From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2004 - 18:29:42 BST
That's a great passage, Platt. Thanks. I remember it well, because
it was the first time I got a clear inkling of the difference between
DQ and SQ. The example of the "great" song when first heard, that
slips a little with each playing, is something we can all identify
with, I bet.
Have fun in Boston, Martha.
Best to all,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
On 9 Jun 2004 at 11:04, Platt Holden wrote:
Hi Marsha,
You wrote:
> I'm soon to see the Gauguin exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts,
> Boston.
>
> I'm interested in hearing MOQ ideas that might relate to Art, and
> add to the experience. Seeing art is never just sensual, at least
> not for me. I'd like to hear your perspectives.
My perspective is exactly that of Pirsig's, only he expresses it so
much better that I've taken the liberty of quoting him at length
below. For me, this is one of the most important passages in "Lila"
because it describes the experience of responding to Dynamic Quality,
an experience that most people have had at one time or another,
however fleeting. I hope you enjoy Gauguin at the Boston museum.
Personally I liked the paintings there by Monet, Degas and Van Gogh
more, especially Monet who once engendered the DQ response in me.
Please let us know if anything during your visit to the museum comes
close to the DQ experience for you. Best regards, Platt
"In a subject-object metaphysics morals and art are worlds apart,
morals being concerned with the subject quality and art with object
quality. But in the Metaphysics of Quality that division doesn't
exist. They're the same. They both become much more intelligible when
references to what is subjective and what is objective are completely
thrown away and references to what is static and what is Dynamic are
taken up instead.
"He found an example within the field of music. He said, imagine that
you walk down a street past, say, a car where someone has the radio
on
and it plays a tune you've never heard before but which is so
fantastically good it just stops you in your tracks. You listen until
it's done. Days later you remember exactly what that street looked
like when you heard that music. You remember what was in the store
window you stood in front of. You remember what the colors of the
cars
in the street were, where the clouds were in the sky above the
buildings across the street, and it all comes back so vividly you
wonder what song they were playing, and so you wait until you hear it
again. If it's that good you'll hear it again because other people
will have heard it too and have had the same feelings and that will
make it popular. One day it comes on the radio again and you get the
same feeling again and you catch the name and you rush down the
street
to the record store and buy it and can hardly wait until you can get
it home and play it.
"You get home. You play it. It's really good. It doesn't quite
transform the whole room into something different but it's really
good. You play it again. Really good. You play it another time. Still
good, but you're not so sure you want to play it again. But you play
it again. It's okay but now yon definitely don't want to play it
again. You put it away.
"The next day you play it again, and it's okay, but something is
gone.
You still like it and always will, you say. You play it again. Yeah,
that's sure a good record. But you file it away and once in a while
play it again for a friend and maybe months or years later bring it
out as a memory of something you were once crazy about. "Now what has
happened? You can say you've gotten tired of the song but what does
that mean? Has the song lost its quality? If it has, why do you still
say it's a good record? Either it's good or it's not good. If it's
good why don't you play it? If it's not good why do you tell your
friend it's good?
"If you think about this question long enough you will come to see
that the same kind of division between Dynamic Quality and static
quality that exists in the field of morals also exists in the field
of
art. The first good, that made you want to buy the record, was
Dynamic
Quality. Dynamic Quality comes as a sort of surprise. What the record
did was weaken for a moment your existing static patterns in such a
way that the Dynamic Quality all around you shone through. It was
free, without static forms. The second good, the kind that made you
want to recommend it to a friend, even when you had lost your own
enthusiasm for it, is static quality. Static quality is what you
normally expect." (Lila, 9)
.
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