[MD] the sophists

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

"Phædrus reads further and further into pre-Socratic Greek thought to find
out, and eventually comes to the view that Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians
was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good,
represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the
dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man.
Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why today we have so little difficulty
accepting the reality of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of
Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than in the other."

"And yet, Phædrus understands, what he is saying about Quality is somehow
opposed to all this. It seems to agree much more closely with the Sophists."

""Man is the measure of all things." Yes, that’s what he is saying about
Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would
say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists
and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a
relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the
creation of all things." (ZMM)

The intellectual patterns emerging from the Sophists were not SOM. They were
clearly something better. And it is HERE that the SOM infestation of Western
culture began. And it is HERE that Pirsig begins his treatise on correcting
this.

Of course, you are more than welcome to rewrite ZMM and LILA to suit your SOL
needs as Bo suggests (its the only way you can make an SOL even come close to
making any sort of "sense").