From: Barritt (mbarritt@nc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec 16 2002 - 22:41:56 GMT
Mr. Buchanan,
Excellent discourse. Thank you.
Barritt
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 4:16 PM
Subject: RE: MD Systematic about the Sophists
> Sam and all MOQers:
>
> In various threads we've been discussing the difference between
ritualistic
> religion and mystical experience, the difference between static and
Dynamic
> Quality, the distinction between the third and fourth level perspectives,
> between social and intellectual values. In spite of the fact that Zen and
> the Art preceeds many of these terms, I've returned to it with these
issues
> in mind. Even though the static/Dynamic split had not yet been made, I
think
> we can look at ZAMM with our MOQ glasses on. I believe this not only makes
> ZAMM more clear and specific, it also resolves some ambiguities. I hope to
> get at all these issues by focusing in on mysticism as it relates to
> Phaedrus, Plato and the Sophists. That is to say, I hope to show that they
> each had slightly different notions of the "ONE", which is called DQ in
MOQ
> terms. Another very important thing that is going on with these three
> figures is the birth of the intellectual level. This is another reason to
> wear our MOQ glasses. Most of the quotes come from chapters 29 and 30,
where
> Phaedrus is attending philosophy classes and is about to go mad.
>
> The beginning is a good place to start...
>
> "One must first get over the idea that the time span between the last
> caveman and the first Greek philosophers was short. The absence of any
> history for this period sometimes gives this illusion. But before the
Greek
> philosophers arrived on the scene, for a period of at least five times all
> our recorded history since the Greek philosophers, there existed
> civiizations in an advanced state of development. They had villages and
> cities,..and led a life quite as rich and varied as that in most rural
areas
> of the world today. And like people in those areas today they saw no
reason
> to write it down, or if they did, they wrote it on materials that have
never
> been found. Thus we know nothing about them." (335-6)
>
> This pre-historic period was a time of myths and mythic thinking, when
> ritual ruled, when the social level was not only evolving, but really
> flowering. By the time of the Sophists many advanced civilizations and
great
> cities had come and gone. This third level evolution goes way, way back.
> Historically, its true, we know nothing. But by looking at the mythos,
> ancient myths, poetry and art, we can see it leading us out of the caves
and
> into the light. There are very ancient rituals that actually portray this.
> It includes the lighting of a lamp or candle deep inside a completely
> darkened cave, followed by a procession out of the cave behind one who
holds
> the light. The ritual procession then continues up to and through the city
> and then finally up to the temple at the top of a hill. All their choices
in
> landscape and architecture was built to serve this ritual. It re-enacts
> human evolution and demonstrates humanities spiritual aspirations. The
myths
> tell us a great deal about this period, a treasure chest of information,
> which is why Pirsig recommends Campbell the mythologist. In Lila, Pirsig
> takes us back into this period by way of Proto-Indo-European etymology. He
> concludes that his MOQ is really a version of "the oldest idea known to
> man"; that the physical order and the moral order are One and the same. He
> says that he sees this idea in Great religions like Hindusim, but that it
> was all smothered by clap trap and otherwise obscured from our
> consciousness. This was all made obvious to him at the peyote ceremony.
This
> "oldest idea" is all but forgotten now, but in this prehistoric period
signs
> of the "One" were everywhere. This is the world that shaped the Sophists,
> who were something like the height and the end of this age, the children
who
> inherited the fruits of this long evolutionary period. This period is what
> shaped all the early Greeks and is still very much with us all even today.
>
> "Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric.
> Rhetoric in turn is the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece.
> That is true historically, and by the application of common sense. The
> poetry and myths are the response of a prehistoric people to the universe
> around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic,
> which is the generator of everything we know." (ZAMM P354)
>
> I don't wish to get bogged down in too much detail, I just want you to
> notice what he's saying about myths here. He says they're "made on the
basis
> of Quality". Since he says in the same breath that Quality "is the
generator
> of everything we know", I think its safe to say that he's talking about
> Dynamic Quality. Myths are natural, not made by hands. There is an
> unconscious, organic quality to the way they are created. Just like in our
> dreams, we seem to spin out stories whether we like it or not. They're
gifts
> from the Muses. Stories create people, not the other way around. This
> explains their power. They made us what we are. The Greek myths can be
seen
> as the basic assumptions and worldview of the Sophists. And as Campbell
> tells us, all myths say essentially the same thing and this core message
is
> also the core of the mystical vision. To paraphrase the mythologist, the
> myths tell us that all things, all forms and all beings are issued forth
out
> of the ONE, that all things and beings are manifestations of, particular
> inflections of some aspect of the ONE, that all things and beings are
filled
> and supported by the ONE during their period of manifestation, and that
they
> then all return to that source of being.
