[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Case]

[Platt]
A claim to the truth doesn't make the claim true. In the gallery of truths,
I prefer Pirsig's brujo story to what's-his-name's. Are you saying Pirisg is
non-intellectual?

[Case]
You are missing the point here. Pirsig takes his brujo story almost verbatim
from Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture. Benedict was a student of Franz
Boaz and he central thesis was that culture can be said to exhibit dominate
personality types. She looked at four cultures and applied Nietzsche's
Apollonian and Dionysian spin to the personality types she used. In doing
this she sited the work of Ruth Bunzel who work with the Zuni tribe in the
1920 and 30s. The brujo story I posted comes directly from Bunzel's
monograph which is no longer in print. This is not a case of different
accounts it is a case of Pirsig relaying an account third hand.

You seem to be making the case that "truth" does not depend on facts. I
would go along with you. Truth lies the meaning that we attach to stories
not in the "facts". The same can be said about the Bible or the stories told
about Mohammed or the Buddha. But my question to you is what do you make of
the original story? Does it strike you as inspirational? What Quality can be
derived from it?

It does strike me as odd that at some level Pirsig originally intended to
write his story about Indians and Indian values. He talks about them at
length. I wonder given the amount of space that he does devote to them how
they and their stories get so overlooked in MoQ discussions.