From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Thu Sep 04 2003 - 20:20:00 BST
Krzys:
So here's my dilemma: On one hand, Clement's Quality (esthetic
judgement) is immediate and on the other Squonk's Quality (beauty) is
"learned" through experience.
squonk: Hi Krzys, There is no dilemma. The dilemma dissolves and becomes
irrelevant when you use the language of the MoQ - for in the MoQ static patterns
of quality evolve from a relationship with existing static patterns and their
relationship to DQ. Therefore, one's experiences in response to DQ generate a
static pattern of the individual which becomes more coherent, harmonious and
beautiful.
I haven't got Pirsig in front of me (lent out, doing seemingly endless
rounds among friends and friends of theirs), so could someone please
help me out with this? How can this "cutting edge of experience"
Quality be the same as Quality that's acquired through experience?
squonk: The Quality you acquire through experience is static (SQ); patterned
and in an evolving relationship with DQ.
In the world of art, it's experiencing a multitude of things that have and
don't have Quality in order to distinguish between the two; I'd heard
it said that in order to recognize a good painting one must have seen
1,000,000 (both good and bad). I can buy this, and I can see how it
could apply to any other field/discipline. Presumably, many of you
waded through a fair quantity of philosophical quagmire in order to
recognize the Quality-with-a-capital-Q in MOQ, no?
squonk: I think maybe you could read ZMM and Lila? In ZMM, Quality is seen to
be primary reality. In Lila, primary reality is suggested to have two
aspects: Dynamic Quality and Static Quality. DQ is very close to the Quality of ZMM.
SQ is suggested to have four flavours if you like, Inorganic (matter) Organic
(biological life) Social (institutions and patterns of group/gernerational
cohesion) and intellectual.
Thus, the human is four evolving and competing value systems responding to
DQ. The type of person you may be said to be depends on what patterns and in
what combinations you are dominated by at any particular time.
Now to the art gallery! How you respond to a work of art depends on your
patterning - the patterning of the work and of the artist; and to some extent all
your experience, ever.
This "cutting edge" of experience as a measure of Quality, in the world
of art, as far as I'm concerned, is a load of hooey. Take the average
Joe or Jane Citizen off the street and they wouldn't know art from a
collector spoon set, whether they see it for nanoseconds or stare at it
for the 30 or 40 seconds of mental masturbation that the average,
ignorant museumgoer devotes to what their guidebook (or the museum)
says is art.
squonk: But everything is art, not just spoons or sculpture. This view is
prevalent in Eastern cultures were art is a ritual coexistence with DQ. I
apologise for confusing you if my examples of what many feel to be 'real' art in the
'real' museum has wrong footed you in this regard.
Art isn't just of 'things' by people who know how to draw, or photographs of
women tennis players scratching their arse.
An even better proof is to take the art out of the museum
and see what becomes of it. Someone who's seen a million paintings may
give a particular piece a second, third, fourth perusal, since that
intuitive reaction isn't often to be trusted. Or then again, you can
do as Steve Martin does in my favorite scene of one of my favorite
movies, "L.A. Story", and breeze through a museum on rollerskates,
because that's all the time you need (didn't that appear in Vonnegut
somewhere?).
squonk: I agree there is allot of rubbish in art galleries. But that is a
very narrow view of art in Quality terms. All human endeavour from sex to quantum
electrodynamics may be seen as art.
But now we're in the world of subjectivity - opinions - and once you
get here, you get into an even more tortuous problems than you can
shake a Futurist sculpture at.
squonk: There are no subjects and objects in the MoQ. If that sounds a bit
off remember that there are no subjects and objects at the quantum level - the
experiment and observer are so intimately linked as to make it exceptionally
difficult to distinguish between them. Subjects and objects may be seen to be
culturally learned patterns of experience.
I'm sorry if I've made semantic blunders - I'm not terribly familiar
with the linguistic territory here. All I'm looking for is a little
help, a little clarity. Am I misinterpreting Quality or am I guilty of
trying to define it?
Thanks,
Krzys.
squonk: As long as you're not taking the piss i have all the time in the
world for anyone who wishes for clarity matey. But please have a bash at ZMM and
Lila first? (That's have a bash at.. not, have a bash over.)
All the best,
squonk.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Sep 04 2003 - 20:20:52 BST