[MD] False Messiah

[david buchanan]

Howdy MOQers:

I'm starting a new thread in response to the various political conversations 
that have been going on here concerning hippies, barbarians, neo-Victorians, 
contrarians, terrorists and other such labels. (Nice work Arlo!) But I also 
want to expand the frame of the discussion is such a way that it wouldn't 
rightly fit into any of the existing threads very well. I hope you'll join 
me in trying to think about politics in terms of the code of art, in terms 
of what is metaphysically progressive and conservative, if you will. This 
goes along with some of the themes in my paper, FUN WITH BLASPHEMY, which 
can be read for FREE at robertpirsig.org ;-) It also comes with a money-back 
guarantee.

Anyway, the other day I was flipping through "The Oxford Companion to the 
Mind" when I was struck by a one of the paragraphs under the heading 
PARANOIA. Maybe it'll strike you the same way...

"Thirdly, paranoic delusion bears a disconcerting, embarrassing resemblance 
to the beliefs held and propagated by founders of religions, by political 
leaders, and by some artists. Such people often make claims on behalf of 
themselves, their religious ideas, their country, their art, which would be 
regarded as grandiose and delusional if their ideas did not harmonize with 
the needs of their contemporaries and thereby achieve recognition and 
endorsement. Nowadays anyone who claimed to be the Messiah, who addressed 
God as his personal father, and asserted that 'he who is not for me is 
against me' would be at risk of being referred to a psychiatrist and 
diagnosed a paranoiac. But presumably in the first century AD His Word spoke 
to many - as indeed it continues to this day to do. Similarly, any 
politician who asserted the innate superiority of his own race and claimed 
that his country was the victim of an international conspiracy would today 
raise doubts as to his sanity, but in Germany in the 1930s Hitler found all 
too many people prepared to agree with him. There must, it seems, be some as 
yet unformulated relationship between the psychology of paranoia and that of 
prophets and leaders."

dmb continues:
I'd like to suggest that the MOQ does a pretty good job of formulating that 
relationship. I'm thinking particularly about those sections of LILA that 
deal with the problem of sorting out the saviours from the degenerates, 
saints and criminals, Roosevelts and Hiltlers. I think Pirsig's discussions 
of the connection between religion, mysticism and insanity are also part of 
sorting out the difference between a Jesus Christ and a Charlie Manson, 
between a creative contrarian and cult leader, between Dynamic innovation 
and reactionary destruction, etc, etc.

More specifically, I was struck by the fact that our current commander in 
chief has quite infamously asserted that anyone who is not with us is 
against us. In his second inaugural address pretty much proclaimed that it 
was his job to give "God's freedom" to the world. And its not too much of a 
stretch to say that he's construed Islamic fundamentalism as a global 
conspiracy against that freedom. That's why dissenters are treated as 
traitors and heretics. I'm not saying that George is a genocidal maniac or 
an anti-semitic racist. But if we look at fascism as Pirsig describes it, as 
a thoroughly anti-intellectual glorification of social values, there is an 
embarrassing resemblance to Germany in the 1930s. Then as now, the 
leadership isn't seen as being insane because "all too many people [are] 
prepared to agree with him". And why are so many willing to go along with 
this insanity as if it were normal? Fear. That's where the international 
conspiracy comes in. I'm not saying the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is 
a fabrication or a lie, just that it is wildly exaggerated and distorted. I 
mean, isn't it kind of absurd to think that Iraq could ever be a serious 
threat to the United States? Their military had been crippled by the first 
war, there were economic sanctions, there were UN weapons inspectors on the 
ground and fully two thirds of the country was a "no-fly zone" patrolled 
constantly by US military aircraft. Isn't it shocking that so many Americans 
are willing to go along with torture and domestic spying to calm these 
fears. Don't you see that our "with us or against us" foriegn policy is 
mirrored domestically so that we have a new McCarthyism at home, where 
people opposed to this insanity are labeled "America-haters" and such. I'm 
not suggesting there is a sure and certain formula that allows us to make 
the correct call in ever case, but the MOQ does orient us enough to be 
useful. It seems pretty clear to me that a false messiah will use fear to 
manipulate where a real leader would inspire people through hope, would 
juice people up with positive gumption, would offer a vision or a solution. 
A real leader would attempt to understand the conflict rather than just 
label his opponents "evil" or "germs" or some other dehumanizing name. I 
would remind you that such dehumanizing labels were used widely in 1930's 
Germany. This is often part of going to war because its easier on the 
conscience to kill "germs" or "vermin" than humans.

See, there is more than one kind of degeneracy. If the problem with the 
hippies was that they confused biological quality with Dynamic Quality and 
became hedonists, then the problem with these neo-Victorian reactionaries is 
that they confuse social quality with Dynamic Quality and become murderous 
egomaniacs. Sadly, there are periods in history where these delusional 
paranoid types "harmonize with the needs of their contemporatries and 
thereby achieve recognition and endorsement".  I think this is one of those 
periods and this harmony is based on fear, fear, fear.
I mean, sometimes we don't need to wait 100 years to sort out the saviours 
from the criminals. sometimes its easy to see a false messiah as such 
because he's just pushing hedonism or nationalism, pleasure or fear. Even 
when they talk about freedom and believe they are serving freedom, they're 
really just pushing one set of static values or another as if it were 
something new.

