MoQualitives,
AN ATTEMPT TO STAND THE MORAL COMPASS ON IT'S HEAD.
I heard a program on the radio featuring modern day Indians living in the Columbia
River Basin in
Oregon concerning their involvement in various ecological movements. One of them spoke
of the
relation between their creation myth and the "green" initiatives. He said the highest
wisdom was
based on evolutionary age. Those who are younger must revere and look to the wisdom
of their elders.
In general, the stars are are the older and wiser followed by such things as water,
rocks,
mountains, trees, salmon, coyotes, buffalo and then finally last on the list is man,
who is the
youngest and least wise.
It struck me that although Pirsig started the MoQ quest in an effort to reconcile or
integrate the
Indian way with the Eurocentric one in the end his hierarchy seems to more closely
follow the latter.
Instead of the oldest levels being the wisest, the most revered, the newest, human
intellect is
said to reign supreme.
In my 11/30 post on the MoQ's moral absolutes I proposed that everything prior to the
experienced
event would have to be accepted as given and everything after was subject to
individual choice, or
relative. Hearing no objections, I will continue.
In the realm of morals, the patterns that form after the events, where choice rules,
are what is
critical to this discussion. In this realm there are also moral choices that approach
absolute. In
the "thou shalt not" form the most basic is " Thou shalt not kill the natural, carbon
based,
recycling system that maintains the precise balance of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and
other gases
without which in a matter of hours all living things on this planet die"
Now it is within the choice of humans to disregard this, but the penalty is that we
recycle to from
a four level existence to one, inorganic chemicals. I could continue on like this
both internal to
each level and level to level but I think you understand the point. There are moral
choices, like
this one, that approach absolute. For man, all these "near absolute" choices migrate
from the
lowest level up through all levels until they arrive at the intellectual level for
mediation and
eventual choice.
So while it may be moral for the intellect to dominant this is so if, and only if, it
has fully and
wisely consider all the "near absolutes" passed along from the lower levels. So
while, in
general, it is wrong to kill an idea, if that idea, or action, or policy could
reasonably be
expected to destroy the air that we breath (or countless other "near absolute
"patterns on other
levels) then it is reasonable, and moral, to do whatever is necessary to destroy
that idea,
action, or policy.
Walter captures the essence ;
> that morality only works BOTTOM UP!
Mary's 12/5 post further illuminates the real "bottom up" nature of the MoQ's moral
hierarchy. In
this light the discussions about late term abortions and Clinton's escapades approach
the morally
trivial. Wendell Berry writes in his Recollected Essays:
"We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the
world. We have been
wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary
assumption that
what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the
effort to know
the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its
processes, and to
yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the
creation is
full of mystery: we will never clearly understand it."
So IMHO, if the MoQ is a moral compass it's pointing South, not North. The question
is will mankind
have the moral fortitude to go this direction?
dlt
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