From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 31 2003 - 22:56:58 BST
Johnny,
Matt said:
When you are making a decision, you weigh your options and you may know which option is traditionally thought of as immoral. However, your particular situation may present itself as a new particular context that needs a new set of rules, or should allow for an exception. If people follow in your thought that in that particular context there should be an exception, a new static pattern of morality is established.
Johnny said:
If you think most people would agree with you and make that exception, then it is, in your estimation, moral. THe only reason you would think that, though, is if there were other static patterns at work that you felt most people would consider stronger than the one you are considering breaking.
Matt:
The only way I can see that you could hold this is if all static patterns existed at the beginning of time. This is Bad News Bears. As far as I can see, you are denying that new static patterns can be created, and if this is the case, then we (not to mention you and Pirsig) have a lot less in common than I first thought.
Again, it seems to me that you are as much a cheerleader for static patterns as others are for DQ. You say, "[DQ cheerleaders] think that it is better to break static patterns and 'follow DQ', which is an excuse to act immorally and still feel self-righteous." As far as I can tell, you are saying the exact opposite, with all of the entailed self-righteousness. You round out your self-righteousness by defining static patterns as the only thing that exists, Dynamic Quality, the breaking of static patterns, is only an illusion. Really what is happening is that you are following a different static pattern. In other words, you can't break free from static patterns. As you say, "The only reason you would [make an exception to a static pattern], though, is if there were other static patterns at work that you felt most people would consider stronger than the one you are considering breaking." This is why I think it is completely unhelpful to say, "Follow static patterns," whe
n making a decision because the reply will be, "Which one?"
I would agree, you can't break away from static patterns. I would call that the contingent turn. But the pragmatist replaces "breaking" metaphors for DQ with "creating" metaphors. You can create new static patterns and, as far as I can tell, you've precluded that option being open for you.
The way a pragmatist would characterize the relation between static patterns of Quality and Dynamic Quality is not between the immoral and moral (as DQ cheerleaders would have it) or between the moral and immoral (as static pattern cheeleaders would have it). The pragmatist sees the relation between static patterns and DQ as that between the dead past and the hopeful future. We hope old, crappy static patterns will die off and be replaced by new, better patterns. But these patterns are created, they do not always exist in what came before. I think the notion of a "perrenial philosophy" is empty. Pragmatists read intellectual historians like Hans Blumenburg and Bernard Yack to see how new patterns have been created.
Johnny said:
Yeah, it seems we agree on continggency. I don't understand why you want people to try to keep their heads out of the waters of culture, even though you know that it is impossible. That's how you drown, by trying to climb out of the water. There is no need for counterbalance, it is what erodes away the force of all belief, and therefore of matter - it makes things not matter.
Matt:
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. You are still using a dichotomy where you can either divorce yourself from culture, or immerse yourself in it. That's why you think I'm saying we should keep our heads out of the waters of culture. "Culture" is ubiquitous to humans, just as "universe" is ubiquitous, period. Its as silly to say "Immerse in/Escape from culture!" as it is to say "Immerse in/Escape from the universe!" They just don't have any force and make no sense after you make them ubiquitous, which is what the contingent turn does for culture.
Matt
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