On the other hand, that paragraph on paranoia also reminded me of those 
scenes leading up to the climax in ZAMM, where he thought he was the god 
damned "messiah". He was in a personal battle with Western Philosophy, with 
rationality, with the whole mythos and was still "grandiose" enough to 
believe that he was right and that whole world was wrong. He was 
"delusional" enough to assert that the mythos was insane, not himself. An 
embarrassing resemblance indeed. Or maybe that's backwards. I mean, what if 
dictators and cult leaders are a corrupt version of the real thing? Maybe 
this kind of heresy, this kind of blasphemy, has been so dangerous for so 
long that the culture has no good and healthy way to deal with this impulse. 
The leaders and the followers are equally confused about this, I suppose. 
Anyway, I'm putting words like "messiah, grandiose and delusional" in quotes 
because, in cases like this one, they're not necessarily symptoms of mental 
illness nor distortions of reality.

As I understand messiahship, by way of Joseph Campbell, this sort of 
"blasphemy" is the whole point. For those unfamiliar with Campbell's work, 
the basic idea is that the world's myths and religions depict an heroic 
journey that we're all supposed to take. Rather than viewing the Christ as a 
unique historical person, its truth is as a template for our own 
psychological and spiritual development so that we don't worship Jesus or 
accept him as our saviour so much as become one with the father, become the 
son of god and otherwise commit that act of blasphemy, make that insane 
claim, if you will. Despite the fact that this process hardly ever goes well 
and the culture seems unable to handle it even if it does, I think there is 
a completely natural process behind it. Its like we have a thousand stories 
that tell us what the arch of human development looks like, a thousand heros 
who model the steps toward this enlightenment and the culture has spent a 
thousand years stamping it out. Burned at the stake or locked in the looney 
bin, depending on the historical context. Its all the same beast. Hopelessly 
static, hopelessly stupid. And often murderous to boot. Of course its no 
good to return the evil or otherwise burn the inquisitors...

This is where intellectual freedom enters the picture. Freedom of 
conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought. 
This is where we have to be careful to distinguish society's right to 
control biological forces like from its attempts to silence the heretics and 
other dissenters. The intellectual principles known as "human rights" are 
essentially aimed at making sure that heretics can speak out. When the 
contrarians and the blasphemers are allowed to contribute to society instead 
of feeling the need to "drop out" and instead of being treated as a criminal 
and a threat, the world is more open to change, more capable of growth, more 
likely to move toward betterness. I can't say why, exactly, but it makes 
sense that personal development and cultural evolution are intertwined. 
Beyond the obvious fact that a bunch of psychologically stunted people are 
unlikely to make the world a better place, the hero's journey and her 
contribution to the culture both depend on freedom. And I don't just mean 
freedom from prison or torture. It requires a freedom of mind, if you will. 
And then we come to the code of art, where all these static forms, including 
intellecutal principles, give way to the creative impulse. See, protecting 
the right to be a heretic and a blasphemer is aimed at protecting the 
process of evolution itself, not just the particular ideas that might be 
tried as a part of that process or the particular person who might be trying 
something new. Individuality is certainly part of the equation here and the 
rights of individuals are no trivial matter, but in some sense I think they 
are an instrumental good. Personal growth leads to cultural growth which 
leads to a better world, rather than the other way around. That's why it all 
begins in your own heart and head and hands and can't come from the top 
down. And as grandiose as it may sound to our Western ears, I think that its 
perfectly natural to want to make the world a better place, to believe that 
its all up you. Of course it al becomes much less epic when the messiah is 
not a unique historical person, but a story about our own psychological make 
up, a picture of human development that applies to everyone, that belongs to 
all of us. It seems much less insane when you see that real people more or 
less act out this myth in their own lives in a way that's recognizable as 
the classic hero's journey. If we don't take things too literally, we could 
say Pirsig died and lived to talk about it. In fact, he wrote a book about 
it. One of the most common features of these hero myths, when the hero is 
successful, is that he brings a "boon" to mankind, he brings a great 
treasure back from heaven. Did I mention he wrote a book about this journey? 
Often this is crudely depicted as a pot of gold or a magic object or some 
such thing, but I think these are just metaphors for the valuable visions 
and insights offered by these culture bearers. Silver and gold and jewels 
are not the real treasure. No, especially not at this stage of our cultural 
development. In literal terms, the real treasure is more likely to be some 
kind of artistic creation, one that offers a problem-solving vision for the 
future, one that serves to improve life. Did I mention that Pirsig wrote a 
book? I think its a real treasure. Costs about ten bucks.

Before I get too carried away and leave you with the impression that I think 
Bob is the new Jesus, I'll point out again that I think this urge to 
messiah-hood lies within every person and is supposed to unfold at some 
point in life. Its a process of self-realization and I think that part of 
that realization is that we're supposed to try to make the world a better 
place, that its our duty, that its the reason we were sent here, as the 
myths tell it. In terms of the MOQ, I think its a matter of realizing the 
role we all play in the ongoing process of evolution, to participate in that 
process. In terms of the various poltical factions that have been discussed 
here lately - the hippies and neo-Victorians etc - I think we should weigh 
them in terms of how their vision serves that evolutionary process and how 
well it supports the individual's ability to participate in that process. I 
think this is what Pirsig had in mind when he described the current period 
as one of moral decline, as a good time to be a child but a bad time to be a 
revolutionary. Its not just that I disagree with the conservatives or 
disapprove of their policies out of self interest. I think the 
neo-Victorians are a drag on the evolutionary process. I think we're going 
backwards at an alarming rate. They're not just anti-intellectual and 
militaristic, they're also stupid and cruel. Its devolution time, baby. And 
there's no guarantee they'll lose. I guess you could call me an alarmist 
here, but I am sincerly alarmed and I sincerely think you should be too.

I was interupted or distracted a couple dozen times while writing this and 
can only hope it isn't too incohernt.

Thanks.
dmb

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