Hello Charles, Hello All,
This is a good post and you have lots of questions as it seems. Many of them are
questions having been asked in this list and many answers have been given. So
consider this as one answer, which is surely not an orthodox position around
here. This list is more a sort of brainstormimg-pool than an 'expert-comitee' or
something of that sort ;-).
Charles Williamson wrote:
>
> Hello all,
> My name is Charles. I am new to the list, and this
> is my first post. I am currently a student at
> college. The source of my desire to sign up for this
> list and the subject of this post came to me as I was
> running today.
> Over the past couple of months, I have been going
> through what I guess is considered the normal period
> of stress during a collegiate existence. I have been
> working very hard, but I have also actively tried to
> maintain a social life. This has led me into contact
> with many people. Unfortunately, many of them are
> shallow and unthinking, and have arrived at an
> apparently arbitrary definition of what they see as
> quality.
I guess you are speaking of students of the kind, Pirsig describes in ZAMM,
Phaedrus teaching phase during his time in Bozeman. The ones who try to achieve
social acceptance instead of the pursuit of knowledge to drive them forward. It
took me quite long to realize, that a student,who tries to achieve the knowledge
of his subject only and who doesn't care for social acceptance very much will at
least spend more time on it.
Those students who are driven forward by social attributes and merits that are
gained during their studies and education, are also usually the straight ones;
they work very efficiently. And to be efficient is nothing you have to be
extreme smart for. Nowadays students problem is primarily - IMO and I'm talking
of german study-conditions here - that the worlds knowledge has grown huge with
lots of branches and sub-branches, that someone who only tries to understand
most of them (concerning his/her subject) will be lost in this jungle.
When you consíder all this to be a sort of 'sports', you only have to run
through as fast as possible by means of your quoice (deceiving, 'short-cuts',
external help via mobile, illegal solutions of prior exams, ....). Furthermore
it is important to accept - to simply accept the lessons as they are - the
teached knowledge and don't question it.
"Well, let us just take this as it is, we don't wish to explore further
implications of that question", study-mates exclaimed, as I intended to seek for
other examples, while answering a question during a private
thermodynamics-exercise; I was 'bashed away' in that moment.
> What do I mean by this? Pirsig divides quality into
> static and dynamic, as we all know. He divides static
> into 4 parts, inorganic, biological, social, and
> intellectual (I am doing this from memory and don't
> have a copy of Lila with me, so excuse me if the names
> are off), but he leaves Dynamic Quality alone as the
> pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, again which
> is standard information. What has happened to these
> fellow students and friends of mine, all of whom are
> very intelligent, is that they follow the path of
> Dynamic Quality until it leads to degeneracy. This
> brings up a host of questions. How does one define
> degeneracy? Why does Dynamic Quality lead to it? I
> remember a passage in Lila where Pirsig discusses the
> 1960's, and paraphrasing here I remember him saying
> that the 1960's were an overthrow of all the static
> qualities of the previous generations, and a pursuit
> of Dynamic Quality. However, this pursuit lead to a
> lot of degeneracy, more specifically the drugs and sex
> and following of crazes, both social and intellectual.
> At school, I find myself attempting to maintain a
> very high level of static qualities, but my friends,
> who are capable of maintaining the same level, often
> pursue Dynamic Quality and drop into degeneracy, and
> by that I mean heavy drinking, not doing work, playing
> games, and in general engaging in all the forms of
> entertainment that society has to offer. Out of
> frustration, this lead me to pick up a copy of The
> Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, again. I am fascinated by
> her depiction of the ideal man, and although she uses
> the philosophy of the ancient greeks as her
> justification, the appeal of her description of the
> ideal is undeniable to me. (For anyone familiar with
> The Fountainhead, Rand's use of the ancient greeks for
> justification is akin to the passage where Ralston
> Halcombe decries classical architecture, saying the
> "new" style is renaissance. Rand decries classical
> ways of thinking, saying the "new" style is a
> philosophy attributable to the greeks.)
> This led me to a couple of points. I live a life of
> high static quality. However, I am often confronted
> by the temptations of dynamic quality that I know will
> lead to degeneracy, such as not doing work in order to
> play video games. What does the MOQ have to say about
> this?
> Is there a threshold of static quality, or more
> simply put, as static quality attains higher and
> higher levels, what happens to the implications of
> Dynamic Quality? Does the level of desire for dynamic
> quality drop off as higher levels of static quality
> are achieved, that is, are we trying to approach an
> ideal level of static quality where dynamic quality
> will no longer become important because it will lead
> to degeneracy, such as the ideal presented in The
> Fountainhead? Or, does the level of desire for
> Dynamic Quality remain constant as higher and higher
> levels of static quality are achieved, meaning that
> the higher levels of static quality we achieve, the
> more we tend to devolve into a degenerative state?
> More needs to be said about dynamic quality and its
> implications for all of us, so that we may figure out
> the implications of avoiding degeneracy.
> By the way, I am assuming that it is desirable to
> avoid degeneracy, because by definition it leads to
> lower levels of static quality. Unless of course
> someone is willing to take the position that people
> are willing to accept lower levels of static quality
> for whatever reasons. Either way, I invite discussion
> into this topic.
>
> Thanks,
> Charles
Your observations are precise and right IMO and I myself did a lot of thinking
on those and similar topics and many others here too, but we still have great
difficulties to find through.
The MoQ remains more or less silent on how DQ works at the boundaries of the
quality evolution.
When thinking about what DQ is good for, sounding a bit heretic first, I came to
the conclusion, that in short DQ is the inventive force for finding new qualties
again and again. And the finding of new qualities is what is considered as
evolution also, only in different words. Now I asked myself, exactly when it is
time for a new quality, because those qualities we are talking here about are
meant to be those that cause a great effect on the whole (earth f.e.) and that
is for the above context mankind in my opinion. There are of course small
quality events in each of us, but at large they don't effect on society.
IMO this happens, when a prior step in quality - in direction to a more evolved
'wholeness' of quality - has come to the limits of it's capacity. That leads to
a sort of 'crowdedness' in between the ranges of that very quality, or also the
levels, out of which those that are concerned (f.e. man) try to 'escape'. If
there is no other way to 'escape' from this crowdedness the situation opens up
to DQ more and more, leading to a new quality finally.
For the situation you have described above, this crowdedness relates to the
knowledge you are thought to acquire during your studies. In case it is a
subject, where one easily gets the feeling that many people have walked over
this (intellectual) ground and also have left their contributions to it, this
feeling of 'crowdedness' comes in quite fast.
But not all students are effected equally by this. Some will try to escape
earlier and others will take it longer. On the other hand, we may have also
problems to feel 'distinct' from other people that surround us, for example
socially. This we try to escape from by being more individualistic what gets
visible when you stroll through big cities.
If all this behaviour and striving does not help the single individual, she/he
will try to find his own, very special answers to avoid this feelings of
insufficient 'distinctness' and that maybe also drugs, racing with cars, so in
general looking for thrill of any kind. This helps you to feel (more) alive
again and also leading to the 'finding' of new qualities perhaps.
Hoping this has answered at least some questions and did not produce to many new
ones ;-)
Thanks for reading,
wish you well,
JoVo
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