Robert M. Pirsig. Lila: An Inquiry into Morals. New York: Bantam, 1992. ISBN: 0553299611.
This book is as interesting (to me) as Pirsig's other one, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Where the earlier book sees reality existing outside our ability to understand it, this one talks about different ways that we respond to our historical inability to grasp reality wholly. The earlier book sees an indefinite (and humanly undefinable) quality as the foundation of reality: the word quality points toward the reality that is too big to understand, too irregular and dynamic to be contained by our limited intelligence. The second book talks about different manifestations of this quality in human life.
According to Pirsig, quality as we experience it comes in two kinds: (1) static quality and (2) dynamic quality. Lila is an extended portrait of these two different kinds of quality.
(1) Static quality comes in four kinds: (i) inorganic static quality; (ii) biological static quality; (iii) social quality; (iv) intellectual quality. Life exists as different patterns of these kinds of quality that are related. Inorganic molecules exist in static patterns that enable static patterns of biological life, which rely on them without being determined by them (the same way computer languages rely on electronic circuits: the circuits make the languages possible, but you could not predict the particular historical development of the languages from the existence of the circuits). Biological patterns exist in static patterns that enable static patterns of social life, which rely on biology without being determined by it (the same way computer software applications rely on programming languages: the languages make the applications possible, but you could not predict the particular historical developments of the applications from the languages). Finally, social patterns exist in static patterns that enable static intellectual patterns, which rely on society without being determined by it (the same way a novel in a word-processing application relies on that software to exist without being deducible from it: my knowledge that OpenOffice exists does not tell me what novel you may be using it to write right now).
(2) Dynamic quality is the wildcard, the irregularity that makes quality impossible for us to understand (i.e. the simple quality that Pirsig talks about in his first book). Dynamic quality is rebellious: for some reason, inorganic molecules decide to work against forces of natural decay in the universe; they join together in ways that allow biological life to exist (against expectations). Then, for some reason, biological life works against the restrictions of physical reality, fighting against forces of decay to create more and more complex organisms that challenge physical laws (like gravity: all organisms move--crawling, walking, or flying in defiance of the forces pulling them down). On top of this, organisms come together (for some unknown reason) and create social conventions, taking the biological value known as sex (for example) and overlaying it with rules known as marriage. Finally, human beings (and maybe other living things too) reflect rationally on the existence of social norms (like marriage) and try to make these rational (e.g. extending the benefits of marriage to different kinds of people who merit them, say homosexuals or people of a different race or creed than the dominant one in a particular culture). Dynamic quality always bucks the regular systems of static quality, challenging the norms that hold these systems together. It occasions the transformation of static order, altering the nature of a static system radically and unpredictably.
At one point in the book, the author recounts an anecdote from the modern history of the Zuni people in North America. In a particular Zuni community, there was an odd man who flouted social norms, peeping in windows without talking to his fellow tribesmen. The Zuni call such people witches (brujos in Spanish: Pirsig prefers the Spanish term because it carries less problematic baggage than the English witch). One day, he got drunk and told the local authorities (priests) that they would never control him. They arrested him and hung him up by his thumbs. He sent for local Western authorities (off the reservation), who rescued him (and took him to the hospital). Afterwards, the priests who had disciplined him resigned their authority in the community, and the witch became the community leader. He ended up leading the Zuni into a new kind of social order, one in which relations with the Westerners was more cordial and open (in part because he made a point of meeting regularly with outsiders and sharing Zuni stories with them). Western anthropologists had a hard time explaining this event because they wanted to make the brujo a conventional leader in his society. They tried to understand his rise to prominence in Zuni terms, seeing it as a natural event inside the traditional Zuni culture. From Pirsig's point of view, this is the wrong approach, precisely because the brujo's power came from outside the Zuni. He was not traditional. He was dynamic, innovative, a wild card. This is why the priests, guardians of traditional Zuni culture, attempted to suppress him. He represented a dynamic threat to the static quality of their society.
