From: Patrick van den Berg (cirandar@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 00:03:49 BST
Hi David (Morey),
Very clear, very good essay. No objections.
Greetings, Patrick.
--- David MOREY <us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> What strikes me about Pirsig is the opportunity he helps to bring into
> existence.
> This opportunity is to create an alternative language to the
> language of SOM. I agree that Rorty is probably not going to give us
> the level of help we need if the world is going to pull back from more
> barbarism.
> But I think we are getting a distorted picture of Rorty here when we
> seem to
> be
> analysing fragments of his thought, it seems to me that the Rorty
> critics
> are not
> familiar with the full body of his work, I have read most of Rorty and
> feel
> that
> this reading was entirely worthwhile, that his main concern is to
> enable us
> to value the humanities on an equal footing to the natural sciences.
> This
> seems
> very important. But I would like to thank him and march on further
> forward
> than
> he seems prepared to go. In the UK Robert M Young has also tried to
> enrich
> our
> conceptions of what it is to be human by talking about existence in
> its full
> biological,
> cultural, historical, social, personal context. He is also an advocate
> of
> Pirsig. See this essay:
>
> http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap131h.html
>
> What I would like to take from Pirsig is an approach to life that
> clearly
> weighs it up
> in terms of dynamic and static quality. The fragile static structure
> of the
> world, its
> ecology, has to live hand in hand with the creative yet also dangerous
> motion of dynamic
> quality. The creative and destructive are surely closely related.
> Freedom is
> somehow released
> by both but perhaps in opposite directions. Two static patterns like
> galaxies crash into each other
> and we have a very dynamic situation. You build a bridge over a river
> and
> you increase freedom
> of movement in a positive direction. SOM creates a fracture between
> the
> valuing subject
> and valueless objects from a quality experience, as if you could split
> the
> two. As Nietzsche mocks:
> a thinker is someone who makes the real more simple than it is. MOQ is
> all
> about doing less damage
> to the real with its dynamic and static split, where their connection
> is
> surely obvious, the dynamic is what
> lays the static down in its patterns. And above all value is clearly
> applicable to both sides/poles of the split.
> hence a more human world. With MOQ we surely become more aware of the
> value
> of all the static
> patterns that make up our current situation and world, and how they
> interconnect, appear at certain
> historical points and also come into conflict. But dynamic value also
> enables us to value change and the unique
> dynamic potential of each individual precisely because of their
> individual
> uniqueness. Everything becomes part
> of the movement, an organic whole, like a tree, where the oldest parts
> make
> up the trunk, and the tips are
> new shoots, often represented as a flame tipped tree in alchemy. For
> the new
> shoots to reach this height
> everything else had to be build up on the roots and trunk first. We
> have to
> start seeing the whole cosmos as
> a purposeful story if we are going to value the whole cosmos.
> Democracy,
> property rights, the national cause,
> religion, human rights, etc have all had there good and bad days, but
> we
> have surely got to achieved a level
> of awareness where we really start to value human beings as the most
> significant achievement of the work
> of dynamic and static quality, or freedom/creativity/imagination and
> limitation/form/repetition. We also need
> to start some real education, interested in thinking, interested in
> putting
> together all parts of knowledge
> rather than fragmenting them. The current fragmentation of knowledge
> is the
> greatest demonstration of the
> eventual inadequacy of SOM. How else did we get from the value of the
> human
> soul to the man-machine,
> or the sacredness of the earth to its current destruction and
> excessive
> resource exploitation?
> I love science, I like a bit of modern technology, but it is also the
> worst
> example of SOM thinking when
> it is not seen for the simplification of reality it is. Currently it
> dominates our thinking. It fails to offer any
> values that can challenge inequality and over consumption. Capitalism
> has
> run its course, it is now a threat
> to our existence. It enhances inequality. Inequality is now a world
> wide
> security threat. In Capitalism you can
> use human beings as a means rather than an end. I.E. as a means to
> making
> wealth, a wealth that is no longer
> shared on an equal enough basis. And in the structure of companies,
> based on
> the command structure of an army,
> you teach people the acceptability of inequality, and how to be a part
> in a
> machine, and how to live without
> responsibility and taking decisiions for themselves. More equality,
> less
> authority and command, democracy at
> work as well as in government, and therefore much better education for
> all
> if everyone is going to be part
> of all decision making processes. Any objections?
