[MD] my rant

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ron

I don't manage to respond to all messages, even if they include me 
by name, so I may have neglected some of yours. Hope that isn't the 
reason for your resentment.  

17 July you wrote:

> "I need not repeat my first reading" which was 30yrs ago.

1979. You can't be all that young then.     

> Bo, I have gone through at least 4 revisions of thought since first
> reading Zen and the Art. and as many with Lila and at the moment I
> am in the middle of yet another illumenation. with the re-reading of
> the material. Each time, it was after filling in the bacround
> information that Pirsig mentions in his books. First it was Hume and
> Kant and Descarte then I re-read and what Pirsig wrote took on a new
> meaning  I discussed it with my mentor at the time, thought I had
> it, grasped all of it with out a doubt. Years later I read Lila and
> it confused me, I re read Zen and chalked up Lila as a re-hash. Put
> it down and continued with my opinion of all of it, feeling I had it
> already. Years went by read Lila again and it left me with questions
> found the discuss, and I could'nt reason beyond the s/o distinction
> I thought Pirsig was an idealist at that point and a sloppy
> philosopher who did'nt really consider all the angles. I thought I
> had it figured out. 

"Revisions of thought". Sure, in the sense of not understanding 
everything. For instance in my first copy my first underlining is the 
"cutting edge of time". In the margin I've written: "I don't understand 
this". But not total revisions, his putting the bell on the SOM cat was 
what struck me like lightening, it's ZAMM's real message and the 
background for my SOL interpretation. I did not like it when latter-day 
Pirsig plays down SOM's role, as if Quality came down from the sky, 
it's plain that it was young Phaedrus frustration over SOM's  
paradoxes that triggered his Quality Idea (the endless number of 
hypothses for instance) .       

> Began filling in my backround understanding with a study of the
> history of philosophy, my list of reading grew starting with "man is
> the measure" by Reuben Abel which broadened my understanding and the
> appreciation of the problem. I saw my thinking was incorrect and
> needed revision. 

> I read Lila again and understood more but not all. There were still
> contradictions and unclear meanings. I battled on the discuss,
> learned more and more revisions, delved into James, Whitehead,
> Nietchze, Dewey. Read Joseph Campbell. Entered into formal logic by
> inspiration from Ham studied axiom and grammar read Wittgenstein,
> went back to James and a host of others the list being too long to
> mention, studied  buddhism and the tetralemma, Studied Quantum
> physics and physical theory. studied the history of civilisation,
> Alexander the great, Aristotle and the ancient pre-Socratics,
> Parmanides, Xenophanes, Heraticlus, Aniximander. Re-read Hume,
> Descarte, Kant found new meaning, re-read James found new meaning.
> Read the stoics, re-read James re-read the buddhist scriptures,
> re-read the new testament, re read the old testament. read Greek
> mythos. The Socratic dialogs, re- reading Lila........
> contradictions are made clear, styles and concepts understood,.. new
> meaning. DMB's words have new meaning, Dan Glovers words have new
> meaning Anthony's words have new meaning. Your words have new
> meaning. your tea has been swishing for 30yrs Bo, I like the
> sampler. I try something new all the time. I chase my intrests of
> course, but in the chasing found myself embracing ideas formally
> hostile to my own convictions. The conflict I had with Arlo about
> self, enlightened me, other conflicts and reasearch to prove my
> points left me changing my views. Even now with the new clarity and
> understanding, with the conflicts and contradictions resolved in my
> re-reading of Lila I still do not have the absolute conviction in
> opinion that others demonstrate here. 

Impressive. However to me it looks like you merely are darting back 
and forth within SOM. The point is to get Phaedrus message and that 
is how Aristotle (SOM's instigator) created the term "metaphysics" in 
the sense of a mind-pattern about a reality indifferent to what a 
metaphysics may say. While Phaedrus said that metaphysics IS 
reality itself. You don't find this word for word, but that's the message. 
Ref, the Newton Gravity talks.     

> I see now that some embrace the static patterns they grew up with
> and formed their sense of identity on. On victorian social values on
> anti-victorian intellectual values and anti-intellectual anti social
> values. They embrace them because they are safe with them they feel
> right, they justify their own metaphysical view and support their
> private prejudices. Why change that? they shape their understanding
> of MoQ to fit those prejudices, lending creedance to them. They see
> what they want to see , what they need to see,  and are blind to or
> ignore the rest, as I myself have done in the past. I am aware of
> this now, I try to force myself to address the stuff I'm not
> interested in pursuing read the parts I don't feel like reading,
> examine it, study it. Take the opposing view point and try to
> understand it from the inside out. I've been through a 20yr process
> of revision and still revising. All in the effort to understand the
> work of Robert Maynard Pirsig. 

I can only repeat that Pirsig's message hit me in an intuitive way, it 
was revelation. And this is why I relentlessly follow this SOL track.   

> What has been your progression in the last 30? the last 15? 10? what
> books have you read? It's hard to believe that you base all your
> convictions on one reading of over 30yrs ago. That you would be so
> arrogant and assumptive. 

OK, if it is my singlemindedness that makes me sound arrogant I'm 
guilty but - again - I have this conviction that I did understand Pirsig's 
original message and want to save it from the academics.   

> Yet Marsha takes your view because it supports her
> anti-social/anti-intellectual interpretation it allows her to keep
> her prejudices it allows her to be free whimsical and contradictory
> yet still despise male dominated society and intellect.

A weird evaluation of Marsha's. Anti-social and anti-intellectual 
simultaneously? Least not the MOQ's levels. 

> It allows her to keep all her hates and support all her likes and be
> secure in those views as an MoQer and a champion of indefinable DQ.
> It allows you to be a pompous self interested wind bag that camps on
> one new concept he had 30yrs ago. 

What allows? The SOL interpretation? OK, this does not make much 
impact on me, it's when a cold runs down my spine - "this you haven't 
thought about!" - that I really feel bad.  

> It allows Platt to be an anti-intellectual reactionary neovictorian
> and I'm sure each one of you in your defense mechanism will cast me
> as thinking that I am better than you and above reproach that I am
> the one clinging to SOM. 

One must tear loose from intellect in its SOM capacity and see it from 
MOQ's meta-level to understand its Q context. However, the "high 
country"  is no place to stay , intellect is the highest and best stable 
level and when one returns with MOQ's knowledge one may feel very 
comfortable there, it no longer has SOM's oppressive air. I guess this 
is something like the Buddhist "Oxen" metaphor.


Bodvar