Every social order produces outcasts, people on the fringes who don't exactly belong. These people can be dangerous. They represent a challenge to the stability of static quality (which provides some benefits: order, predictability, regularity). But they are not always dangerous. No static state is ever perfect. Each lacks something. Each is maladapted in some respect. The outsiders can help here. Given the chance, they can transform the static quality of an established community so that it survives as circumstances around it alter. The old Zuni priests were less adept in preserving their society from outside influence. The brujo became a leader because he was better at dealing with people and culture outside Zuni. He used his position as an outsider to make the position of the Zuni people safer than it was, insuring the survival of Zuni better than the priests could by changing the nature of the community (in ways that the priests found utterly abhorrent).
I confess I sometimes feel like a Mormon brujo. While I have no intention of being a leader, I do value certain things in Mormon culture (the focus on friends and family, the commandment that every man seek his or her own divine revelation, the drive for a community that is something more than just abstract economics seeking to amass the most material wealth possible). I have always valued these things. I thought the institutional church valued them the same way I did. Even when my personal position on certain matters differed from positions held by institutional leaders, I thought we were on the same team, interested in pursuing the same overarching goals. To some extent, I think we still are. But I think that many Mormon priesthood leaders have much less sympathy for me than I once believed. I think they are barely willing that people such as I exist, provided we keep our mouths shut and defer to their judgment without protest (however rational or respectful). I don't think they should give in to us. I don't think the church would be better led if they all abdicated and handed power over to folk of the fringe, such as I have been most of my life. But I wish there was a place for us in Mormon culture, a place for modern backsliders like Sterling McMurrin, who believe in the gospel even if they insist on misunderstanding it (from the point of view of someone like Joseph Fielding Smith or Bruce R. McConkie). If that place had existed, then I might still be an active Mormon today. But I am not really the Zuni brujo. I am not willing to be hung by the thumbs to save the community. Forced to choose between saving myself and saving Mormonism, I admit I picked me. No hard feelings, I hope.
In Pirsig's book, he talks about the twentieth century as a war between social quality (the Victorianism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the West, especially the USA) and intellectual quality (the drive to make society rational). He takes the side of intellectual quality against social, arguing that it is more moral for an idea to destroy society than for society to destroy an idea. I confess I am not convinced he is right. To me, it seems that ideas are too unpredictable and dangerous to merit that kind of respect. But I do wish that we could find better ways in the USA of accommodating outsiders (including intellectuals) who want to participate in society in a positive way without crucifying themselves in the process. While I do not fight with Pirsig in the war, I do think that the war is there, and I do not think we are fighting it in the best manner possible. There are better ways to deal with me than forcing me to become a liar (heretic) or an apostate (outcast). Or maybe I just wish there were. Sometimes, life is just really tough (a problem without happy solution).
Showing posts with label Robert Pirsig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Pirsig. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Truth and Lies, Reality and Myth
Peter Kingsley. In the Dark Places of Wisdom. Inverness: Golden Sufi, 1999. ISBN: 189035001X.
Peter Kingsley. Reality. Inverness: Golden Sufi, 2003. ISBN: 1890350095.
Peter Kingsley. A Story Waiting to Pierce You. Point Reyes: Golden Sufi, 2010. 1890350214.
Robert Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. Morrow, 1974. ISBN: 0688002307.
These books were all important in my discovery that reality exists apart from myth (without excluding it). I encountered Kingsley's work while investigating the early Greek philosopher Parmenides, about whom he has written extensively. (He also has many interesting things to say about Empedocles.) I was impressed with Kingsley's scholarly depth (more than one of my dissertation advisors, who finds some of his historical ideas "fanciful"), but what really drew me to his work was its elegant simplicity. Reading his work shows you (1) how ancient people found meaning in the pre-Socratics, and (2) how the pre-Socratics remain relevant today.
