Re: MD What have you freed lately?

From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 20:29:28 BST

  • Next message: Matthew Poot: "Re: MD Was > > When metaphysics are not a metaphysics"

    Hi Platt, Leland, Mark, all,

    On Mar 30, 2004, at 4:35 PM, Platt Holden wrote:
    >
    > "Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of realty, the
    > source of all things, completely simple and always new. It was the
    > moral
    > force that had motivated the brujo in Zuni. It contains no pattern of
    > fixed rewards and punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and
    > its
    > only perceived evil is static quality itself—any pattern of one-sided
    > fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of
    > life." (Lila-9)
    >
    > Of all the passages in Lila, none is more significant than this one. It
    > describes how Pirsig views the mysterious mystic force he calls Dynamic
    > Quality.
    > First, it is a force, an energy, drawing all creatures great and small
    > towards betterness.
    > Second, it created and continues to create everything new under the
    > sun.
    > Third, its highest good is freedom from static patterns.
    >
    > So I keep asking myself, "What have you freed from a static pattern
    > lately?" Unfortunately I can only answer, "Nothing special."
    >
    > Perhaps in raising two children I’ve had a hand in freeing them from
    > the
    > static patterns of childhood dependency. That’s about it, but at least
    > it’s something.
    >
    > What patterns have you broken? What have you set free? How have you
    > responded to DQ? Is there a brujo among us?
    >

    Pirsig had something else to say about freedom in his afterword to ZAMM:
    "The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling
    it ``freedom,'' but in the final analysis ``freedom'' is a purely
    negative goal. It just says something is bad. Hippies weren't really
    offering any alternatives other than colorful short-term ones, and some
    of these were looking more and more like pure degeneracy. Degeneracy
    can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation."

    DQ puts freedom in a positive light. The DQ/sq split suggests how we
    don't necessarily have to speak in negative terms about freedom since
    freedom can lead to dynamic improvement. We always knew that there was
    something good about freedom. The MOQ helps us to articulate it.

    However, Pirsig's connection between degeneracy and freedom still
    applies. Though from the DQ perspective all static patterns are evil,
    there is no dynamic improvement without static latching as Leland
    pointed out.

    I think this is where Mark's thinking about dynamic-static tension and
    sq-sq coherence comes in. From each static level's perspective every
    other level is evil as is DQ in it's ongoing assault on the stability
    of static patterns. From the DQ perspective every static pattern is
    evil. It is only from the Quality perspective that the two are
    reconciled in the whole of the One. Freedom may be the highest good
    from the DQ perspective, but from the Quality perspective, DQ is only
    one kind of Good that needs to be integrated into a "sweet spot."

    Pirsig said "This book offers another, more serious alternative to
    material success...It gives a positive goal to work toward that does
    not confine." There is a positive goal (sweet spot) because of static
    latching of betterness. Without the static latching, DQ could only be
    understood in negative terms rather than in terms of betterness.

    Talking about DQ, freedom, and mystical experience alone without static
    latching seems to me like the Hippie's talk in that it's not any real
    alternative to static patterns since there is no way to be a living
    being and be literally free of static patterns. It just doesn't make
    sense to think of freedom from all static patterns as absolute good.
    Perhaps DQ, freedom, and mystical experience perhaps can be fun but
    hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupations. I've never had a
    mystical experience, so I don't know.

    Anyway, breaking static patterns does not necessarily increase freedom.
      In fact, doing so can decrease freedom, so I think "what have you
    freed?" needs to be clarified. Freeing a sick patient from germs is
    good, but freeing your 13-year old from her curfew could be
    catastrophic.

    If we want to talk about freedom as a positive as we Americans love to
    do, we should be talking about freedom to flourish or something like
    Mark's sweet spot rather than freedom from all static patterns.
    Instead of being a negative, I would define MOQ informed freedom as the
    condition of openness to dynamic improvement.

    Social conservatives can argue that society's laws help make us free
    since we could not flourish as human beings without society. Liberal's
    can talk about how to create the conditions for more people to
    flourish. Perhaps the two groups could even find some common goals if
    they can begin to see freedom in a positive light as the sweet spot in
    a DQ/sq relationship.

    Thanks,
    Steve

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