[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[david buchanan]

Steve began his essay:
I'd like us to try to explore the political implications of Pirsig's anti-theism.


dmb says:
I think the MOQ is anti-theistic for moral reasons and the political implications are pretty well covered under the notion that an intellectually guided society is better than a society dominated by social values. I guess that goes for people too. You can see how all the basic distinctions within the MOQ bear on the issue. I mean, it's not just about the distinction between social and intellectual, it's also about the distinction between static and Dynamic and it's consistent with the pragmatic theory of truth and with philosophical mysticism. 


"Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal of DQ, a sign-post which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see DQ. The problem has always been that the rituals, the static patterns, are mistaken for what they merely represent and are allowed to destroy the DQ they were originally intended to preserve." (Pirisg in Lila, near the end of chapter 30)

Some relevant comments from the Copleston annotations:
180 "The MOQ supports religion but does not support many Christian traditions."
193 "Quality is nature. The MOQ says there is no spiritual principle in man that makes knowledge possible. Nature does the whole job."
208 "The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term "God" is completely dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic freedom. The MOQ is not just atheistic in this regard. It is anti-theistic."
216 "Faith is not required for an understanding of Quality. Here Quality succeeds where Bradley's Absolute and Hegel's Being and the Buddhist Nothingness and the Hindu Oneness and the theists' God and Allah and you-name-it, all of them fail. For Quality, no faith is required because there is no way you can disbelieve that there is such a thing as quality. You cannot conceive of or live in a world in which nothing is better than anything else."
228 "The MOQ does not rest on faith. In the MOQ faith is very low quality stuff, a willingness to believe falsehoods."
235 "When you hear the words 'spirit' and 'faith' always look for a traditional religionist trying to sneak his goods in the back door. ...like the positivists, the MOQ drops spirit and faith, cold."


In chapter 13 of Lila, immediately following Pirsig's explaination of the five moral codes, there is a crucial passage that bears repeating in this context. It begins on page 163 of the bantam hardback edition:

"The structuring of morality into evolutionary levels suddenly givesshape to all kinds of blurred and confused moral ideas that are floatingaround in present cultural heritage. ...Like the stuff Rigel wasthrowing at him this morning, the old Victorian morality. That wasentirely within that one code - the social code. Phaedrus thought thatcode was good as far as it went, but it didn't really go anywhere. Itdidn't know it's origins and it didn't know its own destinations, andnot knowing them it had to be exactly what it was; hopelessly static,hopelessly STUPID, a form of evil in itself."

"EVIL...   If he'd called it that one-hundred-and-fifty years ago hemight have gotten himself into some real trouble. People got mad backthen when you challanged their social institutions, and they tended totake reprisals. He might have gotten himself ostracized as some kind ofa social menace. And if he'd said it six-hundred years ago he might havebeen burned at the stake."

"But today it's hardly a risk. Its more of a cheap shot. Everybodythinks those Victorian moral codes are stupid and evil, or old-fashionedat least, except maybe a few religious fundamentalists andultra-right-wingers and ignorant uneducated people like that. That's whyRigel's sermon this morning seemed so peculiar. Usually people likeRigel do their sermonizing in favor of what ever is popular. That waythey're safe. Didn't he know all that stuff went out years ago? Wherewas he dutring the revolution of the sixties?"
PARAGRAPH FOUR"Where had he been during this whole century? That's what this wholecentury's been about, this struggle between intellectual and socialpatterns. That's the theme song of the twentieth century. Is societygoing to dominate the intellect or is intellect going to dominatesociety? ... That was the thing this evolutionary morality brought outclearer than anything else."