The central thesis of Kingsley's work is that Parmenides was concerned with reality as people actually experience it. He wanted to talk meaningfully about all the experiences that all of us have every moment of our lives--no matter who we are, where we live, or when. In other words, he was what some people call a mystic. Like other mystics ancient and modern, he used the language and ideas of his time to talk about the human experience (conceived as something universal, i.e. bigger and larger than any single person's understanding). He told myths. He composed poetry. He saw changes happening all over the place, all the time, and he saw continuity underlying change. He recognized that people are at once alike and different (when compared with one another), and that they all see the same world (even when they see it very differently). In short, he was an ancient analogue to Robert Pirsig -- the mad modern genius whose idea of Quality is very like Parmenidean Being. I will try to summarize my understanding of this Quality/Being below.
Reality is not a narrative. It does not develop predictably from known principles, and its end is equally mysterious. When storytellers say in the beginning, they are venturing into the unknown--a place none of us has ever been--just as they are when they say the end. (How do we really know that a story has ended? What is the end, really, of anything? If there is no known beginning, then there is no known end.) Most of us experience reality as a series of impressions--thoughts, feelings, impressions, ideas, reactions, intuitions, experiences. But these only ever exist in the present moment, where we organize them and reorganize them, over and over again. In this process of organization, something is always lost. No story can ever do justice to the full extent of the experience it seeks to describe. From this perspective, all stories are lies: they omit potentially important information. Living well is learning to live with lies, learning to hold them when they help you and to let them go when their usefulness is gone. Lies are not inherently evil, but they become so when we insist that they must be true. Lies are not inherently good, but they become so when we know how to use them well (i.e. when to stop believing them). The wise man is aware of lies, is happy with them, because he sees the reality behind them. He is in the moment, discarding the lies that hurt and embracing the lies that help (which he will let go in turn when they prove false). Consciousness is not a matter of learning the absolute truth (finding the rock upon which to build a permanent house), but of learning the impossibility of absolute truth (riding the wave of contextual truth, which moves constantly as moments pass and the nature of life's game changes). Truth (reality, quality, being) is in the experience, which no myth, however great it may be, can really capture. Myth is useful. It can help you benefit from someone else's experience, but it is no substitute for actively engaging your own experience (which is the most important thing for you, the bricks and mortar out of which your very own life is made).
When it finally broke through to me what Kingsley, Pirsig, and Parmenides were talking about, I knew that something had changed fundamentally in the way I think consciously about the world. Part of me assented unconditionally to the way they conceive consciousness: waxing psychological, I think that my conscious mind finally realized how it really works (and has always worked, as near as I can tell). As I experience life, following the truth is much more like surfing than building a house on a rock. I tried building that house on the rock, and the rock kept washing away. Now, I am riding the wave. I don't have to stop every few moments and convince myself that the rock is not water. I do not have to pretend to hold onto solid matter where all I can find is fluid.
Kingsley warned me that reading his books would change the way I looked at things. As a faithful LDS, I was not convinced (with good reason: maybe if I had read them 10 years earlier, they wouldn't have changed anything: every individual walks a unique path to Reality). In the end, however, he was right. I must credit him with providing one of the most interesting interludes in my faith journey as an adult.
Peter Kingsley. Reality. Inverness: Golden Sufi, 2003. ISBN: 1890350095.
Peter Kingsley. A Story Waiting to Pierce You. Point Reyes: Golden Sufi, 2010. 1890350214.
Robert Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. Morrow, 1974. ISBN: 0688002307.
These books were all important in my discovery that reality exists apart from myth (without excluding it). I encountered Kingsley's work while investigating the early Greek philosopher Parmenides, about whom he has written extensively. (He also has many interesting things to say about Empedocles.) I was impressed with Kingsley's scholarly depth (more than one of my dissertation advisors, who finds some of his historical ideas "fanciful"), but what really drew me to his work was its elegant simplicity. Reading his work shows you (1) how ancient people found meaning in the pre-Socratics, and (2) how the pre-Socratics remain relevant today.