>
> "Whatever nuance the language of union is given, if there is to be talk of
> mysticism, some sort of deep union must be involved. It perhaps cannot be
> emphasized enough that to speak of mysticism is to speak of an EXPERIENCE
of
> union and not merely speculations about union." (Guidebook P27)
>
> "Plato is the essential Buddha-seeker who appears again and again in each
> generation, moving onward and upward toward the 'one'. Aristotle is the
> eternal motorcycle mechanic who prefers the "many. I myself am pretty much
> Aristotelian in this sense, preferring to find the Buddha in the quality
of
> the facts around me, but Phaedrus was clearly a Platonist by temperment
and
> when the classes shifted to Plato he was greatly relieved. His Quality and
> Plato's Good were so similar that if it hadn't been for some notes
Phaedrus
> left I might have thought they were identical." (331-2)
>
> Phaedrus' Good and Plato's Good are not exactly the same. Why are they not
> identical? This is surely the most interesting question raised here and
> we'll get to it soon enough. But notice how it provides a key to the
> difference between Platonic Phaedrus and the Aristotelian narrator. We
even
> see it framed in terms of finding the Buddha, either in the One or in the
> many. With our MOQ glasses on, I think we can see that the One is DQ and
the
> many is static quality. And in this we can see the core mythical/mystical
> vision, that the many is a manifestation of the ONE, that all sq is
created
> by DQ. Also this Platonic Buddha-seeker appears in every generation
because
> static quality needs to constantly be informed, evolved and refreshed by
> Dynamic Quality in an eternal dance. Now back to that question about the
> 'Good'.
>
> "The difference was that Plato's Good was a fixed and eternal and unmoving
> idea, whereas for the rhetoricians it was not an idea at all. The Good was
> not a form of reality. It was reality itself, ever changing, and
ultimately
> unknowable in any kind of fixed, rigid way. " (P342)
>
> Using the MOQ's terms this difference is easily identified. Plato's Good
is
> a static intellectual description. For the rhetoricians, the Good was the
> One, was dynamic reality itself. They were so close because they both were
> refering to the ONE, but Plato was trying to nail down this same Dynamic
> thing in a static way. The fact that this move also represents a shift
from
> the third to the fourth level of values adds to the complexity of all
this,
> but I think we can still see it.
>
> "Now Plato's hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and Socrates are
> defending the Immortal Principle of the Cosmologists against what they
> consider to be the decadence of the Sophists. Truth. Knowledge. That which
> is independent of what anyone thinks about it. The ideal that Socrates
died
> for. The ideal that Greece alone possesses for the first time in the
history
> of the world. It is a very fragile thing. It can disappear completely.
Plato
> abhors and damns the Sophists without restraint ...because they threaten
> mankind's first beginning grasp of the idea of truth. That's what it is
all
> about. The results...are nothing less than the whole world of Western man
as
> we know it." (P337-8)
>
> The Sophists didn't have any Immortal Principles like the Cosmologists,
who
> were forever fighting about which Principle was the truely Immortal One,
but
> Plato sythesized then and everything that had come before. He installed
the
> Sophists' conception of arete, of the Good, as the Immortal Principle in
his
> own cosmology. Plato tried to capture the One is a static intellectual
> pattern, not to kill it off, but to preserve it.
>
> "Plato HADN'T tried to destroy ARETE. He had ENCAPSULATED it: made a
> permanent fixed idea of of it; he had CONVERTED it to a rigid, immobile
> Immortal Truth. ... That was why the Quality Phaedrus had arrived at in
the
> classroom had seemed so close to Plato's Good. Plato's Good was TAKEN from
> the rhetoricians. (P342)
>
> Pirsig's MOQ does the same thing - almost. He provides an intellectual
> description of Dynamic Quality, but not quite a definition. Unlike Plato,
he
> insists some things can never be encapsulated in this way and admits that
> such efforts to pin it down are degenerate activities. But there's
something
> about the 'Good" that attracts Phaedrus. That's what drives him. That's
why
> he's so frustrated by materialism, the system, subject-object dualism and
> the Aristotelian Professors. It all defies his mystical inclination, his
> inclinations toward DQ, toward the One. He's very close to the Sophists
> because they really lived it and he's nearly identical to Plato because it
> is a philosophical mysticism. He can see the One in both.
