[MD] Intellect Worship

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hi Steve,

You may not have intended it but your ideas about intellect appear to 
reflect those of the 60's Hippies, as described by Pirsig in Lila, Chapter 
24:

"The Metaphysics of Quality, however, says that's backward: the Hippie 
revolution was the moral movement."

Pirsig described this "moral movement" as follows:

"Whatever the intellectuals of the twenties had fought to create, the 
flower children of the sixties fought to destroy. Contempt for rules, for 
material possessions, for war, for police, for science, for technology 
were standard repertoire. The "blowing" of the mind was important. 
Drugs that destroyed one's ability to reason were almost a sacrament. 
Oriental religions such as Zen and Vedanta that promised release from 
the prison of intellect were taken up as gospel. The cultural values of 
blacks and Indians, to the extent that they were anti-intellectual, were 
mimicked. Anarchy became the most popular politics and squalor and 
poverty and chaos became the most popular life-styles. Degeneracy 
was practiced for degeneracy's sake." 

Anti-intellectualism as a moral movement? Yet elsewhere Pirsig 
described Nazism as anti-intellectual. But, then again he says American 
intellectuals really screwed up:

"What's coming out of the urban slums, where old Victorian social moral 
codes are almost completely destroyed, isn't any new paradise the 
revolutionaries hoped for, but a reversion to rule by terror, violence and 
gang death-the old biological might-makes-right morality of prehistoric 
brigandage that primitive societies were set up to overcome."

The beating death of an honor student in Chicago just a day or two ago 
says Pirsig nailed it.

No matter what stance you stake, it appears intellect can be as morally 
mistaken as some of the old social codes. So I think you have a point. 

Regards,
Platt  







On 2 Oct 2009 at 9:59, Steven Peterson wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> Sometimes I get the impression that the MOQ is about becoming more
> intellectual. Intellect, as the highest static level, is too revered.
> The top position in the static hieracrchy is seen as so important that
> some feel the need to make the intellectual level the "individual
> level" so that individuals can share in the reverence afforded to
> intellect and what makes others think that the MOQ itself will only
> itself be revered if it is put above even the revered intellect.
> 
> I have news for some of you: Phaedrus is not a hero. Phaedrus is
> Pirsig's embodiment of intellectual values as Rigel is for social
> values, Lila is for biological values, and perhaps the boat is for
> inorganic values. However, none of these characters represent the
> ideal of what we should aspire to be. Instead I think the MOQ is about
> integrating the biological, social, intellectual, and dynamic aspects
> of ourselves rather than being dominated by intellectual patterns.
> Consider Pirsig's description of Phasedrus in ZAMM:
> 
> "Some things can be said about Phædrus as an individual:
> 
> He was a knower of logic, the classical system-of-the-system which
> describes the rules and procedures of systematic thought by which
> analytic knowledge may be structured and interrelated. He was so swift
> at this his Stanford-Binet IQ, which is essentially a record of skill
> at analytic manipulation, was recorded at 170, a figure that occurs in
> only one person in fifty thousand.
> 
> He was systematic, but to say he thought and acted like a machine
> would be to misunderstand the nature of his thought. It was not like
> pistons and wheels and gears all moving at once, massive and
> coordinated. The image of a laser beam comes to mind instead; a single
> pencil of light of such terrific energy in such extreme concentration
> it can be shot at the moon and its reflection seen back on earth.
> Phædrus did not try to use his brilliance for general illumination. He
> sought one specific distant target and aimed for it and hit it. And
> that was all. General illumination of that target he hit now seems to
> be left for me.
> 
> In proportion to his intelligence he was extremely isolated. There´s
> no record of his having had close friends. He traveled alone. Always.
> Even in the presence of others he was completely alone. People
> sometimes felt this and felt rejected by it, and so did not like him,
> but their dislike was not important to him.
> 
> His wife and family seem to have suffered the most. His wife says
> those who tried to go beyond the barriers of his reserve found
> themselves facing a blank. My impression is that they were starved for
> some kind of affection which he never gave.
> 
> No one really knew him. That is evidently the way he wanted it, and
> that´s the way it was. Perhaps his aloneness was the result of his
> intelligence. Perhaps it was the cause. But the two were always
> together. An uncanny solitary intelligence."
> 
> Consider also the frequent comments in Lila about how Phaedrus has
> difficulty relating to other people and wishes he were more like
> Dusenberry such as when Phaedrus decided on the rediculaous idea of
> studying Lila like a scientist to see what makes her tick. "She
> probably wouldn't tell him anything.  Just like the Indians and the
> "objective" anthros. Dusenberry should be here.  He could get it out
> of her.  All I'm good for is theory, Phædrus thought."
> 
> Phaedrus is not the Zen Master of the story, he is Mr Spock. He is an
> aspect of Pirsig's personality and not, I assume, what Pirsig aspires
> to be. Nor should we. Nor should we be so caught up in the top dog
> status of intellect. This mistake has contributed to making who were
> once the MOQs two top priests into heretics.
> 
> Best,
> Steve