[MD] Buddhism's s/o

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 11 May 2010 at 8:08, Steven Peterson wrote:

Hi Platt,


Platt:
> Two points. First, the word "spiritual" bothers me as it did Pirsig in the
> Annotations. Its meanings are too close to theism and the S/O split of
> body/spirit. Using the word takes us further away from Quality rather than
> closer to it.

Steve:
I often have the same sort of thoughts about the word "God" which is
generally taken as a theistic conception.

Years ago I came across this bit from Walter Kaufmann's intro to
Buber's I and Thou, and it has left me in a state of ambivalence about
religious terms ever since:

"Why use religious terms?  Indeed, it might be better not to use them
because they are always misunderstood. But what other terms are there?
 We need a new language, and new poets to create it, and new ears to
listen to it. Meanwhile, if we shut our ears to the old prophets who
still speak more or less in the old tongues, using ancient words,
occasionally in new ways, we shall have very little music. We are not
so rich that we can do without tradition. Let those who have new ears
listen to it in a new way."

Certainly Pirsig is such a "new poet," but perhaps until we have more
such new poets, we may do well to listen to some old ones in new ways.

[Platt]
In the MOQ context, "spiritual" seems oddly out of place because of the 
emphasis Pirsig placed on MOQ's absolute atheism. Personally I use "spiritual" 
all the time to describe the experience of completely losing my separate self-
sense in the presence of overwhelming beauty such as can occur on hearing a 
Rachmaninov concerto. Nor do I have any particular aversion to the word "God" 
because it connotes a morality at odds with an all powerful "government" which 
seeks to take God's place. (Godless governments have slaughtered so many more 
millions than the church that any comparison claiming equivalence is 
ludicrous.)

 
Platt:
> Second, there's no assurance that reason of any kind can lead to good
> premises or conclusions. Any point of view can be rationalized to a fare-
> the-well. All horrors perpetrated by governments on humanity have been
> rationally justified as being in the public good. Further, the scientific
> method, considered by many to be morally neutral and thus a good
> method to use, cannot explain why being neutral is good.
>
> The main problem as I see it, and is demonstrated here almost every
> day, is that DQ, the driving force of evolution, cannot be defined and thus
> becomes whatever anyone has a mind to make it. Being an integral part
> of the MOQ, this lack of definition leaves the MOQ wide open to varied
> interpretations, depending on whatever axe one has to grind, the axe
> being sharpened by reason and selective evidence..



Steve:
Given that we had a Mozart and once there were only clouds of space
dust may give us cause to be optimistic about the good perculating to
the top despite the fact that no metaphysics is probably ever going to
give us easy answers to our moral questions. The important thing seems
to me to be to keep the conversation going--a better alternative to
hitting one another with clubs and rocks?

[Platt]
Sometimes it's necessary to use clubs and rocks in self-defense against 
biological-level criminals such as terrorists and other types of barbarians. As 
you know, Pirsig hammered intellectuals for failing to understand and defend 
society against biology, writing "Intellectuals must find biological behavior, 
no matter what its ethnic connection, and limit or destroy destructive 
biological patterns with complete moral ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys 
germs, before those biological patterns destroy civilization itself." If you 
think Pirsig was exaggerating about the danger to civilization, witness the 
riots in Greece.

Best regards,
Platt