From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 08 2003 - 16:22:27 GMT
Hi
Nice post. I am certainly interested in how freedom and order
play out at the cosmological and biological and social and intellectual
levels. I see freedom as our highest value but it has to be considered
in a context of actual existence/order; freedom is increased when
you are able to achieve it at a higher level, supported by an increased
range of possibilities. Hence certain amounts of order have to be embraced
to move on to higher levels of freedom. So that a planned economy may
be a block to freedom at one time and a road to greater freedom at another.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: < >
To: < >
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 6:56 PM
Subject: MD Questions pertaining to the MoQ
> hello all, this is my first post to this site. i read zamm for the first
time two weeks ago, after having given it to my sister as a gift some two
and a half years ago. i quickly read lila after that. i was happy to find
mention of this website in pirsig's commentary in my edition of zamm, and
while i've been able to read several of the reviews and some commentary, the
sheer volume of it on the site makes it tough to get through anywhere near
all of it.
>
> these books both seemed to hit me in the exact right spot, tying together
a lot of the thoughts i've had over the last couple years. i am now
currently in the process of trying to formulate my undergraduate
concentration around some of the ideas of the MoQ, particularly the
potential of the arts in re-establishing the mystic perspective within the
academy and society at large.
>
> all that being said, i had some thoughts and questions that i hoped some
people might be able to address. i'm sorry if they may be re-hashing things
previously discussed and/or hard to digest. any commentary would be greatly
appreciated.
>
>
> 1) in zamm, pirsig seems to view the change that took place in regards to
arete around plato and aristotle as the subordination of dynamic quality so
as to elevate the SOM means of approaching the world. while societies prior
to this most certainly had their own science and significant scientific
developments, the depth of scientific inquiry that came out of the greek
tradition seems to be due to the devotion of the field to the SOM almost as
a sort of intellectual level religion. i'm curious as to whether greater
moral value would then be seen in the cultures before Greece which
maintained a more MoQ directed approach, and how that would apply to the
moral results of European imperialist expansion.
>
> 2) in ch. 24 of lila pirsig jumps through a great deal of MoQ-based
explanation of recent history. this chapter probably gave me the most
problems of any in the book. I was struck by his only mentioning the
conflict between different levels of static patterns, and not noting
possible areas of agreement. I think that on each level of development
there seems to build a sort of tension between freedom and order. the need
for order is what puts the static patterns into place, the need for freedom,
or dynamic quality, is what ultimately springs forward the next level. yet
with each level, especially the subject-based static patterns, there seems
to be the possibility to return and address the need for value of the
previous level. thus intellectualism has as a responsibility not only to
put into place the highest possible level of social static value, but also
biological value. pirsig spoke of a colleague who lived in an area with
gang problems. while a direct extension of!
> intellect may not solve a gang problem, intellect can be applied to
creating more stable social structre, in addition to meeting the basic
biological needs that cause beings to enter into societies in the first
place (food, shelter, health). non-rational hierarchies of physical
well-being as put forward through the society will ultimately push backward
toward pre-social disorder.
>
> pirsig also spoke of the need for policing and weaponry in the wake of
the destruction of the victorian social values. he said that intellectuals
can sometimes be overly optimistic(naive) as to human nature, and that once
social values have been eroded, this policing structure is needed to
maintain order. i found this invoking of human nature troubling, and would
argue that human nature is more or less the face of value within any social
structure. rather than policing as an instrument of stability, new social
structure, social values simply need to be established(ones the prioritize
the meeting of biological value). intellect can help within both of these
problem areas, but it seems to have trouble when it addresses them from a
SOM. (I find the order/freedom question particularly interesting given the
current conflict within the US pertaining the "war on terrorism", Patriot
Act, etc.)
>
> 3) i particularly enjoyed the end of lila and pirsig's commentary on
ritual and its place within the mystic tradition. it seems to me that
ritual, static patterns, become bad only when they begin to see themselves
as ends of their own and not as enabling the pursuit of larger ends, dynamic
quality. this seems to be a conflict within any society when order becomes
taken too seriously thus stifling freedom. on the other hand, i was
disappointed by pirsig's rather short analysis of capitalism/socialism. i
thought his dismissal of socialism, while historically accurate in
addressing the stifling of dynamic freedom via excessive static patterns,
failed to address the similar occurence within the capitalistic framework
(concentration of power, wealth, resources thus eliminating the dynamic
freedom gained through competition.) I thought an important point would
have been to look at the creation of competition as a social value of great
importance, and how that ultimately plays!
> out in the pursuit of dynamic quality (my own opinion would be: not
well). While finding beauty in the dynamic quality of the Giant (New York),
it would seem to me that the movement and dynamism need not necessarily or
actually be directed toward Quality, but some mistaken step-sister due to
the failure of intellect to rein in the misplaced social values.
>
>
>
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