[MD] Q.uote.

[skutvik at online.no]

Hello Christoffer!

22 Oct. you wrote:

> "Phaedrus remembered now that it had bothered him a little that in the
> Odyssey, Homer seemed at times to be equating Quality and celebrity.
> Perhaps in Homer's time, when evolution had not yet transcended the
> social level into the intellectual, the two were the same." - Lila
> p123?


You left it without commented, but this is a telling passage. It shows 
that Pirsig  (when writing freely) sees the intellectual level emerging 
after Homer's time something that makes the Aretê era referred to in 
ZAMM, identical to the social level (when it was leading edge). Thus 
what replaced it - SOM in ZAMM - is the MOQ's intellectual level.      

Perhaps a little explanation regarding the " the two were the same." 
part. He means that Quality and celebrity - as social value - were 
identical, meaning that Quality was centered at the social level (it was 
Q-evolutions "leading edge). Nowadays Quality is centered at intellect 
and it's next to impossible to trespass its S/O perimeter.

PS
It was this passage that made Paul Turner write to Pirsig in 2003.

PPS
Why does Pirsig never compare ZAMM to the MOQ? IMO because it 
reveals the Intellect=S/O context. The question then is why this is 
anathema? IMO because Pirsig (after finding that Phaedrus had 
wandered outside intellect's perimeter) lost heart and made it back by 
changing "intellect" from the S/O (that Phaedrus had seen from 
outside intellect) into the thinking realm that the 4th. level likes to call 
"intellect".   

Bodvar