[MD] The Examined Life, continued

[Ham Priday]

Willblake2 and All --

I initiated this thread last month in hope of sparking some discussion about 
the alternative to Socrates' "unexamined life", which you will recall he 
characterized as "not worth living."  Only Mark responded.  Could it be that 
no one here is interested in living a worthwhile life?  Is it not the the 
aim of philosophy--even Pirsig's MoQ--to serve as a guide to what is worth 
living for?   Yet, we talk endlessly about interpreting the intellectual 
level, relativity, emotions, what women want, and being suspended in 
language, with seeming disregard for life's value or purpose.

On Thursday when the Fort Hood massacre was making news, I was searching the 
Internet for an essay on Individualism suitable for my Values Page.  (By 
"suitable" I mean something other than the Randian brand of individualism 
which Platt and I have been wrongly accused of championing here.)   I came 
upon the name Rudolf Steiner which was familiar as a philosophical 
reference, although I'd never actually read this Austrian prodigy's works 
(possibly because many have not been translated into English).  Checking the 
Steiner archives, I found several essays in English, one of which 
"Individualism in Philosophy" was just right for my needs.

The great thing about Steiner is that he does not write as an academic or 
posit metaphysical conclusions.  Instead he uses common narrative to explain 
epistemology without once mentioning the term.  In the essay I selected, he 
analyzes man's relational "attitude" toward his natural environment as one 
of two kinds: the first in which the individual "allows nature to become 
master over his inner nature," and the second where "he subjects this outer 
nature to himself."   He then goes on to discuss three classical 
philosophers--Anaximander, Thales, and Parmenides--who he says "represent 
three stages leading from religion to philosophy."  Steiner's insight 
challenges your worldview by stimulating your thought and allowing you to 
draw your own conclusions.

Here's how he describes the religious perspective:

"The acting human being is not content simply to act. The flower blooms 
because it blooms. It does not ask about whys and wherefores.  The human 
being relates to what he does.  He connects feelings to what he does.  He is 
either satisfied or dissatisfied with what he does. He makes value judgments 
about his actions.  He regards one action as pleasing to him, and another as 
displeasing.  The moment he feels this, the harmony of the world is 
disturbed for him.  He believes that the pleasing action must bring about 
different consequences than one which evokes his displeasure.  Now if he is 
not clear about the fact that, out of himself, he has attached the value 
judgments to his actions, he will believe that these values are attached to 
his actions by some outer power.  He believes that an outer power 
differentiates the happenings of this world into ones that are pleasing and 
therefore good, and ones that are displeasing and therefore bad, evil.  A 
person who feels this way makes no distinction between the facts of nature 
and the actions of the human being.  He judges both from the same point of 
view.  For him the whole cosmos is one realm, and the laws governing this 
realm correspond entirely to those which the human spirit brings forth out 
of itself.

"This way of coming to terms with the world reveals a basic characteristic 
of human nature.  No matter how unclear the human being might be about his 
relationship to the world, he nevertheless seeks within himself the 
yardstick by which to measure all things.  Out of a kind of unconscious 
feeling of sovereignty he decides on the absolute value of all happenings. 
No matter how one studies this, one finds that there are countless people 
who believe themselves governed by gods; there are none who do not 
independently, over the heads of the gods, judge what pleases or displeases 
these gods.  The religious person cannot set himself up as the lord of the 
world; but he does indeed determine, out of his own absolute power, the 
likes and dislikes of the ruler of the world."

I've set the major portion of the essay for this week's Values Page, 
www.essentialism.net/balance.htm.  For anyone interested, the Rudolf Steiner 
Archive is accessible at www.wn.rsarchive.org.  I think Pirsigians may find 
what Steiner has to say about morality and belief systems enlightening.  If 
so, I'd be interested in your take on this turn-of-the-century philosopher 
as it applies to the MoQ..

Respectfully submitted,
Ham