You Get What You Play For!

Robert Pirsig is the best selling author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. He is also the author of another book, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals. I've read both books. Most recently I finished reading Lila... for the third time. I can't say there are many if any other books that I have read three times in my life, but this one was definitely worth it.

Furthermore, as I have a much clearer intention of writing my own book, in this reading of Lila... I allowed myself the freedom to underline and write comments in the margins. Because of this, I feel I digested these ideas much more thoroughly than in the first two readings. In addition, over the past couple of weeks I have been very intentionally bringing these ideas into conversation wherever appropriate, and I am finding more and more instances where Pirsig's perspectives do have relevance.

So, to offer a brief summary:

In Lila... Pirsig challenges the "subject-object" metaphysics of scientific materialism replacing it with his "Metaphysics of Quality". In this "Metaphysics of Quality" he sees the first division of reality being between "static" and "Dynamic" Quality. Furthermore, he sees reality sub-divided into what he calls "patterns of value" that exist at different levels; i.e. there are Inorganic Patterns of Value, Biological Patterns of Value, Social Patterns of Value, and Intellectual Patterns of Value. There is an implicit evolutionary hierarchy here as well as "moral codes" that exist at the interfaces of each level. For instance there are certain "moral codes" that guide the interactions of biological patterns of value with inorganic patterns of value. As expressed by various cultures around the world, there are "moral codes" that guide the behavior of individual biological organisms within various societies (and this could actually be said of non-human as well as human societies, although human societies tend to be the most diverse and complex). As exemplified in our "Bill of Rights", there has been an advance in recognizing the place of "Intellectual Freedom" even in the midst of a Society - for instance, with Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.

About half way through the book, Pirsig points to the Victorian era as representing the last point when "Society" was seen as the highest expression of human development. To know if something was moral, all one had to do was answer the question: "Does society approve?" With this guideline, both biology and intellect were seen as subservient to the prevailing social moral codes.

However, during WWI this "virtuous and noble" Victorian society saw fit to send millions of its young men to their deaths. With the introduction of the Gatling Gun, the casualties were enormous and gruesome. Those who survived were left to question how such a "virtuous and noble" society could be so willing to sacrifice so many of its members. In addition, there was an increasing shift away from those social moral codes as the perspectives of scientific materialism framed the world as not having, nor needing any kind of moral codes to guide it. Everything was seen to be happening by "chance," or the seemingly random assembly of molecules that eventually led to the appearance of complex human beings. Furthermore, since neither a "moral" nor a "society" could really be studied, like a scientist studies a microbe under a microscope, then these were essentially disregarded as having no real "existence" at all, let alone any "value".

Therefore, the generation that followed WWI embraced Intellectual Freedom over social moral codes and traditions. In order to determine if something were "good" one needed only to appeal to one's intellect and the "proofs" provided by science, including anthropology. For instance, if free sexual exploration as teenagers was "good" for Samoan society, than it could be "good" for every other society as well. Pirsig sees the shift of the power base from the Old Victorians to the New Intellectuals exemplified in the election of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the first president to have also been a university professor.

It is from the rising Intellectual Class that the ideas of social engineering via socialism and communism came into vogue. And from Pirsig's point of view, WWII was really a war between the Old Guard of social moral codes and social authority (represented by Fascism) and the New Guard of Intellectuals and scientific materialism dominating society. And the New Guard ultimately won that battle.

From my point of view, the development of the atomic bomb, though pursued for military reasons, was also a pursuit of the intellectuals and the scientists, again without any regard for the moral implications of their work. It was only after their success, and the use of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that those moral implications became much more obvious, especially to Robert J. Oppenheimer. He became a voice against the use of the weapons later in his life, a challenge to the New Intellectual and Scientific Elite, and he was branded a traitor as a consequence.

(Even to this day, many people question the MORALITY of ever developing, let alone using the atomic bomb. But keep in mind, scientific materialism cannot consider morals. The scientific method provides no tools for observing or studying morals. Morals are beyond the purview of science as we currently know it. The "morality" of creating atomic weapons was never at issue, only the facts of the science of creating them, and who could discover those facts and implement them first. If we are going to let the assumptions of scientific materialism guide us, this is logically where they lead.)

