From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu Apr 01 2004 - 18:11:33 BST
Steve: 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.
DM: Agree overall with this post, clearly DQ making life
more evolved, better quality, more complex, richer, interesting,
beuatiful is positive, going down the levels and losing
these things is negative. This is the problem with stuff like
Capitalism, if we scrap it are we going to lose what we have gained
or gain new levels of complex DQ? The conservative and radicals both
have a potential case, so hard to know who is right. In the end, we surely
have to overcome most historic patterns/forms. Its all about getting your
timing right.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Peterson" <peterson.steve@verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: MD What have you freed lately?
> 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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