All: Pirsig´s focus on the importance of the individual in responding to Dynamic Quality is evident throughout his writings, perhaps most eloquently expressed in Lila, Chap. 29:
"That's what drives the really creative people-the artists, composers, revolutionaries and the like-the feeling that if they don't break out of this jailhouse somebody has built around them, they're going to die. "But they're not being contrary in a way that is just decadent. They're way too energetic and aggressive to be decadent. They're fighting for some kind of Dynamic freedom from the static patterns. But the Dynamic freedom they're fitting for is a kind of morality too. And it's a highly important part of the overall moral process. It´s often confused with degeneracy but it´s actually a form of moral regeneration. Without its continual refreshment static patterns would simply die of old age." I was reminded of this passage this morning while reading a Wall St. Journal article about Paul Cezanne that begins: "For many modern artists Paul Cezanne was a talismanic figure, the shadow of his painting as impossible to escape as his achievement was to define. Throughout the 20th century, as scholars labored to construct a viable history of modern art, Cezanne (along with Manet, Courbet and a handful of transgressive others) was posited as its fountainhead, the protean begetter whose countless progeny shaped a new aesthetic that placed vision and touch above formal and narrative concerns." Besides illustrating a human being´s response to Dynamic Quality, Cezanne almost single handily rescued painting from static boredom and eventual deterioration. That´s what the great individual achievers do, whether a Paul Cezanne or a Niels Bohr. In pursuing the Conceptually Unknown in response to DQ they lift all the rest of us to new levels of freedom, versatility and beauty, revealing the creative force of DQ in the process. Platt 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/
