[MD] Correctness and Usefulness

[Joseph Maurer]

On Tuesday 6 May 2008 1:56 PM Ham writes to Joe and MarshaV:

Hi Ham and all,

As a member of the older generation I have experienced a World War, a
Catholic monastery, a soup line in New York at The Catholic Worker,
non-violent resistance to segregation in the South, by the time I was 33,
marriage and family to now.  I should be so jaded.  Yet, Ham, I am still
tilting at an approach to viewing reality.  ³moral² is not what is favorable
to mankind.  I think it is foolish to try to ³transcend experiential
existence.²  I have an image of a noose around my neck.  After studying
Aquinas, Aristotle, etc I think it is foolish to leave myself open to a
criticism that I am just speaking subjectively.  I agree with Pirsig¹s
assessment of SOM.

I would rephrase: ³If man is to become a moral creature, he must understand
why he exists and what his role in existence is.² To ³If a man is to become
a moral creature he must understand how he exists, and how he can become
more.² 

³Euphemisms, metaphors, analogies, and paradigms all have their place in
philosophical discourse.²  I agree.  As for sensing value?  Whatever works!
As for the rest of the paragraph, Ham, you are a poet!

Joe

On 5/6/08 1:56 PM, "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:

> Greetings Joe (and Marsha) --
> 
> On Tuesday 6 May 2008 2:22 PM, Joseph Maurer wrote:
> 
>> I realize, Ham, that there is no "evolution" in your vocabulary.
>> However, as an act of courtesy you might acknowledge that
>> the analogy of DQ/SQ is a metaphysical approach to reality
>> in consciousness.  I won¹t find it laying beside the road,
>> of course, but it may usher in a way of thinking that is not
>> so bloody as our current political strife.
> 
> Evolution is not only in the vocabulary of MoQists, it is their fundamental
> reality.  Change, movement, development, progress, are all attributes of
> experienced reality.  When they move in a direction that is favorable to
> mankind, we call them "moral".  When they are unfavorable, we either ignore
> them or call them "bad" or, in Pirsig's analogy, "low-quality" events.
> 
> I accept evolution as the "law of natural selection" in biology and
> anthropology.  But the flow of historical events is not the focus of my
> philosophy.  Just as Pirsig has disqualified SOM as fundamental, my
> Philosophy of Essence is an attempt to transcend experiential existence.  In
> my opinion, we can't "usher in a way of thinking" that will eliminate
> violence and political strife by telling people they aren't moral enough, or
> that they haven't evolved to an intellectual level commensurate with Quality
> behavior.
> 
> If man is to become a moral creature, he must understand why he exists and
> what his role in existence is.  This has historically been the function of
> mythology, religion, philosophy, empiricism, humanism, and sociology.  But
> they haven't been effective because they've been imposed on society as
> "authority".  And while man can be coerced by authority to behave in certain
> ways, he will always resist such restriction on his freedom and find
> alternative ways to express it.
> 
> My approach is not to invent a new analogy but to get to the core values
> that drive mankind.  Some of these values are instinctually derived, like
> seeking a source of food, self-defense, and sexual satisfaction.  But
> experience presents an inexhaustible variety of value choices that we make
> every day, and they are all relative to our "being in the world".  Our
> choices can be arbitrary, selfish, or indifferent probablistic).  Or they
> can be based on our purpose as free agents of a primary source -- the moral
> axiom of 'rational self-directed value'.  That won't happen until mankind
> has a belief system that is not only in harmony with Nature but with the
> essential source.
> 
> Euphemisms, metaphors, analogies, and paradigms all have their place in
> philosophical discourse.  But they have little affect on the way we sense
> value.  Only understanding based on a metaphysical concept of reality can
> change our value perspective.  You may ask if such a perspective will be
> "for the better".  To which I'd reply rhetorically, if it enables man to
> value the life and freedom of others as he values his own, can it be less
> than better?
> 
> Essentially yours,
> Ham
> 
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