Hi squad
Keith wrote
>"... That was the problem this morning too, with Rigel. Phaedrus had no
>answers. If you're going to talk about Quality at all you have to be ready
>to answer someone like Rigel. You have to have a ready-made Metaphysics of
>Quality that you can snap at him like some catechism. Phaedrus didn't have a
>Catechism of Quality and that's why he got hit." (*Lila*, Chapter 9)
>
>How does one explain the Metaphysics of Quality in 45 minutes or less to
>people who have never heard of it? That is, how does one reduce the MOQ to
>a catechism?
Those of you who've been in the group for a while will recall that we spent
the first two months trying to do exactly this (or I did at any rate). I
came up with the following catechism of the MOQ:
1. The Quality principle
Quality is nature of reality. Quality is morality, goodness, rightness,
value, experience, sensation, awareness and consciousness.
2. The Dynamic-static split
The best way to split Quality is into dynamic and static quality. Dynamic
quality is experienced as freedom, newness, excellence, fun, beauty. Static
quality is experienced as structure, normality, apathy, stability. Dynamic
and static can be achieved simultaneously through dharma.
3. The four static levels
There are four discrete types of static value: inorganic, biological,
social and intellectual. These are experienced as patterns of physical
matter, life, culture and thought, respectively.
4. Static conflict
Each static level sees itself as the highest good and tries to dominate the
others.
5. Static dependency
Although the higher levels constantly try to break free from the lower ones
they are also dependent on them and should not destroy them
6. Morality
The physical nature of the world is also its moral nature. The order of
morality from lowest to highest is inorganic, biological, social,
intellectual and Dynamic. The static levels also exhibit low quality and
high quality patterns within themselves.
It's been a while since I wrote that so I'm not sure if I want to defend
it, however I think it does show a couple of important things.
First, the MOQ is quite a simple theory. I've covered it in six principles.
You might not want to agree with those but I think you can see that it
could be done within a fairly low number. Even if you stretch it to 10 or
20, it's still something that you can fit on a single piece of paper
And second, any one of these principles is a PROGRAM or even several
PROGRAMs in itself. I don't believe it is possible to agree on them all in
one month, however at least by breaking the theory down into its key parts
we can see which areas need further study.
Of course if you want to explain the MOQ to someone who's never heard of it
(and I would add that this person should not be a philosophy or physics
student) you're going to have to find a more approachable way of doing it.
To be persuasive an essay or presentation should have one single message
and everything in that essay should support that point. Pirsig already gave
us the MOQ in a single sentence - Good is a noun - and that's what we
should be trying to communicate, whilst at the same time pulling in the
principles above and showing how they support the thesis.
Diana
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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