Platt, Marco, Squonk, Sriram and others,
PLATT: "It's my contention that to enter the "transpersonal domain," become
spiritually awakened or experience "oneness" you don't have read books by
Ken Wilber, attend lectures by Deepak Chopra or spend several months at a
monastery in Tibet, but simply go to your local museum, symphony hall or
trout stream where Beauty is likely to be found if you can't discover it in
your own back yard.
I also believe there is no greater calling in life than to create beautiful
things. Which is why, long after the politicians are gone and forgotten,
the artists and their works will be preserved and revered. I consider
Pirsig to be a first rate artist. I'm drawn to the MOQ again and again
because of its wonderfully lucid, harmonious and elegant intellectual
pattern, especially compared to the degenerate, postmodern, anti-
rational rubbish being propagated by humanties professors at today's
universities."
SQUONK: "Go out into the field and lay down on the ground. Look at the sky
and stop thinking."
KEATS: (Some time ago in another forum) "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'.
That is all ... ye need to know..."
I am responding to this current thread in discussion not so much because I
am totally at odds with it - I am, after all, an artist - but because it is,
IMHO, so pathetically inadequate to deal with my issues and concerns.
Because it is a half truth, and has been around a long while, and because
there is indeed a lot of "anti-rational rubbish being propagated by
humanities professors at today's universities", it sounds good, but it does
not deliver. If it were true, Pirsig would not have written his books, and
this forum would not exist. Instead he would be still laying out there in
the field, staring at the sun. Or more probably, still be at Benares Hindu
University.
Fundamentlly, this is the "quality meats" understanding of quality, which
Pirsig rejects. Quality equals beauty, especially natural beauty. This is a
religious attitude which influences many in our culture, but it should not
be confused with Pirsig's MOQ.
Aubrey Menen, in his introduction to his book 'The New Mystics', says "The
honest sort of Indian mystic has something very simple to say. He knows a
way of putting our minds to rest without resorting to drink, or drugs, or a
crack over the head with a hammer. It is a way of stopping you thinking. It
has no appeal to people whose worry is that they never seem to have started:
but more intelligent people do often feel that they need a holiday from
their own minds, while leaving them intact to come home to when the holiday
is over. That is all Indian mysticism is about, but, as I shall show in this
book, it is quite enough. In fact, it is one of the most revolutionary iseas
in the history of civilization. ... I aim to provide the Western enquirer,
sceptic or not, with the means to distinguish the charlatan, whose aim is to
deceive him, from the honest teacher, whose only object is to help."
Why should I need help, if all I need to do is go to a concert or lie in a
field? Because however pleasant it might be to experience these sources of
quality (note the small q), such experiences do not for most people bring
any great sense of oneness, nor answer their very real problems about moral
and other issues. Nor does it produce a metaphysics, though I am not so
concerned by that. It is a travesty of the MOQ, (and this must be the first
time I have felt the need to defend that on this forum). It certainly
confuses Dynamic Quality with appreciation of beauty, and to my mind that's
quite a feat. (Show me where Pirsig recommends a walk through the art
gallery as a way of resolving his issues with Western society.) And
fundamentally, while such experiences may well point us to a 'oneness' at
the core of things, I cannot recollect any reports of mystic transformation
occurring while looking at the sunset. As Platt at least well knows, Wilber
argues that the only way to that outcome is through adopting a
transformative praxis. Either Wilber and Menen and Pirsig are simply wrong,
and there is no such 'state' as the mystics speak of, or, if the 'lay in the
field' theory is correct, such a state is actually no different to enjoying
a good meal.
Have you ever noticed how unpleasant people who cultivate beauty can be?
Gardeners, artists, and musicians are often enough bitchy, bigoted and
paranoid types, which is one reason their societies are so often hotbeds of
intrigue and personal vendetta. (Sure, I am exaggerating, but just try
joining your local orchid or arts society, before lambasting me too
heavily.) The point I am making is that an appreciation of beauty does not
lead inevitably to a better way of working on the motorcycle that is me. Nor
does looking at and smelling the roses do anything about injustice, cruelty
or oppression.
Having said all that, I want to again make clear that I am not opposed to
lying in fields, which is why I often sit on the hill at night, or go
bushwalking with friends. Nor am I opposed to creating works of art, which
is why I spent yesterday moving six tonnes of sculpted marble to a hilltop
in a nearby town, where it may well outlast all our politicians, or indeed
the human race. Nor do I have anything against stopping thinking, which is
why I meditate most days. It's just that I find exhortations to do these
things crass and shallow.
John B
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