The central thesis of Kingsley's work is that Parmenides was concerned with reality as people actually experience it. He wanted to talk meaningfully about all the experiences that all of us have every moment of our lives--no matter who we are, where we live, or when. In other words, he was what some people call a mystic. Like other mystics ancient and modern, he used the language and ideas of his time to talk about the human experience (conceived as something universal, i.e. bigger and larger than any single person's understanding). He told myths. He composed poetry. He saw changes happening all over the place, all the time, and he saw continuity underlying change. He recognized that people are at once alike and different (when compared with one another), and that they all see the same world (even when they see it very differently). In short, he was an ancient analogue to Robert Pirsig -- the mad modern genius whose idea of Quality is very like Parmenidean Being. I will try to summarize my understanding of this Quality/Being below.
Reality is not a narrative. It does not develop predictably from known principles, and its end is equally mysterious. When storytellers say in the beginning, they are venturing into the unknown--a place none of us has ever been--just as they are when they say the end. (How do we really know that a story has ended? What is the end, really, of anything? If there is no known beginning, then there is no known end.) Most of us experience reality as a series of impressions--thoughts, feelings, impressions, ideas, reactions, intuitions, experiences. But these only ever exist in the present moment, where we organize them and reorganize them, over and over again. In this process of organization, something is always lost. No story can ever do justice to the full extent of the experience it seeks to describe. From this perspective, all stories are lies: they omit potentially important information. Living well is learning to live with lies, learning to hold them when they help you and to let them go when their usefulness is gone. Lies are not inherently evil, but they become so when we insist that they must be true. Lies are not inherently good, but they become so when we know how to use them well (i.e. when to stop believing them). The wise man is aware of lies, is happy with them, because he sees the reality behind them. He is in the moment, discarding the lies that hurt and embracing the lies that help (which he will let go in turn when they prove false). Consciousness is not a matter of learning the absolute truth (finding the rock upon which to build a permanent house), but of learning the impossibility of absolute truth (riding the wave of contextual truth, which moves constantly as moments pass and the nature of life's game changes). Truth (reality, quality, being) is in the experience, which no myth, however great it may be, can really capture. Myth is useful. It can help you benefit from someone else's experience, but it is no substitute for actively engaging your own experience (which is the most important thing for you, the bricks and mortar out of which your very own life is made).
When it finally broke through to me what Kingsley, Pirsig, and Parmenides were talking about, I knew that something had changed fundamentally in the way I think consciously about the world. Part of me assented unconditionally to the way they conceive consciousness: waxing psychological, I think that my conscious mind finally realized how it really works (and has always worked, as near as I can tell). As I experience life, following the truth is much more like surfing than building a house on a rock. I tried building that house on the rock, and the rock kept washing away. Now, I am riding the wave. I don't have to stop every few moments and convince myself that the rock is not water. I do not have to pretend to hold onto solid matter where all I can find is fluid.
Kingsley warned me that reading his books would change the way I looked at things. As a faithful LDS, I was not convinced (with good reason: maybe if I had read them 10 years earlier, they wouldn't have changed anything: every individual walks a unique path to Reality). In the end, however, he was right. I must credit him with providing one of the most interesting interludes in my faith journey as an adult.
Monday, July 25, 2011
My Personal Canon
I have been thinking I should post a list of books that really speak to my soul. Here, in no particular order, are books that I find uniquely inspiring as I pursue moral excellence.
Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth). This book is the only part of the Old Testament that I still take really seriously as an inspiring commentary on the human condition. (Some of the Proverbs and Psalms are good, too, but others are not. I can also appreciate aspects of some of the prophets, especially Isaiah, but they also contain a lot of old-school mythology that doesn't really speak to me any more.)
Epistle of James. This is the only book in the New Testament that I really like any more. It is all about real ethical problems and workable solutions. (The Gospels contain a lot of myth disguised as history, as does Acts, and Paul is a bit too polemical for my taste. Revelation is an interesting kookfest, but its ethical relevance is pretty much nil, at least for me.)
Doctrine and Covenants 121. This section of the D&C is a favorite of mine. I still like the image of leadership that it presents (one that strives to inspire emulation rather than demand obedience). If Joseph Smith had done a better job of living up to this, he might not have died so early.
