Lila Is Rife with Philosophical Ramblings

Pop philosophy has a certain appeal. It's easy to read. It's easy to understand. It has a self-assured simplicity that almost makes up for its lack of intellectual sophistication.

Robert Pirsig's new book, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, will please readers who enjoy this genre. However, those that expect ideas to be developed rigorously will not be satisfied by Pirsig's latest philosophical ramblings.

Lila is Pirsig's first book in 17 years, and in order to appreciate it, one should have read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. A motorcycle trip from Montana to California frames the narrator's flashbacks and philosophical musings in Zen. The narrator, Phaedrus, undertakes a psychological quest to restore the part of his personality that shock therapy obliterated. He claims that philosophizing about unresolvable issues drove him crazy.

Phaedrus argues that the relationship between subjects and objects can be understood by examining the nature of "Quality." Everyone knows which objects have Quality, but no one can define Quality. The narrator resolves the dilemma by claiming that Quality is neither objective nor subjective--rather, it is a relationship in which subject and object are defined by the value of their relationship.

Although Lila is not billed as a sequal to Zen, it builds upon the argument in Zen. The narrator, still Phaedrus, is a little bit older, a little bit wiser. Now he is sailing his one-person yacht down the Hudson River to New York City. He is joined by Lila, a woman he picked up in a bar one night.

Lila is good, Phaedrus argues, because she has Quality. A friend, Richard Rigel, forces him to justify that assertion, which spurs him to develop a Metaphysics of Quality, his explanation of the "Meaning of Life."

In this grand scheme, intellectual life is built on social life, and social life is built on biological life, but the logic of each level is independent of logic on the other levels.

To explain how this works, the narrator draws an analogy to computers. The knowledge necessary to create circuit boards is different from that needed to program a computer, which in turn is separate from word processing skills.

Phaedrus argues that the forces of intellect, society, and biology try to maintain their current position and preserve their own survival. However, survival of a higher level takes precedence over that of a lower level.

For example, it is moral for an idea to lead to the destruction of society, but it is immoral for a society prevent the development of an idea. The most immoral act is one that prevents a "dynamic" challenge to the "static" status quo.

The argument in Lila is more comprehensive than that in Zen. It is satisfying as a work of pop philosophy because it raises big questions and provides unusual answers to them. Also, in Lila, Pirsig presents the musings of both the narrator and Lila, giving the plot a sense of depth which is lacking in the monologue of Zen. Lila's thoughts offer an alternative perspective on the "actual" events of the novel.

All the same, Lila fails as a serious philosophical argument. Phaedrus argues against other philosophers without presenting their ideas fairly. He attacks Darwinians for not defining "fittest" when they refer to the "survival of the fittest."

"'Survival of the fittest' is one of those catch-phrases like 'mutants' or 'misfits' that sounds best when you don't ask precisely what it means. Fittest for what? Fittest for survival? That reduces to 'survival of the survivors,' which doesn't say anything."

Here, Phaedrus deconstructs the phrase without an appreciation of the larger theory. He assumes that Darwinism claims to predict the future. It doesn't. This is only one among several instances in which the narrator twists the ideas of others to fit his theory. The narrator consistantly employs this and other tactics to divert the discussion from the focal issues of the philosophies he refutes.

And Phaedrus isn't any more rigorous in developing his own system than he is in disproving those of others. Saying that the relationship between biology and society is like the relationship between parts of a computer is not enough. Explaining that they are dependent and independent of one another is saying much.

What Lila does say might be better presented in a talk show than in a metaphysical tract. Nonetheless it is thought-provoking and entertaining.