Arlo to John:
... The "MOQ" is not a verb, it is a "metaphysics of Quality", it is the result
of the "defining process", one undertaken infinitely and creatively, but IT is
an artifact not a process.
John replied:
Well, we'll just have to differ then Arlo. I can't see something that is
"undertaken infinitely and creatively" as a mere "artifact" to be pinned to
your board and dissected, (you evil akerdemic you :) It is a process, not an
artifact.
dmb says:
I think the most obvious analogy to invoke here is motorcycle maintenance.
Fixing a bike is a process but that doesn't mean the bike itself is a process.
Maintaining the thing in good working order is always going to involve a decent
respect for the precision of the parts and an understanding of how all the
various elements fit together to make up that thing we call a motorcycle. This
artifact is not so rigidly constructed that it's absolutely static and in fact
some of the parts practically change before your eyes. The gas gets burned up,
the tires wear away, the oil gets dirty and even the metal frame is always
changing in tiny, imperceptible ways. But none of that alters the fact that the
machine absolutely needs a certain amount of stability for it to work at all.
The process of riding and fixing the bike both rely entirely on this stability.
If you understand the thing and you have a feel for the materials of which it
is made, then you can see how an empty beer can be us
ed to replace a handlebar shim. It doesn't have to be a fancy store-bought
shim and you don't have to obey the owners manual because you understand the
thing well enough to improvise when you need to.
I think the MOQ is just like that. Fixing it and riding it demands a decent
respect for the thing as an artifact. Using the MOQ in the process of living
requires an understanding of what it is and how it works. To practice the fine
arts or any skilled endeavor is not any different from doing philosophy or
maintaining your life. You gotta, gotta, gotta have a feel for the material and
you gotta, gotta, gotta know how the thing works. Otherwise, you're gonna mess
it up. Otherwise you're gonna punch a hole in the cover plate or knock some
fins off the engine block. The guy who did that in Pirsig's story is the same
guy that Crawford calls an idiot. And this is no mere insult. If there is just
one message to take from Pirsig's books, that's it. Don't be an idiot. Whatever
the thing is - a bike, a garden, your life, a philosophy - give it the respect
and attention it deserves.
"I think the basic fault that underlies the problem of stuckness is traditional
rationality's insistence upon ``objectivity,'' a doctrine that there is a
divided reality of subject and object. For true science to take place these
must be rigidly separate from each other. ``You are the mechanic. There is the
motorcycle. You are forever apart from one another. You do this to it. You do
that to it. These will be the results.''
This eternally dualistic subject-object way of approaching the motorcycle
sounds right to us because we're used to it. But it's not right. It's always
been an artificial interpretation superimposed on reality. It's never been
reality itself. When this duality is completely accepted a certain nondivided
relationship between the mechanic and motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for
the work, is destroyed. When traditional rationality divides the world into
subjects and objects it shuts out Quality, and when you're really stuck it's
Quality, not any subjects or objects, that tells you where you ought to go."
(ZAMM, p. 282)
Vrooom!
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