[MD] The End of Faith - Spirituality

[Ron Kulp]

Bo: 


> On the nostalgia issue: If what's described as the coming of SOM in 
> ZAMM is the coming of the intellectual level in the MOQ, then the 
> Aretê that P. says is displayed by the old Homeric heroes must be 
> social value. Thus we must conclude that young Pirsig, totally 
> immersed in intellect's SOM reality, saw the past's non-SOM  Aretê 
> reality as a "paradise lost" and something he identified with Quality 
> itself.

 
Platt:
Interesting. I will have to ponder your tracing of Pirsig's development. It
never occurred to me that Arete was a social value. If it was "conventional 
wisdom" in Homer's time, maybe so. 

Ron:
Arête is a social value; it was in the work of Aristotle that the doctrine of arête found its fullest flowering. Aristotle's "Doctrine of the Mean":

   "By an equal or fair amount I understand a mean amount, or one that lies between excess and deficiency.

   By the absolute mean, or mean relative to the thing itself, I understand that which is equidistant from both extremes, and this is one and the same for all.

   By the mean relative to us I understand that which is neither too much nor too little for us; and this is not one and the same for all."
-Aristotle

In short, Balance Platt. Arête is balance. Better-ness is balance. Not domination.