By the '60's and '70's a new rebellion took place. This time it was initiated by fairly well-off and fairly well-educated young men and women who not only continued the attack against "society" and "social moral codes" started after WWI, but also began to attack the Intellectuals and Intellectual Institutions that had grown up since then. The new answer to the question "Is it right?" or "Is it good?" - became "If it feels good, do it!" Interestingly enough, as Pirsig points out, many of these young people began to steer their lives towards adopting the social patterns of Native Americans; i.e. more gentle rearing of children, simplicity, speaking directly, and being closer to nature, among other things. However, he also goes on to point out, that this kind of "laid back" approach to day-to-day life does not "fit" well in an urban setting, where there are other expectations - like being on time to do a job where other people are depending on you.

I guess the most important take home point I got from reading this chronicle was this: The revolutionaries of the '60's and '70's made no distinctions between biological freedom and intellectual freedom. I have realized that "If it feels good, do it!"is the most primitive motto of all individual biological organisms. However, even within the first colonial organisms, some of that individual biological freedom had to be sacrificed for the benefit of living more safely and securely within a group of similar individuals.

That most basic pattern of sacrifice of individual biological freedom for the benefit of being part of a collective has replicated itself throughout the evolutionary tree. In other words, some of the most primitive single cells that organize themselves into colonies "understand" that complete "biological freedom" is not "moral" if you want to live in a group with others like yourself. And yet, back in the '60's and '70's this "moral code", that even the members of a Volvox colony could understand and value, got thrown out the window and was replaced with the idea that every individual should be free to do whatever they want, no matter how it affects the people around them. In other words..."If it feels good do it!" and following that - "Survival of the fittest"...

So here we are roughly 50 years later, and if you judge by that particular moral code; i.e."If it feels good, do it," and "Survival of the fittest", then the Big Corporations and the Big Governments and the Most Powerful Countries are also the most "moral"! Hey...they're just "playing by the rules"! Everyone has decided those old Victorians were idiots and didn't have any clue about how to be part of a society. Furthermore, the intellectuals got off track since they could not see a "moral" or see a "society" in any kind of meaningful way, and, consequently, they had nothing to offer to replace the social moral codes of the Victorians.

Now our technology has completely outpaced our Moral Maturity as far as evolutionary progress is concerned. As I listened to Noam Chomsky speak recently on "Security and State Policy", I completely understood why, when it comes to Security of the Society - i.e. the Majority of the People living in this country (for instance), none of our leaders really care if we get blown up by terrorists, as long as They don't get blown up by terrorists, as long as any of their financial backers and corporations do not get blown up by terrorists. They have no sense of being Part of a/Our Society, or accountable by any "social moral codes" that include all of the rest of us. They are just doing their own thing for themselves, while they feed off the rest of us, and off the rest of our labor and intelligence.

However, if you can imagine that a "society" is a real thing. That we are part of a society that is simply a different level or type of "organism" or "pattern of values" to use Pirsig's term, then the 1% are like a cancer that has been growing and growing and growing, building more and more avenues/blood vessels through which to channel the resources of this society/organism to themselves.

There are some people out there who are thinking, like many medical doctors think about cancer, that we're going to have to "radiate the entire body" in order to kill off the cancer. Those are a lot of your violent revolutionaries and apocalyptic thinkers. Of course, such a violent and radical approach risks killing the body itself. Violent revolution can be that kind of "chemotherapy", in that it can destroy the "innocent/healthy" cells as well as the "cancerous" ones, and there is a very good chance that the patient will die - that the patient will not have enough functioning parts left to survive after the cancer is gone.

In his books, Paul K. Chappell writes about violent approaches to resolving major conflicts as being similar to using amputation of a wounded leg to prevent infection rather than antibiotics. He asserts that the key is better understanding. Just as medical doctors have made progress in understanding how the body works, so they know it is better to give antibiotics rather than cut off a leg, so the populations of the world must better understand the nature of conflict in order to find a more precise way of dealing with it that does not involve violence.