>
> "Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be
> apprehended only by non-rational means, has been with us since the
beginning
> of history." (ZAMM P 207)
>
> "The One can only be described allegorically, through the use of analogy,
> of figures of imagination and speech." (ZAMM P349)
>
> When the Chairman has taken over the class and they are reading the
Socratic
> dialogue titled "Phaedrus". As the Chairman speaks, he notices that a
"false
> note has crept in". The tension is high and things are coming to a boil
when
> he notices that "the Chairman has completely bypassed Socrates'
description
> of the One and has jumped ahead" to the allegorical horses that lead us to
> the One. He's taking it too literally and insisting that this is not an
> allegory, but the "truth". Even though Plato was writing about the One
> specifically, and the Chairman was a major league dude, he was apparently
> obvilious to it. And I was oblivious to this whole dimension of Pirsig's
> work the first time I read it too. Like the Chairman, I missed it like it
> wasn't even there. Mysticism is like that. It is pretty much at this point
> that Phaedrus begins to loose his mind and he never returns to class after
> that day.
>
> "I want to say, in brief, that the ultimate journey taken by Phaedrus and
> described by the narrator was the MYSTICAL self, ... Mysticism is always
> associated with some sort of unitive consciousness, a consciousness
> experientially united with ultimate reality." (Guidebook P26)
>
> "At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical" (ZAMM
P25)
>
> I'm sure that depictions of this unitive consciousness are everywhere to
be
> found in Christianity. At-one-ment. Conformed to God. Eating the flesh and
> blood of Christ. The cross as Axis mundi. Being born again. The virgin
> birth. These are all references to the union or the shift in consciousness
> that results, no? Its all about the mystical experience and the ultimate
> unitive reality that is revealed in such an experience. Its about the
> underlying unity behind apparent dualities like static and dynamic, man
and
> God, the many and the One. It resolves them all, gives rise to them all.
> This radical shift in consciousness is totally alien to the Aristotelian
> view. Like a bad theology that blocks out the light, the intellectual
level
> descriptions can obscure this ancient wisdom too. Its no accident that
> Aquinas was an Aristotelain. Like Phaedrus, he had a life-altering
> experience on the heels of an extented period of struggling with the
> futility of grasping after the One by way of references and portrayals, by
> way of static forms.
>
> "Mystical experience is the base from which one lives in fuller union with
> everything and everyone, doing what ordinary people do but with a
radically
> transformed and transforming consciousness." (Guidebook P27)
>
> If the MOQ grew out of that peyote ceremony, then ZAMM get out of his
> original mystical experience. Sure, he was locked up and hammered in the
> head with electricity. It looked like insanity and maybe it was, but his
> description of the central events are unmistakable. Its a mystical
> experience.
>
> "Then even "he" disappears and only the dream of himself remains with
> himself in it. And the Quality, the arete he has fought so hard for, has
> sacrificed for, has NEVER betrayed, but in all that time has never once
> understood, now makes itself clear to him and his soul is at rest." (ZAMM
> P359)
>
> There is so much left unsaid and there are many unmentioned connections
> between what has been said, but this is already too long. And I wish I had
> some fancy concluding remarks, full of insights and profundities, but I
> don't. Hopefully, dear reader, you can connect the dots and see the whole
> picture. I've tried to show how the MOQ's distinction between static and
> Dynamic resolves the tension between the single-minded mystical Platonists
> and the many-minded materialist Aristotelians. I've tried to show that
> social level myths and intellectual level metaphysics can both refer to
the
> ONE, that they both can portray the mystical knowledge revealed in a
unitive
> experience, and that either of them can grow too static and stale and
become
> oblivious to this perennial truth. As Pirsig puts it, Rta, the oldest
idea,
> the "cosmic order of things" is "a deeply submerged hidden root" of all
> these static forms. That's why we started at the begining, in pre-historic
> times.
>
> "Long ago when he first explored the idea of Quality he'd reasoned that if
> Quality were the primordial source of all our understanding then it
followed
> that the place to get the best view of it would be at the begining history
> when it would have been less cluttered by the present deluge of static
> intellectual patterns of knowledge. ... Philosophers usually present their
> ideas as sprung from 'nature' or sometime from 'God', but Phadedrus
thought
> neither of these was completely accurate. The logical order of thing which
> the philosophers study is derived from the 'mythos'. The mythos is the
> social culture and the rhetoric which the culture must invent before
> philosophy becomes possible. Most of this old religious talk is nonsense,
of
> course, but nonsense or not, it is the PARENT of our modern scientific
talk.
> This 'mythos over logos' thesis agree with the MOQ's assertion that
> intellectual static patterns of quality are built up out of social static
> patterns of quality." (Lila P 378)
>
> How's that for a start?
>
>
>
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