[MD] A Place for the Principled Person

[Ant McWatt]

Platt,

>Of course, this just briefly highlights the responses. Each was
>presented thoughtfully and covered ground that this brief summary
>necessarily omits. Thanks to one and all, and I hope others yet to be
>heard from will chime in. And if I've mis-characterized anyone's
>position, please rectify.

I hope you found my response useful.  However, (as Arlo implies) you have 
mis-characterized my position to some extent.  In my post I was not saying 
that “the values of a principled person are social concerns” but rather I 
was expanding on Pirsig’s point (in LILA) that the MOQ moves us from a 
single (mono) morality (i.e. the traditional social-biological code of the 
Victorians) to _five_ moral codes (i.e. four static codes: inorganic-chaos, 
biological-inorganic, social-biological, intellectual-social and a Dynamic 
code of Art.

Hence, when you ask what makes a “principled person” in the MOQ, you have to 
consider which level/s you are going to take into account.  If you take 
account of them all then the person in harmony with the Tao (a universal 
“craftsman” of areté, if you like) comes out at top.  I would guess that 
would be a person who looks after their body (i.e. biological quality), has 
impeccable manners, is thrifty etc (i.e. social quality), has intellectual 
ability and, finally, is open to new ideas/experiences (i.e. Dynamic: 
“breaking with tradition is an artist’s tradition”, 16th century Zen 
master).    Off the top of my head, some of the monks described in John 
Blofeld’s 1973 text “Taoist Mystery & Magic” probably come the closest to 
this ideal.

>Ant says the values of a principled person are "social concerns," and
>introduces something which may come as a surprise, namely, "To be moral
>in Pirsig's moral hierarchy is primarily to be an artist (of life e.g. 
>craftsmanship.)" …Pirsig cited craftsmanship as a Victorian virtue, so I'm 
>surprised Ant would chose
>that as a identifying value of a highly moral individual.

As I noted above, I’m using a very broad sense of “craftsmanship” (whether 
that’s working on a motorcycle, a fitness regime, a marriage or a PhD 
thesis).

>He then goes on to mention specific individuals who
>meet this high standard, Charlie Chaplin, da Vinci, as opposed to
>"charlatans who go around saying they are 'artists.'" Also I would
>like to know the criteria for distinguishing a legitimate artist from a 
>charlatan.)

The short personal answer: does the “artist” represent some form of the 
Godhead in their work (if using the narrow sense of artist)/life (broad 
sense of artist)?  If the answer is no, then, strictly speaking, they are a 
charlatan.  The long answer is found in my MOQ Textbook which attempts to 
answer this issue in more detail.

Finally, possibly you mis-characterized my position (as well as Case's and 
David H's) because as Steve Peterson correctly noted on July 1st:

“You are making a huge and fundamental error in thinking of the levels as 
containers for different kinds of people rather than as types of patterns of 
value. A single level doesn't contain a person when each person is thought 
of as a collection of patterns of all four types. You can look at what types 
of patterns dominate a given person, but the idea of trying to find a level 
that contains the pattern of a principled person is doomed from the start 
because that's just not what the levels are.”

Moreover, even excepting this error, it appears that (surprize, surprize!) 
it is the traditional social-biological code of the Victorians which you 
trying to shoehorn as the ultimate code for a “principled person”.  Again, 
as I was trying to explain, the morality of the principled person in the MOQ 
is rather a lot broader than the morality of the Victorian ladies found in 
Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” (see below!).

Best wishes,

Anthony

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Lady Bracknell to Jack: Lady Bloxham? I don’t know her.

Jack: Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in 
years.

Lady Bracknell: Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of 
character. What number in Belgrave Square?

Jack: 149.

Lady Bracknell: [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought there 
was something. However, that could easily be altered.

Jack: Do you mean the fashion, or the side?

Lady Bracknell: [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your 
politics?

Jack: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.

Lady Bracknell: Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the 
evening, at any rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?

Jack: I have lost both my parents.

Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a 
misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He 
was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers 
call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the 
aristocracy?

Jack: I am afraid I really don’t know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I 
had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents 
seem to have lost me... I don’t actually know who I am by birth. I was... 
well, I was found.

Lady Bracknell: Found!

Jack: The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and 
kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he 
happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the 
time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.

Lady Bracknell: Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class 
ticket for this seaside resort find you?

Jack: [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.

Lady Bracknell: A hand-bag?

Jack: [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell: I was in a hand-bag - a 
somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it - an ordinary 
hand-bag in fact.

Lady Bracknell: In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come 
across this ordinary hand-bag?

Jack: In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake 
for his own.

Lady Bracknell: The cloak-room at Victoria Station?

Jack: Yes. The Brighton line.

Lady Bracknell: The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel 
somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any 
rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to 
display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds 
one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know 
what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in 
which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve 
to conceal a social indiscretion - has probably, indeed, been used for that 
purpose before now- but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for 
a recognised position in good society...

You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our 
only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a 
cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

[Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.]

Extract from Act 1.

http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Wilde/earnest/act1b.html



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