Hi philosophers:
As several years of discussion on this site have amply demonstrated,
Pirsig�s Metaphysics of Quality can be interpreted in many ways. Certain
ideas, however, seem uncontestable, such as the assumption that Dynamic
events create static patterns. Pirsig�s question of whether Lila has quality is
answered by assessing her static patterns. Intellectually she�s nowhere. But
physically�wow!
Pirsig�s idea that each of us made up of value patterns at several levels of our
being is novel, to say the least. But one can legitimately say, �So what?�
unless we can find a way to apply the MoQ to improving the quality of our
own lives.
Pirsig is careful NOT to offer a prescription for living the good life, not only
because it would make him a preacher (a role he abhors) but because his
philosophy precludes interference with Dynamic Quality (freedom being the
highest value.)
Still, philosophy, especially a philosophy which claims to be about morals,
should IMHO show the direction a �good life� should take. Many on this site
have extolled �serving humanity� as the highest virtue. Others have held the
intellectual life to be the most moral, and some have chosen the arts as the
ultimate pursuit.
In the hierarchy of patterns that Pirsig presents in the MoQ, the intellectual
life appears to be the most noble. But Pirsig adds many caveats, especially
when it comes to scientific intellect with its emphasis on subjects and
objects.
In short, at the end of �Lila� we are still left with the question, �Within the
MoQ framework, what constitutes �a good life?� Pirsig is fond of the
American Indian�s morality and worldview, but would probably admit it�s not
very high up on the intellectual scale that modern life demands.
So where does that leave us?
Recently I ran across the following passage from Somerset Maugham�s �Of
Human Bondage� which struck me (in one of those DQ moments) as
providing an answer to this question:
�As the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end but the pleasure of his
aesthetic sense, so might a man live his life, or if one was forced to believe
that his actions were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life,
that it made a pattern. There was as little need to do this as there was use.
It was merely something he did for his own pleasure. Out of the manifold
events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a
design, regular, elaborate, complicated, or beautiful; and though it might be
no more than an illusion that he had the power of selection, though it might
be no more than a fantastic legerdemain in which appearances were
interwoven with moonbeams, that did not matter: it seemed, and so to him it
was.
�In the vast warp of life, (a river arising from no spring and flowing endlessly to
no sea,) with the background to his fancies that there was no meaning and
that nothing was important, a man might get a personal satisfaction in
selecting the various strands that worked out the pattern. There was one
pattern, the most obvious, perfect, and beautiful, in which a man was born,
grew to manhood, married, produced children, toiled for his bread, and died;
but there were others, intricate and wonderful, in which happiness did not
enter and in which success was not attempted; and in them might be
discovered a more troubling grace.
�Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for happiness he was casting
aside the last of his illusions. His life had seemed horrible when it was
measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he
realized that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered
as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his
life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to
stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not
affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now
would be one more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when
the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of
art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its
existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be. Philip was
happy.�
The idea of trying to make a beautiful pattern with one�s life--with every
decision, every movement, indeed, with every word--seems impossible on its
face and Pollyannish in concept. Yet, if Pirsig were to lay down a
prescription for leading a life of Quality, I think it would be along these lines.
The determining factor in assessing the value of one�s life would be the
beauty of the marks one makes.
Platt
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