From: David Harding (davidharding@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Oct 31 2003 - 01:27:26 GMT
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 02:18 am, Platt Holden wrote:
> Hi David H.,
>
> David previously:
> > I don't think that quality is 'style' or even 'substance of style'.
> > Pirsig talks at lengths in ZMM about classical ugliness with 'romantic
> > aesthetic style' as that which is patched on to give something the
> > Appearance of quality.
>
> From Will's column:
> > > Postrel writes. "Aesthetics shows rather than tells, delights rather
> > > than instructs.
> > > The effects are immediate, perceptual and emotional. They are not
> > > cognitive, although we many analyze them after the fact."
> > >
> > > Will adds, "Aesthetics, Postrel stresses, is not irrational or anti-
> > > rational, it is pre-rational or non-rational."
>
> David comments:
> > All of these are synonyms for Romantic Quality, however my guess would
> > be once this "Style" is analysed it would be nothing but a meaningless
> > mumbo jumbo. Like the 'fake fireplaces' and 'hedges which only draw
> > attention to what is not there' in ZMM.
>
> David concludes:
> > To me, it looks like Style is making inroads into the American psyche,
> > which sadly isn't new or Dynamic, it only Appears new..
>
Hi Platt,
> Platt is curious:
> What's the difference between real Quality and romantic Quality?
I would say that Quality is that which is immediately experienced, as in Lila
the scientist who sits on the hot stove will be quick to jump off and after
this experience he then creates ideas such as stove and hotness, and oaths to
describe his situation. Romantic Quality on the other hand as described in
ZMM is the surface beauty of things which can be partnered together with
Classical Quality.
> Why is "Style" meaningless mumbo jumbo. Meaningless to whom?
I'm not sure of the precise history of the word Style so I looked it up in the
dictionary and formed an ad hoc one to get a better idea..
Style n
1. An instrument used by the ancients in writing on tablets covered with wax,
having one of its ends sharp, and the other blunt, and somewhat expanded, for
the purpose of making erasures by smoothing the wax.
2. Mode of expressing thought in language, whether oral or written;
especially, such use of language in the expression of thought as exhibits the
spirit and faculty of an artist; choice or arrangement of words in discourse;
rhetorical expression.
3. a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is
characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period; "all the
reporters were expected to adopt the style of the newspaper"
Remember Rhetoric in ZMM? Style is an offshoot term, its manifestation from
an ancient writing instrument into another term for rhetorical expression
and nowadays you can do just about anything in a particular 'style' . This
style, as I have said, is patched on because since Plato people have sought
to define the good and where possible subordinate it intellectually which is
thus increasingly strangling quality and producing 'forms' of classical
ugliness. And so as people have become progressively alienated from 'the
source of all things' the result has been a desperate attempt to reclaim this
with 'style' or as Pirsig puts it in Chap 25..
"The result is rather typical of modern technology, dullness of appearance so
depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of 'style' to make it
acceptable."
> How do you tell new or Dynamic from that which only "appears new?"
From the harmony it produces.
Regards,
David H
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