Seeds of Contemplation. This gem from Thomas Merton (published in 1961) has been a real source of inspiration for me. Every chapter is quotable (and useful in real moral dilemmas that I have). The Christianity practiced by the author is an ethical system that I definitely believe in.
What Makes You Not a Buddhist. This introduction to Buddhism by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (from Bhutan) has become another book that I look to repeatedly for insight into the human condition. I have really enjoyed reading it over and over again, noting my reaction to the four truths: (1) all compounded things are impermanent; (2) all emotions are pain; (3) all things have no inherent existence; (4) nirvana is beyond concepts. If I have an old-school credo (map of "ultimate reality"), this might be one of the most accessible statements of it that I have stumbled across.
War and Peace; Anna Karenina. I have read both of these books multiple times over my life (especially the former, but the latter is also really, really good). I am always impressed at the insight into humanity (rich and poor, working and lazy, intelligent and not, civilized and savage) that both contain. Of the Russian writers, Tolstoy is the only one that has always spoken to me (though I really like Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, which should probably also be in this canon). War and Peace is everything one could want in a book: comprehensive, entertaining (light-hearted at times, but deadly serious too), and very long (it is one of the few books over 1000 pages that I routinely wish were longer). Anna Karenina shows us all aspects of sin, including the humanity (and human goodness) of the sinner. Together, I think they provide more useful insight into your average human reality than any ancient mythology.
Dao De Jing. This ancient Chinese text is a recent addition to my canon. (I would not have understood it as a young[er] man, back when I approached everything in terms of Platonic forms, confounding the abstract with the concrete.) I discovered it while working on the problem of organic wisdom (as opposed to absolute knowledge), and I have really fallen in love with it. Life (and human ethics) is about process, not results, and everything we do is fluid. Nothing is ever set in stone (unless it is meant to be broken).
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As a young college student, I was drawn to the Greeks and Greek philosophy, and I could never figure out why. I also wanted to achieve a kind of personal excellence in other fields of endeavor that were important to me, but was not really interested in competition or what most moderns categorize as "success" (money, power, prestige, technical brilliance, etc.). Robert Pirsig's book (published in 1974) is one of the clearest expressions of my own longing for "quality" (my own authentic, integral experience with reality) that I have ever found. As I read it, something inside me said, "Yes! Yes! That's just what I have been feeling. That's precisely why I hate my relationship with machines and am obsessed with studies that yield no obvious external rewards!" The book is excellent.
Never Let Go. This quirky collection of strength-training tips and life advice created by Dan John (and published in 2009) is included here because it speaks to my conviction that human ethics involve the whole individual, with physical health laying the groundwork for moral excellence (and all other emergent properties of the human condition that we sometimes refer to with words like "spirituality"). Dan believes this too (as far as I can tell), and his book is refreshingly honest, simple, and packed with great strength-training advice (including knowing references to most of the other authors I have read in my search for top-notch health tips). Rather than pad my list with a bunch of stuff about strength and health, I include Dan as a concession to that part of my life (which continues to be important). Also, I find his brutal honesty and humility as refreshing as they are funny. (Seriously, how many strength books do you know that give you real insight into being healthy and strong and make you laugh at the same time? Not many, I'm guessing.)
Fooled By Randomness; The Black Swan; The Bed of Procrustes. I have read Taleb's books several times (including the last, a collection of modern proverbs). I find them continually entertaining and insightful (despite what some critics think). They never fail to put me in touch with the reality of my own ignorance (which is what every good book should do, in my opinion). I really like them.
These are all the obvious titles that come to mind today. Of course I may expand the list, as time goes by. My canon is completely open.
Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth). This book is the only part of the Old Testament that I still take really seriously as an inspiring commentary on the human condition. (Some of the Proverbs and Psalms are good, too, but others are not. I can also appreciate aspects of some of the prophets, especially Isaiah, but they also contain a lot of old-school mythology that doesn't really speak to me any more.)
