From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2005 - 20:18:03 GMT
Marsha stated February 24th:
Or to explore it differently, what would the opposite of nihilism require?
Purpose?
What of the emotions, fear and depression, attached to [nihilism]? Are they
justified?
Ant McWatt replied: Yes. Read Bodvar Skutvik’s “The Quality Event” on
MOQ.org about how a (pre-Pirsig) nihilistic worldview can affect someone.
It doesn’t make for light reading.
Marsha stated February 27th:
Hi Ant,
I just finished Bodvar Skutvik's The Quality Event. It's a great paper.
Ant McWatt notes:
Marsha,
Yes, I’ve always thought Bodvar’s paper one of best personal accounts icw
with Pirsig’s philosophy.
Marsha stated February 27th:
I'm still not getting something. Understand that the Levels have evolved
towards Quality, aren't I a bundle of inorganic, biological, social and
intellectual processes?
Ant McWatt notes:
Yes.
Marsha continued February 27th:
Or am I describing myself as that only because I am still stuck in old SOM
thinking, and until I experience otherwise (enlightenment) I will not really
understand?
Ant McWatt replies:
It’s all relative. Does anyone completely know the nature of the human
condition? I guess not. However, as regards the MOQ, there are two
implicit viewpoints (derived from Mahayana Buddhism) namely the static
viewpoint (180 degrees enlightenment) which sees the permanent notion of the
self as simply a useful convention (if ultimately false) and a Dynamic
viewpoint (360 degrees enlightenment) which sees the self as real to the
extent that inorganic, biological, social and intellectual processes are
manifestations of an ongoing Dynamic reality.
This is illustrated by David E. Cooper in his 2002 text “The Measure of
Things”:
“When enlightened [a person] is once again aware of the mountains as
genuinely present, but in a quite different register of awareness from his
original, naïve one. It is not simply that he appreciates their dependent
status: rather he has become capable of those ‘double exposures’ through
which a mountain both ‘dissolves’ into and ‘condenses’ a world, and is both
a unique, palpable particular, yet an expression of a ‘wondrous’ and
‘advancing’ whole.”
Marsha concluded February 27th:
Is there a group somewhere called Frustration-R-US?
Ant concludes:
Yes, in the phonebook, look under humanists, relativists or post-modernists.
These people sure look frustrated to me without their having a notion of
Being. As a high quality antidote to this 20th century fallout of SOM have
a look at Cooper’s text quoted above – it examines the issue of modern
nihilism and the answers provided to this by philosophies of Being (such as
the MOQ and Heidegger) in some detail. Steve Hagen’s 1997 text “Buddhism:
Plain & Simple” is also helpful as regards the human condition.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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