Nice one Arlo, be interested in the results. Spookily I have it on my bedside cabinet as current re-reading at this very moment.
And PS - Yes the Pirsig chat about the Fastnet experience is worth a watch. Recommended. Ian On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Arlo Bensinger <[email protected]> wrote: > My summer "project" (one of them) this year is to digitize Northrop's The > Meeting of East and West (or at least get this well underway). Here is an > interesting segment from Chapter Two "The Rich Culture of Mexico"... > > "The criticism is that a philosophy of life which shuts its eyes to the > creative fire in man's nature, to the eros or frenzy in all its human > manifestations so cuts man's soul off from the fresh, warm, bodily, earthly > feeling of life and from the emotional, aesthetic and spiritual component of > man's nature, that one becomes artificial, stereotyped, without > individuality of the feelings, sentiments and imagination, afraid of one's > emotions, tense and often colorless or neurotic. One's Kantian or pollyannic > ideals, being so purely formal and artificial, become so separated from > one's real, emotional, bodily, and spiritual being that the sparkle goes out > of both. The pupils and practitioners become as dull as their teachers and > preachers. Moreover, a faulty political idealism is created in which the > ideal is so divorced from the actual in human nature or international > relations that art becomes empty or vapid and one's political aims become > equally unrealistic and ethereal, while one's actual conduct and behavior > tend to be left to crass, independent, self-centered opportunism, the > reverse of one's idealistic professions. ... > > The initial modern conception of the personality, especially for the > English-speaking portion of the modern world, was introduced and defined by > John Locke. For Locke, as Chapter III will show, the soul in its essence is > a blank tablet. It is precisely this contrast between such an Anglo-American > soul and the Spanish and Mexican soul whose essence is passion that Jose > Orozco is portraying.... [Orozco] presents man not as a blank tablet but as > a vibrant living flame, a frenzied spirit, an eros, living dangerously, > making his free choice, and staking his life without compromise upon its > consequences. One is reminded of Plato's Phaedrus with its account of human > frenzy." > > Just as an aside, speaking of "living dangerously", if you haven't checked > out Ant's video of Pirsig describing his Atlantic crossing, I highly > recommend it. > > http://www.youtube.com/user/pirsigfilms#p/a/u/0/CijYZyOb4kI > > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
