[MD] Biological Quality & Social Conservatism

[Heather Perella]

     [Keith quotes]
> -----1975 interview of RMP in *Oui*-----
> P: Anyway, I think we're moving back to a puritan
> thing.
> Q. What makes you think that?
> P: Wishful thinking, perhaps. Or perhaps it's old
> age coming on.
> -----
     [Keith]
> I thought this wishful thinking was very telling.
> (And mostly wishful, not
> to mention incredibly ironic, given the magazine in
> which it was published!)
> I had somewhat forgotten that part of Pirsig's
> project in *Lila* was saving
> some Puritan social forms while discarding the
> dogmatic religious
> assumptions on which they were based. From Chapter
> 24:
> "Suddenly we have come full circle at the American
culture's 
> founders, the Puritans...  What the Metaphysics of
Quality concludes > is that the old Puritan and
Victorian social codes should not be 
> followed blindly, but should not be attacked blindly
either. They 
> should be dusted off and reexamined, fairly and
impartially, to see 
> what they were trying to accomplish and what they
actually did 
> accomplish toward building a stronger society. We
must understand > that when a society undermines
intellectual freedom for its own
> purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but when it
represses 
> biological freedom for its own purposes it is
absolutely
> morally good. These moral bads and goods are not
just "customs." 
> They are as real as rocks and trees."

     This "own purposes" adage above, where social
over intellect for formers "purposes", and social over
biological for the formers "purposes", I would say the
"dusted off and reexamined" part would be on
"purposes".  Not in what purpose means or does MoQ
critically accept life with a purpose.  I'm talking
about social over biological does not always mean
morally good.  Social usurping intellectual can be
morally good, too.  It is what kind of event is taking
place that I'm referring to.  I've been trying to
bring this topic up in recent threads such as
"American Moral Complex" in which Pirsig in the
'Sailboating' article discusses this American
undercurrent that still exists and is valued.  I would
say the MoQ puts this moral obligation into a light or
know-how that is intellectual and also practical,
thus, a practice.  This practicing of intellects good
morals are applied at the social level.  We can have
thought experiments, but these can not go on isolated
from society.  The stereotypical thinker, idle and
disconnected from the rest of world - yet we all know
this person sitting has others wonder, and this wonder
stimulates the rest of society, takes them away from
what they were doing.  Yet, this stereotypical thinker
passively omits nothing, but its' all covert.  It's
happening.  This stereotypical thinker is modeling
something even though it is nonverbal the expression
exists.  This effort to isolate, believing that a
disconnect exists and thoughts are free to roam
without social impact is a farce.  It's something that
has been trying to happening for centuries and look
around you, notice the social impact.
     There is more to this I'm sure.

hot day,
SA


       
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