Interestingly enough, (and I think without really knowing it) Paul K. Chappell has offered a new version of a "social moral code" that we might aspire to, especially in his book, Peaceful Revolution. And knowing Paul somewhat personally, I'd say he would have probably been quite comfortable in Victorian society! I will not say that he has All of the Answers, but a lot of his work certainly points in a general direction that I feel needs to be considered seriously, especially in light of Robert Pirsig's ideas as well.

One of the strategic instructions of Paul's work centers on the teaching of Sun Tzu in The Art of War: Never attack your opponent at their strongest point. Our government in combination with the current corporate powers, has the most highly trained and technologically advanced military, police, and security forces in the world. Consequently, to try to dismantle any of that through violent revolution would be devastating for all concerned. Again, that is more like the "radiate the entire body to destroy the cancer" approach. And in this case, the cancer has a much stronger immune system than the body itself. Instead, as Paul suggests, we have to attack them at the level of their Moral Authority, where they are weakest.

However, in order to do that, as a society, we have to be functioning with a Higher Moral Code ourselves...and that means we have to understand the difference between "biological freedom" and "intellectual freedom". We have to fully understand that we cannot have total "biological freedom" and be part of a stable, sustainable, society or world for that matter. Consequently, when we say we want more "freedom" we are going to have to be very, very clear about what that means. From my point of view, that needs to mean we want more "freedom" to create new forms of society and community that are not at the mercy and threat of the political and financial "cancers" that have grown up in our midst.

Think of the movie,The Wolf of Wall Street. This movie epitomizes the ideas of "survival of the fittest" and "if it feels good, do it". Those ideas make up the (biological) "moral code" we are actually functioning under, especially here in the West and it is the same "moral code" we have been exporting throughout the world for decades now. However, if that really is the "moral code" we have (mostly unconsciously) agreed to in this society, ever since the revolutions of the '60s and '70s, then those who manage to "survive" the longest and make the most money to "do whatever they want", are the MORAL VICTORS here!!!! And we have NO RIGHT TO BE COMPLAINING about them!!!

Furthermore, if the people who want to challenge them only want to displace them so a New Group can continue to "survive" at the expense of the rest of "society," then that means that those "displacers" are Not Representing a "HIGHER MORAL CODE". Such "displacement" of the "current powers that be" without a Change of Moral Codes is NOT GOING TO MAKE FOR ANY FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE for "society", and that means for Most of the Rest of Us and for the World!...

Really take some time to think about that...

...However, if each of us is willing to recognize that, no matter how loosely we may be held together right now, we are already a part of a Society of Humankind. And to actually make those bonds stronger, we have to recognize that there is a Different Moral Code to guide our behaviors as part of this Society. That Moral Code means giving up at least some elements of our "individual biological freedom"; i.e. to "do whatever makes me feel good," or "reproduce as many babies as I want to, with or without a partner, with or without the means to support them," or to "eat as much crap as I want to even if my bad health negatively impacts the people around me and the medical system that supports us," or to "consume all kinds of resources that I really don't need just because I can," or "Let me speculate in the stock market for short-term gains at the expense of long-term financial stability", etc., etc., etc. If we can collectively move beyond the biological moral code of "if it feels good do it" and "survival of the fittest", and once again find our path to a new, and actually, More Intelligent "Social Moral Code" then, and Only Then, will we be in a position of Moral Authority over those elements of our society that are currently in power - elements that are clearly not functioning with anything like a Social Moral Code except maybe "Honor Among Thieves"!

And, maybe, hopefully, we can turn this mess around in time, and help to renew the other critical component of our survival here - the Earth itself, upon which ALL biological organisms and societies and free thinkers depend.

To Summarize...

You cannot have Biology without the Earth, you cannot have Society without individual biological organisms working cooperatively to sustain it, you cannot have Intellectual Development without a Society that is there to educate its members and to give them the tools of self-discipline to regulate their biological drives so that they can be productive and contributing members to that society, and you cannot have Intellectual Freedom without a Society that understands that without it, there can be no New Ideas that help to keep Society as a Whole moving forward.