>
> Regards
> David Morey
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:13 PM
> Subject: RE: MD MoQ platypuses
>
>
> > Andy, Patrick, Matt and all:
> >
> > dmb says:
> > In terms of Pragmatism, Pirsig compares his ideas with James. He
> makes a
> > distinction between the two because practicality and social
> satisfaction
> > itself has no way to avoid the moral nightmares of the 20th century.
> And
> > this is true because there had been no way to make a distinction
> between
> > social and intellectual values. This distinction might be seen by
> the
> Rortys
> > of the world as some kind of unreliable abstraction, but I think
> that is
> > exactly where they go wrong. Its not abstract. The clash between
> these two
> > worlds is real enough that millions have died because of it. This is
> where
> > Pirsig's kind of pragmatism excells, I think. It is a very useful
> and
> > practical distinction and sorting out the two is very much at the
> heart of
> > his brand of pragmatism. It corresponds not to some eternal Truth
> (with a
> > capital "T"), but merely corresponds with history and experience,
> which is
> > all we have according the MOQ. We don't go so far as to say what it
> is
> > exactly that holds together in a glass so that we might satisfy our
> thirst,
> > but experience shows over and over again that glasses hold water.
> And so
> it
> > is with ideas. They hold water or they don't. Pirsig's pragmatism is
> > practical and situational without being amoral, without allowing
> evil to
> > flourish. Rorty's brand of pragmatism seems unable to do this in any
> > coherent way. Quite the opposite. "Cash value" doesn't cut it
> because evil
> > is so often very profitable. Rorty seems bent on destroying the
> distinctions
> > that would make possible a principled oppostion to nightmares like
> war and
> > genocide. Pirsig's levels have a way of sorting out these things.
> And I
> > think this is the sense in which he is a pragmatist. I think it has
> very
> > little to do with theories of literary criticism or linguistic
> practices,
> as
> > Matt seems to think. (If there is a place for literary criticism
> here,
> > surely it would be in criticizing the literary half of Pirsig's
> books, in
> an
> > analysis of the themes and characters contained in the fictional
> aspects
> of
> > his books. That seems the most obvious way to apply literary
> criticism
> here,
> > but I've never seen such a thing. And that's really unfortunate
> because I
> > think we are only discusssing half of Pirsig's work, only dealing
> with
> every
> > other chapter. I've tried to get such conversations going more than
> a few
> > times, but they are never any takers. Anyway, those kinds of things
> happen
> > at a level of abstraction that has very little to do with why people
> kill
> > each other. There is no blood dripping from our Ivory towers, but it
> surely
> > flows in the streets of Baghdad. Deconstructionism never killed
> anybody.
> If
> > the current gang had any genuine respect for human rights and
> democracy,
> > things would be different. The only search for knowledge I see in
> this
> crowd
> > is the search to discover how OUR oil came to be under THEIR sand.
> When
> > Pirsig's distinction between the social and intellectual levels is
> applied
> > to the current situation in the world, it becomes pretty darn clear
> that
> the
> > current administration is a step backward and represents a real
> danger to
> > real people. Or so it seems to me.
> >
> > In chapter 24 of Lila, Pirsig wrote:
> > "What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague,
> amorphous
> > soup of sentiments known as "human rights". You were also supposed
> to be
> > "reasonable". What these terms really meant was never spelled out in
> any
> way
> > that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for
> them. He
> > knew now that the reason nobody ever spelled them out was nobody
> ever
> could.
> > In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no
> meaning.
> > There is no such thing as "human rights". There is no such thing as
> moral
> > reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else.
> This soup
> > of sentiments about logically non-existent entities can be
> straightened
> out
> > by the MOQ. ...According to the MOQ these "human rights" have not
> just a
> > sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are
> essential
> to
> > the evolution of a higher level of life. They are for real."
> >
> >
> > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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> >
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> >
> >
>
>
>
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