[MD] Emerson and Pirsig

[Matt Kundert]

Steve said:
To the extent we follow static patterns we are not free, to the extent 
we are acting in response to DQ, we are free.

But to exactly what extent IS that? What is interesting to me is that 
what we seem to have here is a whole new MOQ Platypus after the 
SOM Platypi have been dissolved. Because Pirsig says we cannot 
distinguish degeneracy from DQ until long after the fact we just 
can't say to what extent we are free.

Matt:
Pirsig's a true disciple of Emerson in this regard, who says in "The 
American Scholar" that we must have self-trust in our instincts.  But 
how do you tell if an instinct has had its essence voided of the 
"courtly muses of Europe," in whose conceptual place Pirsig puts 
"static patterns"?  Emerson says he grounds his hope for the 
self-reliant American in the "doctrine of one mind," the same thing 
Descartes posited in articulating his notion of reason as being the 
same for all.  (As it happens, I discussed "psychic unity" a long time 
ago in "Mechanistic Philosophy" in the moq.org Forum.)

Likewise, one can see the MoQ as Pirsig's articulation of a doctrine 
to ground his hope in the Dynamic Individual.  In the narrative terms 
of the novel, the MoQ is developed as a response to Rigel's question, 
"Is Lila good?"  Pirsig says yes, but he and Rigel are puzzled why.  
Enter the MoQ.  Does the MoQ succeed in grounding that hope?  
(With help from Rick Budd, I give what amounts to a negative 
answer, and illustrate how the indeterminacy of DQ/degeneracy 
reappears at the close of Lila, here: 
http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2006/04/prospectus-for-idiosyncratic-and.html)

Emerson was labeled "optimistic" by Santayana, which wasn't good 
by his lights.  The reason is that Emerson seemed to Santayana to 
have a groundless hope in the individual's ability to be self-reliant.  
Emerson "grounds" it in the doctrine of psychic unity, but no one, 
hardly Emerson himself, took it that seriously, for Emerson wasn't a 
metaphysician who cared for the systematic elaboration of 
theoretical positions.  To care in this way would require one to be 
more honest about the reality of our human situation.  Santayana, 
in this sense, thought Emerson lacked the honesty to face up to 
how tragic life often is and hence was badly optimistic.  

We might say that Emerson understood this about his writings, but 
also understood that there was nothing systematization was going 
to do to solve the problem of grounding hope.  Emerson understood 
that hope is both necessary and groundless.  So he optimistically 
hoped, patterned his writings to hold themselves up without a 
consistent grounding, and made fun of systematic consistency as 
the "bugbear of little minds."  However, if one comes to appreciate 
what Emerson means by "power," you will come to see how subtle 
Emerson's understanding of the human condition was.

On the other side of this is Pirsig, who unlike Emerson has the 
systematizing bug.  Pirsig, to be honest and systematic, cannot 
avoid the problem of hope.  The system is meant to articulate a 
grounding, but not for the hope itself.  (The real hole in the pattern 
that mirrors the system itself.)  This honest recognition is 
constituted by the indeterminacy of DQ/degeneracy thesis.  Pirsig 
has no answer for the individual, facing the moment of choice, 
wondering about whether their instincts really _are_ DQ or 
debasing of hard-fought for evolutionary gains.  Pirsig's _hope_ is 
that if more people followed their instincts, that culture would not 
only keep progressively evolving, but evolve _further_.  And the 
only sociological explanation of how this would work is the 
dynamics of competition: that the cultural immune system would 
cure us of the incurred ills of accidental degeneracy while true 
Dynamic movements would rise and transcend the immune 
system itself.  Understanding what this transcendence is is to 
understand what Emerson meant by "power."

Matt