From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun May 02 2004 - 19:47:35 BST
Steve and all MOQers:
Steve asked:
What is a pattern? Do you have a good definition?
dmb replies:
Static patterns, stable forms, persistent structures, whatever words we we
might like to use, is the order that preserves the manifest world. All of
reality as we know it, including ourselves, is made of static patterns. As
Pirsig puts it in chapter nine, "Although DQ, the Quality of freedom,
creates this world in which we live, these patterns of static quality, the
quality of order, preserve our world." You may recall that the
static/Dynamic split was inspired by the story of the Brujo in Ruth
Benedict's PATTERNS OF CULTURE. Pirsig saw as a universal struggle between
preservation and evolution in the battle betweeen the dynamic Brujo and the
static tribal leaders who opposed him, one that that we all experience in
some form or another.
"The tribal frame of values that condemned the BRUJO and led to his
punishment was one kind of good, for which Phaedrus coined the term 'static
good'. Each culture has its own pattern of static good derived from fixed
laws and the traditions and values that underlie them. This pattern of
static good is the essential structure of the culture itself and defines
it." CH 9 p114
dmb continues:
Its not that these patterns are restricted to cultures, its just that this
is what inspires him to make the move. He begins with social patterns, but
this concept is expanded to included the inorganic patterns that hold
glasses of water and magnetic fields together as well as the intellectual
patterns that underlie our philosophies and explanations.
...This is more like a description than a definition, but I think that's
about the best we can hope for since we're talking about everything in the
world.
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