great post David M ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arlo Bensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:39 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Good Faith ?
> Steve, Ian, all... > > Good discussion. My quick two cents is that underlying all this talk > about "faith" is Pirsig's seminal point from ZMM, "All this is just > an analogy". And when you start with that simple observation, you can > see that the problems with "faith" occur as one tries to solidify or > literalize the metaphor. Yes, at the root of our experience is an > inescapable black hole of Godelian incompleteness. We must accept > that the deeper and deeper we dig into the layers of language and > symbolic representae we build to describe the world, the closer and > closer we come to the inexpressable, unknowable, indescribable abyss. > Towards this, yes, we cannot escape "faith" in that this core is > always beyond our intellection, never capturable in symbolic language. > > But as we move farther and farther from this one simple premise, we > must remember that the symbolic edifice we construct in attempts to > understand this abyssal core are always metaphoric. We can cast this > core as "God", and write anthropomorphic stories in an attempt to > paint aspects of this "God" into understandable symbolic code. These > "myths" are always and everywhere undertaken out of a desire to, like > art, approach the indescribable by creating symbolic markers in the > hopes that these markers will serve to point people towards the > moment of enlightenment, what Pirsig calls "pre-intellectual awareness". > > In this way, "myths" are like "paintings" or "symphonies" or > "sculpture". They are textual-artistic creations made in the hope of > capturing, in the fleetingest of moments, a glimpse into that which > can never be approached directly, that which can only be approached > tangentally, that which can only ever be seen out of the corner of > our eyes. And like visual or aural art, textual art serves a grand > purpose of giving us the only means we have to see the "Godhead", > "Quality", "the Tao". Often this is expressed as "esoteric versus > exoteric meaning". We know what the stories say, for example, but > what do they mean? A literal read, an exoteric read, misses the art, > misses the metaphor, and instead replaces the path to enlightenment > with the path to power. No longer are "myths" textual paths to the > undefinable core but instead paths for human power, control and the > manipulation of others. We replace the fundamental, indefinable point > of similarity with a hierarchy of supremacy. > > We would think it idiotic to proclaim any painting, no matter how > artful, to be "the One True Painting", and banish and burn all other > paintings as wrong or evil. We would no more think to elevate Bach's > "Die Kunst der Fuge" as "The One True Music" and wage a campaign to > ridicule, ban and dismiss "infidels" and "barbarians" who dare listen > to Beethoven, than we would lift ZMM up as "The One True Book" and > look down at those who read Yoshikawa or Dostoevsky as inferior > heathens. And yet this is precisely what occurs when exoteric, > literal readings of "myth" trump a deeper exoteric, metaphoric read. > Instead of facing the mono-myth with philosophic curiosity, we create > hierarchical walls of power and supremacy (and ultimately alientation). > > We can never escape the incompleteness, and we must have faith > ultimately in the power of our metaphors to point as best as possible > towards this void, but while faith built upon this recognition will > produce ever-better artful glances into the face of god, faith built > upon the literalization of any one given metaphor will only lead to > power, hierarchies, and a hindering of human enlightenment. > > To this end, I have no problem describing the "Theory of Gravity" as > a work of art, any more than I have of describing the Occidental > texts or Lakota stories as works of art. When seen from a metaphoric, > esoteric perspective, it is like traversing a large museum, with > different representations undertaken to point towards that which > ultimately can never be seen. And while one must, ultimately, have > faith in the process of art, placing one's faith fully in one > particular work of art moves one away from the Godhead, the Void, the > Abyss, Quality, the Tao rather than towards it. > > My two cents, anyways... > > Arlo > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