Epistle of James. This is the only book in the New Testament that I really like any more. It is all about real ethical problems and workable solutions. (The Gospels contain a lot of myth disguised as history, as does Acts, and Paul is a bit too polemical for my taste. Revelation is an interesting kookfest, but its ethical relevance is pretty much nil, at least for me.)
Doctrine and Covenants 121. This section of the D&C is a favorite of mine. I still like the image of leadership that it presents (one that strives to inspire emulation rather than demand obedience). If Joseph Smith had done a better job of living up to this, he might not have died so early.
Seeds of Contemplation. This gem from Thomas Merton (published in 1961) has been a real source of inspiration for me. Every chapter is quotable (and useful in real moral dilemmas that I have). The Christianity practiced by the author is an ethical system that I definitely believe in.
What Makes You Not a Buddhist. This introduction to Buddhism by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (from Bhutan) has become another book that I look to repeatedly for insight into the human condition. I have really enjoyed reading it over and over again, noting my reaction to the four truths: (1) all compounded things are impermanent; (2) all emotions are pain; (3) all things have no inherent existence; (4) nirvana is beyond concepts. If I have an old-school credo (map of "ultimate reality"), this might be one of the most accessible statements of it that I have stumbled across.
War and Peace; Anna Karenina. I have read both of these books multiple times over my life (especially the former, but the latter is also really, really good). I am always impressed at the insight into humanity (rich and poor, working and lazy, intelligent and not, civilized and savage) that both contain. Of the Russian writers, Tolstoy is the only one that has always spoken to me (though I really like Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, which should probably also be in this canon). War and Peace is everything one could want in a book: comprehensive, entertaining (light-hearted at times, but deadly serious too), and very long (it is one of the few books over 1000 pages that I routinely wish were longer). Anna Karenina shows us all aspects of sin, including the humanity (and human goodness) of the sinner. Together, I think they provide more useful insight into your average human reality than any ancient mythology.
Dao De Jing. This ancient Chinese text is a recent addition to my canon. (I would not have understood it as a young[er] man, back when I approached everything in terms of Platonic forms, confounding the abstract with the concrete.) I discovered it while working on the problem of organic wisdom (as opposed to absolute knowledge), and I have really fallen in love with it. Life (and human ethics) is about process, not results, and everything we do is fluid. Nothing is ever set in stone (unless it is meant to be broken).
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As a young college student, I was drawn to the Greeks and Greek philosophy, and I could never figure out why. I also wanted to achieve a kind of personal excellence in other fields of endeavor that were important to me, but was not really interested in competition or what most moderns categorize as "success" (money, power, prestige, technical brilliance, etc.). Robert Pirsig's book (published in 1974) is one of the clearest expressions of my own longing for "quality" (my own authentic, integral experience with reality) that I have ever found. As I read it, something inside me said, "Yes! Yes! That's just what I have been feeling. That's precisely why I hate my relationship with machines and am obsessed with studies that yield no obvious external rewards!" The book is excellent.
Never Let Go. This quirky collection of strength-training tips and life advice created by Dan John (and published in 2009) is included here because it speaks to my conviction that human ethics involve the whole individual, with physical health laying the groundwork for moral excellence (and all other emergent properties of the human condition that we sometimes refer to with words like "spirituality"). Dan believes this too (as far as I can tell), and his book is refreshingly honest, simple, and packed with great strength-training advice (including knowing references to most of the other authors I have read in my search for top-notch health tips). Rather than pad my list with a bunch of stuff about strength and health, I include Dan as a concession to that part of my life (which continues to be important). Also, I find his brutal honesty and humility as refreshing as they are funny. (Seriously, how many strength books do you know that give you real insight into being healthy and strong and make you laugh at the same time? Not many, I'm guessing.)
Fooled By Randomness; The Black Swan; The Bed of Procrustes. I have read Taleb's books several times (including the last, a collection of modern proverbs). I find them continually entertaining and insightful (despite what some critics think). They never fail to put me in touch with the reality of my own ignorance (which is what every good book should do, in my opinion). I really like them.
These are all the obvious titles that come to mind today. Of course I may expand the list, as time goes by. My canon is completely open.
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