Hello everyone On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 10:15 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > > David Harding said to Dan: > ...The first thing is that when Pirsig claims that 'freedom doesn't mean > anything' I think that he is merely pointing to the fact that it isn't what > 'light's people's eyes up' when they talk about it. To support this in the > next sentence he writes… "The real reason it's so hallowed is that when > people talk about it they mean Dynamic Quality." So Pirsig is not claiming > that people in the West don't experience Freedom. Or that literally freedom > isn't anything. He is saying that in the West we don't always experience the > DQ that *can* go with freedom. In other words he is pointing out that > freedom and DQ are not the same. > > Dan replied to David Harding: > Interesting. I get the opposite impression. While I am sure Robert Pirsig > doesn't mean to pigeon-hole Dynamic Quality as freedom reading Lila I get the > impression they are analogous. Here are but two quotes: > > "Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this world in > which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order, > preserve our world. Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without > the other." "What the Dynamic force had to invent in order to move up the > molecular level and stay there was a carbon molecule that would preserve its > limited Dynamic freedom from inorganic laws and at the same time resist > deterioration back to simple compounds of carbon again." > > > > dmb says: > Excuse me for butting in, gents. I realize that your conversation has been > going on for quite a while but I want to comment on this particular part of > your exchange because it seems so crucial. It's a very key point, I think.
Hi Dave! Good to get your feedback, thank you! > > I think it might be useful to think about the distinction between negative > and positive political freedom. John Dewey, who is a pragmatist and a radical > empiricist like Pirsig, employed this distinction but it's widely used. > Negative freedom is basically just freedom from restraint, where you are > "free" to do those things that are not prohibited. You are free in the sense > that nobody will try to stop you. Positive freedom goes well beyond this and > says that real freedom is being the author of your life, of exercising real > options and this is not only an achievement, something hard-won by the person > who achieves it, it also requires a complex social infrastructure. Positive > freedom can only be achieved where there is safety, health, education, and > all the other things that it takes for a person to be prepared for freedom. Dan: So positive freedom is found in constraint and negative freedom is found in non-constraint. > > Nobody is stopping me from writing a novel, for example. There are not laws > that would prohibit me. But am I really free to do so if I don't learn how to > read and write? And realistically, won't I need some higher education well > beyond that? If I were a rare genius with loads of innate talent, maybe I > could write something worthy of the name "novel" without years of training > but, one way or another, it takes a lot of hard work and discipline to be > free in this sense. Dan: Absolutely. I think we discussed this some time ago although I would have to go into the archives to find it. It seems the discussion focused on the line from Lila about how when we follow static quality we are without choice and when we follow Dynamic Quality we are free. Static quality constrains our choices. If memory serves I used the analogy of choosing to be a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, which of course is rather out of the question since A. I am 57 years old and B. I never had the requisite talent even in my younger days. This is an example of a negative freedom. No one really told me I couldn't pitch for the Cubs. But I knew it was out of the realm of possibility because I didn't have what it took. The same notion applies to writing novels. It is a lot of hard work and dedication. One doesn't just decide one day, oh, I am going pitch for the Cubs and then proceed to do it. I mean, lots of people probably do try but after they realize the depth of commitment such an undertaking entails they give up. I never had the driving desire to be a big league pitcher like I feel compelled to write. I write because I have to write. I would rather be sitting on the sofa drinking quadruple vodka screwdrivers and watching some smutty movie on HBO or Showtime but I have to get these words out. After enough time of tapping away at the keyboard one discovers they actually have a novel in front of them. It may not be a good novel but that is beside the point. The training is in the doing. And not just once in a while when I feel like sitting down and pounding out some words... every night I slave in front of this keyboard. And of course I read tons of books as well. As a writer I probably read them in a different way than a normal reader would. I dissect them. I look for plot and story structure. I examine the character web; I look to discover how the author has used symbolism and mythology in constructing the story. Anyway, if you had to write a novel you would do it. You'd have no choice. You might never show it to anyone. I've met authors who tell me they have forty or more 'trunk books' tucked away in the attic... books they've written over the years just because they felt compelled to write them. I am reminded of a scene in King Kong where Jack Black tricks Adrien Brody into staying aboard the ship. As the ship is pulling out of port and Brody realizes he is trapped he says: but I love the theater. I have to get back. And Black tells him: No you don't. If you really loved it, you'd have jumped. If you really had to write a novel, you'd do it. You'd jump. > > And I think Pirsig (and Dewey) is saying that positive freedom is the kind > that's really worth having. On this view, we don't want freedom FROM static > patterns because they "preserve our world" and had to be invented "in order > to move up". "Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the > other," Pirsig says. If Dynamic advances are not latched, preserved as static > patterns, that advance will be lost. If static patterns are so rigid as to > preclude further advances through Dynamic Quality, nothing can change or grow > or evolve further. To reject static patterns as a prison, as something that > ought to be "killed", is to embrace chaos and degeneracy. Dan: Sure. And to say, oh, I can't write a novel. I don't know what I am doing. I am not a Hemingway or a Robbins or a Fitzgerald or a Pirsig. So I shouldn't do it. I should wait until I get my years of training it, and then maybe I'll give it a whirl. Well guess what. You've just fallen into a static prison of your own making. You'll never get any better at writing until you write... that's where the Dynamic advances come from. Do you think Hemingway was a brilliant author when he first started writing? I read where Robert Pirsig told an interviewer that he discarded the manuscript for ZMM half way through and started over from scratch. Guess what? None of us will ever write like Hemingway or Pirsig. But that shouldn't stop us. Hemingway was no genius. He honed his craft through a lifetime of writing. If you check out some of his early stuff it reads awful. What if he had told himself, hey, I'm no writer. I have to wait and get some training... I have to have someone tell me it is okay for me to write. That's bogus, my friend. > > "Zen monks' daily life is nothing but on ritual after another. Hour after > hour, day after day, all his life. They don't tell him to shatter those > static patterns to discover the unwritten Dharma, they want him to get those > patterns perfect. The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that > you don't free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other > contrary static patterns, that is called bad Karma chasing its tail. You free > yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is you master > them with such proficiency, that they become an unconscious part of your > nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. > There at the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic > patterns, the dynamic freedom is found." (LILA 385) > > Basically, real freedom or positive freedom entails mastery and proficiency, > like the artful motorcycle mechanic. A creative solution is going to be found > by the ones who've mastered the machine, the tools and the materials, not by > some careless hack with no experience. Dan: Sure. We only have to look as far as this forum. Most of us know who has a good grasp of the MOQ and who is a careless hack, as you put it. Oddly enough once in a while I see just a glimmer of hope in the writings of those hacks, however. If they keep at it and don't give up maybe one day they might even get a handle on the MOQ. But mastering it is a whole 'nother ballgame. Even the masters strike out. The real key is to fully engage oneself in whatever we happen to be doing. It doesn't matter if we get up there and strike out a dozen times in a row. By losing oneself in the game we Dynamically grow into the world and come to find our own true nature. Look. None of us are monks. None of us are geniuses. We are all hacks. But if we work at it enough there will come a moment when all that falls away. And it has nothing to do with perfection or mastery. Thank you, Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