I am grateful for the society of which I am a part, in spite of its obvious problems. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had for gainful employment that have allowed me to sustain my biological needs and to further my education. I appreciate the technology that is available to me to continue to expand my knowledge of others ideas and to communicate my own.

And I am grateful for all of the people in my life who read my blogs, who are critical thinkers and communicators themselves, and who are doing whatever they can to make the world and this society a better place for all of us to live and grow and develop our full potentials as human beings, both individually and collectively.

I have hope for the future, knowing what I know now. But I do feel a certain Urgency in spreading these ideas, as the clock is ticking for how long we can keep going down the path we are on. I would hate to see all that we have managed to create here "go to waste" when so much of it can be salvaged with a fairly simple shift in understanding; part of which again, is understanding the difference between biological and intellectual freedom and the critical role a healthy, functional, society plays in mediating between the two.

I welcome your questions and feedback...

Part I of "I've Got the Sun in the Morning and the Moon at Night!..."

...And...I now have INTERNET ACCESS again!!!! Yeah!!!

To All of My Readers:

My sincere apologies for not being able to keep this blog updated more effectively over the last three months. During my time in Austin, Texas I was moving around a lot between various hosts, many of them students, and in many situations I did not have internet access. I've also had some issues here and there more generally with getting my iPad to recognize wifi transmissions so I could connect where it was available. Finally, preparing a full blog takes quite a bit more time and effort than I can squeeze in with only an hour here and there, especially when I have to use at least some of that time available for checking my e-mail, etc.

Nevertheless, I am back in Santa Barbara, CA now with a comfortable living situation and INTERNET access, and I figured it was time I posted an update here...finally!

Starting from the last weeks of July...


I began my official tour of Austin, Texas with a stop at the home of John and Eve Koonz. As I mentioned in my previous blog, John and Eve are living examples of how ordinary people are making a difference in their homes and in their own back yards.

They keep chickens, and they grow meal worms to help utilize food waste and to have protein rich snacks for the chickens. At first glance, the meal worm habitat might seem "icky", but it did not smell and it was actually quite fascinating to see the bugs going about their business.



John and Eve also dry their clothes outside, commute regularly by bicycle and/or public transportation, and, as I had the opportunity to experience very directly, they were supportive and very generous WarmShowers hosts. John was particularly helpful in planning my route to my second Austin host and even accompanied me through some of the trickier parts of that journey.

Saying Good-Bye to John Koonz in Austin, Texas

My Beverly Hills host asked me not to share pictures or her personal info on my blog. Nevertheless, I am very grateful to have experienced her hospitality and she helped me connect with Pastor Karl Gronberg of the Gethsemane Lutheran Church as well. That connection eventually led to my staying at their "Hospitality House" for a couple of nights.




From the Beverly Hills address I made a little side excursion with the Austin Sierra Club members via MeetUp. We toured the Mayfield Park well known for its Peacocks.





While staying with Austin Sullivan, I went for a hike through the Barton Springs Greenbelt along with his brother's fiancé, Kira. We mostly followed the relatively dry creek bed, and then it started to rain. Given that it was summer in Texas, it was actually a welcome shower.





On the trailhead we found a turtle. I kind of recognized it, but picked it up to take a closer look. That's when it urinated on me and the smell was all I needed to confirm that it was a "Musk Turtle"!



At my host on Beverly Hills Dr. and at Chad Greene's house, I did not have access to the internet. So to keep myself occupied while I was "resting", I selected books to read from those available to me. Since I spent so much of my young adult and adult life reading more non-fiction (and a lot of "self-help" style books), I decided to read some of the shorter classics that I've heard about but never actually read. These included War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

From Chad's I had a short but Very Hot 4.5 miles or so to Anika Fassia's house. Thinking that it would be a fairly easy ride, I was not as careful as I would normally be and failed to use my damp camp towel under my helmet, and I did not have enough water either. Reaching the peak of the last of a few decent hills, I found myself growing a bit nauseous and light headed, so I pulled off to the side of the road, got onto the sidewalk/curb and rested, holding my bicycle up while I did so. At that point I was probably less than a quarter mile from Annika's house, but every time I stood up to get back on my bicycle, I started getting dizzy again. What was even more frustrating was that there was what looked like a public pool within 50 yards of the concrete retaining wall that rose up over the sidewalk behind me, and that wall was also blasting heat all around me.

