[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi DMB

24 Apr.:

Bodvar said:
> Need I spoon-feed you weak-interpreters? (*) In a ZAMM context
> Socrates represents SOM's independence from the Arete past, here he is
> said to represents the intellectual level's independence of its social
> origin  (all levels have their origin in the former level). Without
> resorting to smoke-screens, how is this glaring fact explained?

dmb says:
> Here you have a major misconception sandwiched between two insults.
> Between the spoon-feeding and the smoke-screens, you're equating Arete
> with social static patterns. Arete is not social and it's not
> patterned either. In the context of ZAMM, the Arete that was lost was
> the Dharma, the Quality that the Sophists were teaching. 

You see insults round all corners. "Weak" only refers to the 
weak/strong interpretations and "smoke-screens" ... well we may all 
resort to that in evading the issue. About Aretê being the social level in 
a MOQ retrospect is so obvious that you have to be hell-bent on NOT 
admitting it. It was the Homer's time in Greece  "...when the social 
level weren't yet transcended" as it says in LILA.  

"In the context of ZAMM"?  Isn't ZAMM supposed to be seen in the 
context of MOQ? As said to Andre: If the SOM-Aretê transition were 
just something going on at the intellectual level then - what you claim 
is Sophist's Quality was also an intellectual phenomenon and - ergo - 
everything - Quality included - becomes intellectual and the MOQ has 
turned into (SOM's) idealism.             
 
> While it certainly is true that the static intellectual level was
> separating from the static social level in this same historic period,
> this is not to be confused with the loss of dynamic quality. 

In ZAMM Pirsig presented it as if Quality itself "ruled" - or was 
expressed by - the attitude of the old Homeric warriors, but it's plain 
silly to believe that DQ was more prominent at some particular time in 
history. And its just as plain that the Aretê represents social values, the 
duty, honour, valor, contempt for death  that Hector displays is the 
same as the islamists suicide "pilots" showed. This is the "paradise 
lost" longing. 

> Sadly, Bo, your interpretation of the MOQ is "riddled" with such
> misconceptions. 

I on my side can't fathom how you can stand ZAMM as some "loose 
tooth" without any firm ties to the MOQ. Or how Pirsig can for that 
matter all the time the SOLution is there big as a barn door. 

> In fact, another related mistake springs to mind. Pirsig refers to
> Quality (DQ) and the "pre-intellectual" reality. You repeatedly take
> this as a reference to social static patterns. Because they evolved
> prior to intellect, you figure, social patterns are "pre-intellectual".
> What it actually refers to is the cutting edge of experience, the front
> edge of each moment, the eternal present. In other words, the
> pre-intellectual reality is Dynamic Quality, not social static quality.

The Pre-intellect/Intellect transition was Pirsig's effort (in ZAMM) to 
show how that there was something prior to the subject/object division. 
It's difficult to know the exact "timeline" of P's way to the Quality 
Insight, but I guess this was after the "dilemma" and the insight that's 
Quality was what spawned the subject/object choice. Now, in the MOQ 
context "intellect" is the last or highest level, thus what precedes 
intellect must necessarily have been the social, but mark you, all level 
have once been the "cutting edge" and the formation of a new level 
was in all cases as dynamic as dynamic comes. No problems there         

> In both cases, these are misconceptions about the central term in
> Pirsig's work. And so your theory is FUNDAMENTALLY wrong. It
> undermines and destroys the main point of the MOQ, to improve the
> intellect at its roots by introducing Quality as a working concept in
> Art, Science and Religion. Your SOL is profoundly unhelpful toward
> that effort. Plus it doesn't makes any sense.

Well, I know this mantra, but it's because you want the MOQ to be an 
academical phenomenon something going on inside an intellect which 
isn't MOQ's 4th. level, but good old-fashioned MIND of MAN. And for 
the  SOL that rejects mind and matter it's poison.  

Bodvar