Andre and Woods
11 Oct. Andre wrote to Woods,
> you expressed an interest. I have lost the thread.
> I am going to disappoint you anyway...maybe. I do not want to persue
> this Chinese language thing any longer. Your questions stimulated me
> into persuing the issue further and the more I found out the more it
> confirmed my frustrations sometimes of working here i.e with my
> students and colleagues. They have the greatest difficulty with
> abstract thought ( this is what I found confirmed in articles I found
> on the web). But it remains complicated...I mean Chinese people are
> not really stupid but..... . I'll give you an example: When I ask my
> students to "imagine" something they look at me blank...when I ask
> them to summarise a text of ,say 500 words I get a summary in 1000
> words!! I am not convinced that this is only due to their difficulties
> learning another language. Their language and their thinking (not
> necessarily related) is very 'concrete'.
Andre, you don't want to pursue this Chinese thing any longer, but you
have uncorcked the bottle ;-) and I want to bring in the MOQ, or - since
Zen Buddhism somehow is connected with it - my old guru Alan
Watts. His thesis regarding the Chinese Taoism/Confucianism
constellation is that (they see) all individuals as are born wild and
upbringing is to be likened with taming, and this is Confucianisms's
task. Now, such taming necessarily destroys the original nature and
here is where Taoism comes into play to restore freedom at a higher
plane, not returning to the original natural stage, yet rising above social
one.
In the old days this point brought me great understanding of (this
aspect of) the Oriental culture. However, Alan Watts' on the
philosophical aspects of Buddhism did NOT make it through to me,
only with Pirsig did that dawn on me. Still, what is Taoism's place in
latter day China is not clear? Communism is supposed to be atheist,
but then Taoism is no religion in the Semitic sense, yet, the Falun
Gong is banned and it's not about God or salvation either. Ok I don't
demand any deep insights here from you Andre, but if you have any
input.
Over to the MOQ:
In the Rt. section in LILA Pirsig pursues the said morpheme and find it
at the root of most "good" concepts i.e. its behind Quality itself and his
thesis is that quality has pervaded existence from the beginning of
time. He then brings up the old (Veda) Hinduism as an example of
decay of DQ into purely rituals, then the Upanishads period as the
return of DQ in the form of indian philosophy.
Now, my thesis is that this Rt. is something very early in Pirsig's
development, around ZAMM's time before the MOQ proper and is why
he doesn't apply the MOQ on these things. Very frustrating, and if I
should try, the said Hindu ritual - with its welter of gods - age was the
social level's "golden age"here. Then intellect in the form of the
Upanishads or philosophy. This clears up the misunderstanding
created by Pirsig himself that the Orientals developed an intellectual
level independently of the Greeks ....meaning a NON-S/O intellect!!!!!!
The argument that Oriental cultures would not be classified as
intellectual is avoided by pointing out that the Oriental cultures
developed an intellectual level independently of the Greeks
during the Upanishadic period of India at about 1000 to 600
B.C. (These dates may be off.) The argument that the MOQ is
not an intellectual formulation but some kind of other level is
not clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that I know of
that leads to this conclusion. (letter to Paul Turner 2003)
"Philosophy" in itself means an objective, detached approach. The
Greek philosophers did not start with postulating any SOM, rather
SOM was the result of the philosophical quest. Thus the oriental
intellectual level was every bit as S/O as the Occidental, but the
Orientals did not lock on to that level to let it develop into a S/O
metaphysics like the West. The social level is their primary focus with
a Quality-like insight lodged on top of that, manifest as Buddhism and
Taoism. This is behind their lack of innovation, of aping western music
and producing western goods to perfection, but not bringing forth any
new things. Most of all no philosophical evolution - like the MOQ for
instance - and typically the MOQ could not have been arrived without
the strong intellectual level i.e. the SOM.
Possibly not very relevant, but as is my wont
Bodvar
They have wonderful poetic
> expressions to describe things and situations but the "reality" is
> different. In Pirsig's terms it is part of the hypnosis. Their
> education system has not changed over the last 2000 years ( still
> based on Confucian principles and content!) and is only slowly
> changing. Put this in an ideology which emphasises social harmony at
> all costs ( Hu Jintao, the current chairman, is scared to death of the
> prospect of China following Russia i.e. falling to bits...hence their
> reassertion in Tibet) thereby suppressing any individual expression of
> opinion, initiative, creativity, etc, etc, i.e. anything to do with
> even a remote response to Dynamic Quality. It is really a human
> tragedy on a grand scale which has been taking place here since gawd
> knows when. But it is frightening. Why? Because they are hugely
> patriottic ( at least on a par with the U.S) and very proud
> and....they'll blindly do anything they are told to do. So there you
> go Woods. Hope this puts things in some sort of perspective for you.
> As for me...I'll enjoy my remaining time here and then return to my
> books, music and other static expressions of DQ. I miss them so much.
>
> Kind regards Andre
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