[MF] priestly language

[Sam Norton]

Hi Marsha,

I suspect that there is an element of cultural monomania lying behind your 
question. I say cultural because I believe it to be something shared by Western 
culture as a whole, not something to do with you personally. I believe it stems 
from Luther's 'Here I stand' - the Protestant emphasis upon the individual 
conscience as the unavoidable arbiter of what is right and true. Trouble is, 
Luther was standing 'on the shoulders of giants' - but the giants didn't want 
him standing on their shoulders. My 'eudaimonic moq' is a way of trying to 
square that particular circle, ie give the individual choice a central role in 
the MoQ (doesn't exist in the 'standard' MoQ).

This is something I wrote to Matt recently (off list) which sets out my view on 
the subject:

> [Sam's] views of religion are, so far as I can see,
> completely commensurate with Whitehead and Rorty's anti-clericalism, the
> antiauthoritarian streak that Luther started in Western religion.

This is too simplistic. Remember that I'm a conservative at heart?!? I explained 
it to my congregation recently like this:

- at the beginning, authority is absolute, otherwise you cannot proceed along 
the path. (Think of a child learning maths - at some point the child has to 
accept the authority of the teacher, otherwise the child simply will not learn 
anything. This is a point that Wittgenstein makes).
- when you are established on the path, it is more of a walking alongside the 
authority, a conversation between equal participants (lots of Biblical stuff to 
support that).
- once you have absorbed the tradition fully, you are then in a position to 
transcend it creatively (not simply reject it negatively like some people I 
might mention) - and you then become the teacher/ authority figure in turn.

The problem that Luther objected to (in the footsteps of JC who did it long 
before him) was the insistence that most people were stuck at stage 1, and an 
absolute prohibition on stage 3 (if you signed up to the system, there were lots 
of ways in which you could be stage 2 - you just couldn't 'rock the boat' which 
is what the stage 3 people do. Sometimes they're called 'heretics' - but only if 
they can't persuade people that their arguments are of higher Quality)

> Oh, the other thing is, if you're not aware, there is a strong
> anti-_theism_, as opposed to anti-clericalism, streak in most participants
> at moq.org.  Sam is, obviously being an Anglican priest, one of the
> exceptions (though you should think it strange that I call Sam, the cleric,
> anti-clerical).  But most Pirsig spokesmen, like Anthony McWatt, Mark
> Maxwell, and David Buchanan, think God-vocabularies totally inappropriate to
> Pirsig and they think Pirsig demolishes them.  Sam and I both think they are
> wrong.  I agree with Sam that if Buddha-vocabularies are appropriate, then
> so are God-vocabularies.  Sam and I both think that what Pirsig demolishes
> are _priests_ (again, strange), which then destroys organized religion (or,
> at least, after the demolition Catholicisms get reformed into something more
> like, well, unitarianisms).

Where I differ from Pirsig (and probably from you?) is that I see the lower 
levels as foundational for the higher - in the sphere of religious 
understandings. Pirsig - and DMB/Ant etc think that you can have meaningful 
language about value without using religious terms (whether it's God-vocabulary 
or Buddha-vocabulary is a second order question). In other words, I don't think 
that you can establish a non-religious vocabulary. "There's a whole mythology 
embedded in our language" as Witt put it, and we can no more easily escape it 
than we can escape speaking English. Now, it's theoretically possible that over 
time a new language evolves in which the God-vocabulary has no purchase (your 
point I think) - no practical utility. My view is that such a society could not 
exist. Religious language (ie language which _functions_ religously [social 
level reinforcement]) is essential for long term survival. I see the 'letting 
go' of religious language as a curious epiphenomena of late modernism. It will 
pass. (which brings me back to Peak Oil again, but I've mentioned that!).

> You'll notice that it didn't even occur to me that your profession, as
> Anglican priest, seems to disagree with what I was saying until part way
> through.  But I was wondering if you'd actually concur with some of the
> stuff that I said we concurred on.  That may seem an odd thing to say
> (amongst other odd things), but you know how I like to read between the
> lines ;-)
>
> So what's the dealio?  My sentiment is right, right?

Well, I would say it is more complicated. The role of the priest is a) social 
level, and b) to be the finger pointing at the moon. The problem comes when the 
priest denies a higher truth (and therefore, in effect, says 'I cannot be 
wrong'). That's just low Quality though.

'Anyone who understands me eventually recognises [my propositions] as 
nonsensical, when he has used them as steps - to climb up beyond them. (He must, 
so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it)' (TLP 6.54)

So I'm anti-clerical in the sense that I don't see priests as having a monopoly 
on truth. But I'm not anti-clerical in the sense that I think priests (and 
priest-substitutes) are absolutely essential in any healthy society.

Is that an answer?

BTW have you ever read any Stephen Donaldson? In his Chronicles of Thomas 
Covenant - big influence on me - there is a priestly caste (called 'Lords') but 
there are ways for people to transcend that authority structure, and gain 
complete (authorised) freedom from it:

Free
Unfettered
Shriven
Free-
Dream that what is dreamed will be:
Hold eyes clasped shut until they see,
And sing the silent prophecy-
And be
Unfettered
Shriven
Free.

http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/