Eventually I recovered enough to walk my bike across the multi-lane road to the opposite sidewalk, and down to the street where Annika lived. Even as I walked though, I was still not feeling well, so I had to stop again, within what turned out to be about 20 yards from Annika's house, and sit on the curb once more. Eventually, she and one of her housemates came out to meet me and we all walked back to the house together. All in all, it was a "lesson learned" to never take the heat for granted, no matter how short a ride might be!



One thing I noticed shortly after I got settled in the house was that it seemed Anika's guest bathroom toilette was not shutting off properly. When I helped her understand that the water was simply flowing out and through the sewer pipe, she welcomed my assistance in figuring out how to repair it. At first we tried a new flap, and then once it was clear that was not enough, and that the leaking was coming from the valve itself, we decided to replace that as well, "we" as in Anika paid for the parts and I installed them!

And here I am "modeling" the finished repairs.

Another benefit of staying with Anika was being around for the beginning of an artistic transformation of her living room fire place. Artist Stefanie Distefano was in charge.

Me and Anika at the beginning.

Stefanie at work.

The Completed Fireplace

What was particularly cool about this project was that Anika got together with all of her friends to make many of the tiles that Stefanie eventually assembled into the mosaic. Along with her friends, I appreciate the investment of energy and attention that Anika has chosen to put into her relationships, her home, and into her neighborhood and community in Austin, Texas. And I'm really glad she has chosen to be a part of the WarmShowers community as well!

From Anika's I was generously transported back to the northern part of town by Pastor Karl Gronberg of the Gethsemane Lutheran Church. I felt it was okay for me to accept his assistance since I had already covered the distance by bicycle previously, and I would be leaving on my own to travel back south in a couple of days. While staying at the church "Hospitality House" I was once again without internet, or television, but I did have access to Pastor Karl's library in the house/office next door.

One of the books I pulled from the shelves was a massive volume entitled Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology by Gerd Theissen. On Page 9 I read: "The Bible was able to become one of the most important textbooks of human behavior and experience precisely because in it 'dominating' models recede and models that first fail, but overcome are so numerous."

In other words... It is full of UNDERDOG Stories! (Something that Paul K. Chappell also writes about in his most recent book The Art of Waging Peace....)

Boy! Did that set my mind on a tangent?!

What I have come to appreciate from reading Lila... by Robert Pirsig is that...in truth...the evolution of Life Itself is an ongoing drama of all kinds of Underdog Stories! (More specifically, the interaction of what he describes as "static" and "Dynamic" "Quality".)

The bottom line is...the actual probability of ANY of THIS existing is so remote, that for it to have all arisen the way it has means THE Underdog - i.e. Life Itself - is WINNING, beating the odds, over and over again, and...moving the process of evolution towards more and more highly evolved and adaptive organisms - including human beings, who, for all their presumed "faults" (i.e. "sins"), have the greatest capacity to Interact Dynamically with their environment(s) than any other organisms on this planet! (Although...some research is pointing a finger at viruses and bacteria that may be living out their very own "underdog stories" and using Us to help Them!)

And now we are in a stage where we are evolving our cultures to catch up with our evolving technologies. I'd say we got a little ahead of ourselves with nuclear weapons, among other things, and Now it is time to re-evaluate Why we are doing the things we Can do, with more of a moral compass for what we Should Do. Furthermore, we have a Central Nervous System - the Internet - that we never had to work with before and it is slowly but surely linking all of us as individual cells into a more coherent, Body Human, that includes more and more individual human beings.

That's a lot to be thinking about, so I'm going to pause this update for now. I will add though, that I was able to share some of these ideas at the talk I gave to the Millville Quaker Friends Meeting in Pennsylvania, and the talk was very well received. (I promise I will share more about that in a future post.)

As always, I am grateful for ALL of the different experiences I have been able to have on this, my own "Underdog Journey", and I am grateful to ALL of the people who have helped me along the way!

Please stay-tuned for "Part II" of this blog series...Coming Soon!