Hello there,
I found your website and mailing list a short while ago and have been
lurking around since...
Please forgive me for; the length of my email (it's the first time I have
ever been able to discuss these books; any repetitions of points you have
already made; any overly opinionated spiel; any unconscious plagiarism of
Mr. Pirsig's or anyone elses works; and also the religious analogies I use -
these are a result of my own social and personal "mythos", and are not an
attempt to proselytise.
If I may respond to a few posts, points and topics from the past while,
please --
Neurosis and MOQ:
Neurosis seems like a value trap. A person clings to lower and static
rungs of the Value ladder to avoid the uncertainty (or "non-stasisity"... if
that's a word) of Dynamic Quality. Another analogy would be a person stuck
on a ledge who won't reach out to the rescuers hand. Or the monkey with his
fist in the coconut trap. This is something that can be seen in whole
societies too.
It's not that the person isn't aware of Quality; they are only too aware
of it and it's potential to rip off their warm static security-blanket of
thoughts and ideas - they just won't or are very afraid to acknowledge it.
Perhaps the awareness of this bad choice leads to an intellectual
whitewashing (an attempt to supress awareness of a low quality situation)
which itself becomes part of the self-sustaining static-pattern of neurosis.
The mind becomes a house divided against itself, caught in a cycle of
static-value (like the wheel of reincarnation). If I understand correctly,
the cure for neurosis is to acknowledge bad patterns which are supressed by
the mind's propaganda department, and then alter and remove these bad
patterns, and adopt better ones (thus breaking out of the cycle).
Subject-Object Metaphysics vs. Metaphysics of Quality:
Does MOQ make SOM redundant (ie does it really replace it), or does it
actually enhance its value as a set of useful intellectual tools? If SOM is
like a an industrial process that churns out one-size-fits-all philosophical
answers, perhaps MOQ is not a replacement for the Philosofactory, but a kind
of management technique for improving it - quite literally, Quality Control
for S.O.M. Inc.
Somebody who uses carpentry tools well, is not dependent on machines to
do their work for them. This doesn't mean that they have to be a luddite and
not use machines. It means that if something goes wrong with the equipment
or materials in the furniture factory they work in, they are not just drones
or biological extensions of the automation. They can see that the the
product isn't coming out right - no matter what the damn computer printout
says! This is MOQ at work, and I believe it applies equally for
philosophical and material toolkits.
All SOM is, I believe, is a useful intellectual toolkit - and MOQ is the
method for using it properly. One of the most important parts of using any
tools or equipment properly, is knowing their limitations of use.
MOQ means we can be the users and masters of our intellectual tools,
rather than their dependent subjects, because we understand how they work.
Static and Dynamic Quality:
For the purposes of clarity, may I ask if each of you think:
1.) is Dynamic Quality supposed to be THE Quality (Quality Proper, if you
like), and static quality it's degenerate pretender? or
2.) are Dynamic and static Q/quality both analogous to, say, the static Yin
and dynamic Yang of Quality Tao/Quality Proper? or -
3.) to borrow a page from my old catechism book - are Quality Proper
(Quality the Father), Dynamic Quality (the Spirit of Quality), and static
quality (Quality the Incarnation), the three different "persons" of The
Trinity of Quality? Each one OF the one undivided "substance" (it's an
analogy! "that which exists beneath/beyond the 'a priori' appearance") of
Quality, and yet each one uniquely different?
I don't think these are mutually exclusive in the MOQ, but could form the
basis of different "schools" if you like. Some of the debate here seems like
it might spring from contrasts and conflicts among different undeclared or
unrecognised schools of interpretation, along lines similar to some of
these.
I think what seems like the most popular school may have a "Zoroastrian"
kind of interpretation like (.1); that there is in MOQ a kind of cosmic
duality; that this cosmic duality is naturally found in all things and at
all times; that we are supposed to pursue and support the Dynamic God, so to
speak, which will ultimately conquer the static one.
