everything together (this goes there and that goes there). Pirsig talks about tech manuals in ZMM. Throw down your Dialectic swords and hone your Rhetoric. It will greatly improve the enjoyability of reading these posts, and may encourage more people to join in and start posting, lurkers out there who might be hesitant to post a message because they fear your Dialectic swords. Those kids in the "back of the class" that Pirsig liked best, but who always got the worst grade because something inside of them rebelled against giving a name to everything, rebelled against the spirit of Aristotle. These kids in the back of the class may not be able to give a name to everything, but they may have extremely valuable insights to contribute nevertheless. Don't scare them away, and don't bore them to death with all these banal tech manual posts. The true Sophists of the world IMO can subliminally sense the spirit of Aristotle, and they stray from areas where his spirit dominates. These two question from Roger were fine, but look what happened. Before even attempting to answer, many of you posters had to attack the *questions* first with your Dialectic swords. You had to chop the questions up into chunks before you answered, and most of the answers were vague ambiguities floating in a sea of limbo. There were very few clear "Yes" or "No" answers. There were too many "Both" answers, too many "All of the Above" answers. Answers that aren't even answers. Magnus did the best job IMO. Can't someone answer a question around here without all the tedious word games and word traps and tech manual jargon, without tacking on the needless and humorless "I could be wrong." Of course you could be wrong, we are all wrong eventually, truth is relative. We know this. I'm certainly not saying I'm doing a better job than anyone else, I'm just pointing out that I feel there are some deep problems within Lila Squad that no one else seems to notice, or doesn't have the guts to *stand* up and say so. I'd like to see the Squad grow, but change must take place in order for this to happen. I hope you will accept this message in love, each and every one of you.
