[MD] A Place for the Principled Person

[Ant McWatt]

Platt commented July 2nd:

>[Ant] 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.)

Ant McWatt answered July 2nd:

>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.

Platt asked July 2nd:

“Godhead?” Readers might get the idea you are some kind of theist by using a 
word like that. Further, how does one tell when are artist succeeds in 
representing “some form of Godhead in their work?”

Ant McWatt comments:

In addition to what I state in the MOQ Textbook, I think psychedelics help 
to some extent as they increase aesthetic sensitivity compared to a 
“straight” (default?) frame of mind.  Good art appears better, bad art 
appears worse.  Of course, the different static patterns that have occurred 
in each person’s life will always lead to some difference of opinion though 
few serious art critics, if any, will perceive Michelangelo as a charlatan.

Moreover, I agree with the following comment by DMB from July 2nd:

“And it’s interesting, I think, that some of the best artists are known as 
cultural bearers. As Pirsig describes it, these artists are often just 
working out their own problems, but they end up solving larger, cultural, 
collective problems along the way. Basically, I think these artists are the 
ones who feel the same discomfort we all feel, but they feel it more 
acutely. And isn’t that also true with the creative thinkers in science? In 
a slightly different way, they’re all trying to solve the same problems, 
confronting the same issues. Then somebody comes up with an idea and 
everybody says, ‘Wow, I wish I’d thought of that’.”

Platt wondered:

I wonder if my watercolors would qualify. :-)

Ant McWatt comments:

Send one over if you dare and I’ll let you know.  Anything taken from nature 
(such as a seascape) would be preferred.

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.”

Platt commented July 2nd:

Pirsig talks about domination throughout the MOQ, the domination of one 
level over the other. Using his approach, it’s the domination of patterns in 
a person I’m talking about. I’m sure you like to consider yourself, and have 
others consider you, as occupying the intellectual level (and your new 
artistic level) more often than not. But, I could be wrong. :-)

Ant McWatt comments:

No, nowadays I lead an international commune of hippies with DMB, Horse and 
Gav involved in as many love-ins and psychedelic music festivals as we can 
manage.  You’re lucky to ever hear from me (or them).

>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”.

Platt asked July 2nd:

Do you think you can be a principled person in the MOQ but not have any 
so-called Victorian social-biological codes as part of your personal 
character traits?

Ant comments:

Yes.  History is full of high quality artists and intellectuals whose social 
skills were virtually non-existent.

Moreover, in my post, I’d wish I thought of the following comment by DMB 
from July 2nd:

“Its not complicated, is it? Excellence in thought and creativity strike me 
as more important than shaking hands well or performing rituals with 
precision, but they’re not mutually exclusive. I think a quality person is 
one who makes all these things work together in an integrated way, in a 
groovy way. He rides. She sails. They’re artists of their own lives.”

Platt asked July 2nd:

Do you think upper levels could survive without the [Victorian 
social-biological codes]?

Ant comments:

Generally speaking, too much chaos (such as war) at the social level will 
disrupt the creative process while too much emphasis on social values (such 
as laws on blasphemy) will restrict the creative process.

Platt stated July 2nd:

“Excellence” is what we all want. But, we all have different ideas about 
what is excellent. There’s the rub.  I consider the personal traits I 
mentioned to mark of individual excellence. Others disagree, putting them 
down as outdated remnants of insufferable Victorian morality.

DMB commented:

Nobody is opposed to the virtues you’ve listed. It’s insulting and 
self-righteous of you to suggest otherwise. The problem is that you want to 
distort the MOQ in order to assert theses virtues over everything else. 
Ironically, your virtuous proposal is immoral. It puts third level values 
over the 4th and over DQ. It violates at least two of the MOQ’s moral codes.

Ant comments:

Yes, that’s right.

DMB continued:

Your ideas about the man of principle are unprincipled insofar as you have 
to ignore the portions of Pirsig’s system that are not convenient for your 
case. At this stage in evolution, shouldn’t an excellent person have more 
going on than just social level values? Here are some quotes I’ve been 
throwing at you since the previous century. It’s from Lila, the end of 
chapter 13....

“The structuring of morality into evolutionary levels suddenly gives shape
to all kinds of blurred and confused moral ideas that are floating around in
our present cultural heritage. ... Like the stuff Rigel was throwing at him
this morning, the old Victorian morality. That was entirely within one code,
the social code. Phaedrus thought that code was good as far as it went, but
it didn’t really go anywhere. It didn’t know its origins and it didn’t know
its own destinations, and not knowing them it had to be exactly what it was:
hopelessly static, hopelessly stupid, a form of evil in itself.” ...

“Everybody thinks those Victorian moral codes are stupid and evil, or
old-fashioned at least, except maybe a few religious fundamentalists and
ultra-right-wingers and ignorant uneducated people like that. That’s why
Rigel’s sermon seemed so peculiar. Usually people like Rigel do their
sermonizing in favor of whatever is popular. That way they’re safe. Didn’t
he know all that stuff went out years ago? Where was he during the
revolution of the sixties?”

Platt commented July 2nd:

You claim the virtues I listed are from a Victorian code of third level 
values.

Ant comments:

That’s blatantly obvious.

Platt continued July 2nd:

Then you turn around and quote Pirsig about how that code is “hopelessly 
static,
hopelessly stupid, a form of evil itself.”

Ant comments:

That’s true if these Victorian social values are given predominance over the 
MOQ’s intellectual level and artistic creativity.

Platt continued July 2nd:

Then you turn around and claim nobody is opposed to the virtues I listed. 
You contradict yourself at every turn.

Ant comments:

I don’t think DMB is contradicting himself.  As far as I know, nobody here 
is opposed to the social level virtues you listed but this is _as long as_ 
these virtues don’t undermine intellectual values and artistic creativity.  
However, your immoral “individual level” proposal does precisely that, 
revealing your allegiance with what Pirsig describes as “ultra-right-wingers 
and ignorant uneducated people like that”.

Enough said!

Best wishes,

Anthony.


www.robertpirsig.org

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