One danger with this could be an emergence of what might be called a
Manichean interpretation. Manicheanism was a heresy that proclaimed that the
Spirit was purely good, and the Body was the source of corruption. It led to
two wildly divergent interpretations; extreme denial and mortification of
the flesh; and complete submersion in bodily pleasures (since the corrupt
body just carried the pure Spirit around, it didn't matter what you did to
the body).
My point (and I do have one...) is that an over emphasis on the goodness
of the pure spirit of Dynamic Quality, to the detriment of "degenerate"
static quality, could possibly lead to both -
a.) extreme "mortification" of static patterns of value (which could include
social patterns too)
b.) libertinism (which could be intellectual over-indulgence too)
- both rationalised by, and involving the extreme neglect and devaluation of
things that can be extremely valuable - even if they are not the source of
value itself. I realize that the MOQ is an attempt to overcome this kind of
objection that was made about ZAMM.
Perhaps also;
4.) the MOQ is analogous to the Jewish Kabala, with Quality at the top,
emanating static patterns of lesser value down through the cosmos and
spheres of existence; each level with opposing forces, and presiding over
lower levels of existence. A kind of Dialectic process.
Mysticism:
Related to my Manicheanist fears, I do believe that the mystic (perhaps I
should add, "and/or intellectual") pursuit of Quality-in-itself, although
valid, is not something that all people _should_ be pursuing, especially at
the expense of static patterns of value. To be "grounded in reality" -
meaning the mundane social level of values - is a phrase that would surely
raise the bristles of some people on this discussion list, but if you take
the word "reality" in this sense as just the folk-term/synonym it is, then
it's not a bad precept. Rabbis who wanted to study the mystic Kabala were
supposed to be married, with a family; be active in their community; and
have a "sound" mind; and thus have a stable anchor in the social level to
prevent them from floating off into the stratosphere of rarefied
intellectual or mystical experience.
[Some may have an objection to my close association of intellectualism
and mysticism, but intellectualism seems bound up with mysticism, if only
because it acts as the immediate opponent or jumping-off point for it.
Please excuse me for being a smart-ass too, but I haven't met too many
mystical bricklayers or farmers, and at least in the USA, mystical
experience in its "pure" form seems to be the expensive luxury of
intellectual brahmins selling books on TV (or of webgeeks like myself with
surplus time). Ouch. That may be a bit too harsh... ;) ]
I guess I would consider myself in more of a "Taoist" or "Trinitarian"
mode of thought with regard to Quality. Static and Dynamic Quality are both
equally necessary components of life, and plural categorisation of variables
(even undefined ones) can help unify as well as divide reality.
Is this heresy?
Mea culpa ;)
- Oisín O'Connell
PS (oh yes, no escape for you yet...)
Regarding the message about Quality experiences-
Definitely camping can be one of the best.
One spring break in Texas, myself and six other guys went to Big Bend
park (it looks like the Old West does in Westerns), each of us from
different countries. The jumble of different people stuck together was truly
a dynamic experience (often bordering on the surreal and sheer chaos)... and
even when we were surviving getting washed away in our tents in a rainstorm,
it was a _great_ experience (I never had whiskey and stewed-coffee for
breakfast before, but when you've been drenched, and awake in a large
congealing pool of mud that used to be a campsite, it's quite good :).
Another year, with less mixture of people, we still had an incredible
experience of a thunderstorm, a hailstorm in the desert, a flash-flood and a
rainbow, though we weren't _in_ the flash-flood. Yet another time it rained
during the night a bit, and the next day the desert scrub came alive with
all sorts of different flowers and smells (which you would miss if you
didn't stop, get out of your car and walk around). Even the control-freaks
among us loosened up and had a good time (though we occasionally had to
threaten them with bodily harm...)
One thing that we learned though, is that you can't try to recreate past
good times like these, you just have put yourself in new experiences and let
it happen itself. Allow every time to be different.
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