Hi All
IAN:
<some snipped>
If we really only have three-score years and ten who
the hell wants to spend that much of it greasy, sweaty and pissing
everyone around them off?
JON:
I'm unclear what you mean by this. Nobody really wants to spend their life
greasy, sweaty, and pissing everyone around them off. But look at history.
Certain people at certain times have felt morally compelled to go through
life unpleasantly in order to put a stop to some immoral aspect of their
society. The usual examples: Jesus, Martin Luther King, etc. If the Nazi's
had conquered the world, would it be right for the average citizen to ignore
the abundant immorality, to keep from getting sweaty or pissing anybody off?
And what if slavery was still legal in America (and not only legal, but
considered acceptable by the majority of the populace)? Should the person in
this hypothetical society just be good and not risk a lifetime of pissing
people off?
Everything is sacred. Morality has everything. That does NOT mean everything
has equal value, or zero value. Of course, we must consider certain aspects
of life more important than others. That's common sense. Depends on who you
are and where you are. But no matter who you are, or where you are, Morality
has you, and it has where.
The current definitions of Morality are limiting for the simple reason Pirsig
tells us: it's the same thing as Quality, and it can't be defined. If you
disagree with that, you disagree with the entire MOQ.
Morality is just a word, but we have an important intuitive sense of what it
means beyond the word. Just like we all had an intuitive sense of gravity
before anybody ever called it gravity. We knew things fell to the ground. To
this day, science still doesn't have gravity totally figured out. Same with
Morality. Only it is more complex than gravity. Our intuitive sense of it is
the most important thing.
Jon
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