Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals

It's a journey worthwhile to take..

Read the first one before you read this. The art of motorcycle

Hard to read. Not as riveting as the prequel

A must read.

After reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was expectinga similar, world-altering book, but compared to the first one, this one is a total washout. Some interesting themes are raised in the book, but overall it's more interesting to Americans than to others.

I am rereading Lila after 30 years, and this time, I was determined to finish it. I loved and respected his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, so much.But now, I am not in learning mode. I have developed and published my own philosophy, and its light exposes Pirsig's ideas on morals and values ("Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and intellectual values.") here as strained, far-fetched, and silly. Unfortunately, he also extends his ideas of quality ("static and dynamic") in an attempt to complete its definition, which he thinks is leftover from ZATAOMM. It isn't. His reflections there were sufficient and accurate for a deep understanding of quality. He should have let it be.Sadly, only 2.5 stars for a book for which I always had high hopes.1 star for the attempt to connect culture and quality. 1 star for many minor insights into humanity, Victorian morals, etc., and 1/2 a star for the story-telling. Loses 2-1/2 stars for the indigestible philosophy.Here are a few examples where he gets things totally wrong in Lila:Example 1: "Natural selection is Dynamic Quality at work. There is no quarrel whatsoever between the Metaphysics of Quality and the Darwinian Theory of Evolution." Problem: Natural selection is a feature of the accidental form of matter called life. By ascribing quality to natural selection itself, he makes a cause into its effect. Not just that, the quality produced is only relative to life and its survival instinct. Our capabilities are expediencies for survival. By giving importance to larger constructs that are neither designed nor willed, he loses his detachment and objectivity and comes up with many false conclusions that are tied to life. Sure, quality within our lives is not irrelevant. It is vital, and we must pursue it. But we can't lose sight of the fact that it does not exist independently of life in the big picture.Example 2: "In general, given a choice of two courses to follow and all other things being equal, that choice which is more Dynamic, that is, at a higher level of evolution, is more moral. An example of this is the statement that, "It's more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than to allow the germ to kill his patient." The germ wants to live. The patient wants to live. But the patient has moral precedence because he's at a higher level of evolution."Problem: Nonsense. It is not morality but just the will of the more powerful species. Trying to justify it by creating some absolute moral scale is a convenient, in fact immoral, blindness.Example 3: "...since a village is a higher form of evolution." and "Just as biology exploits substance for its own purposes, so does this social pattern called a city exploit biology for its own purposes." and "A social pattern is a higher form of evolution. This city, in its endless devouring of human bodies, was creating something better than any biological organism could by itself achieve."Problem: It's ridiculous to ascribe intent and evolution to things like villages and cities.Still, difficult books and books that get things wrong must be read. They are still valuable for learning, even through negation.Some people are born to just write one great book. ZATAOMM was it for Robert M Pirsig. If you haven't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I highly recommend it.

Poor page quality. Keeping the book only coz i want to read it.