David Harding said to dmb:
I agree with your conclusion here, ...however I still disagree here with the
use of the terms negative and positive freedom. ...I see what you were claiming
however I'm not convinced there is this direct relationship between negative
and positive freedom and what we both appear to acknowledge is the two types of
freedom Pirsig espouses. ...I don't see the parallel here with 'negative
freedom' as originally espoused by Hegel.. which appears to be sociologically
based. ...Are you suggesting that positive freedom is Dynamic freedom? I'll
re-iterate here that I think positive freedom is related to cultural
circumstances. It's distinction with negative freedom has been created to
highlight the quality of improved freedom culturally. These things are
important but are not related to being free of all patterns in the way that
Dynamic freedom and Zen mastery is.
dmb says:
Hegel? Oh, come on! I've already said it several times but I'll say it again.
"We're not really talking about politics here", but the distinction is useful
in that context too. Pirsig uses the distinction in that context but, again, I
want to apply this distinction to the intellectual level, to the way we do
philosophy and science and such. You continue to object on the grounds that
it's just about culture or politics even though I keep telling that it's not
about that. This is kinda weird and very frustrating. And even if I were
talking politics, you'd be objecting to a move that Pirsig himself makes
In the following quote Pirsig is describing, "what neither the socialists NOR
the capitalist ever got figured out" and he is contrasting the hallowed Dynamic
freedom with NEGATIVE freedom.
"When they call it freedom, that's not right. 'Freedom' doesn't mean anything.
Freedom's just an escape from something NEGATIVE. The real reason it's so
hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean Dynamic Quality."
Again, "we CAN apply this distinction to the freedom of Zen monks or to
political freedom", but I want to examine its application to intellectual
values. I want to apply this distinction to the way we think and do philosophy,
show how it relates to Pirsig's root expansion of rationality and his pragmatic
theory of truth. My main POINT is this: static intellectual quality is a
crucial ingredient in the recipe for real freedom, for Dynamic freedom. This is
about excellence in thought and speech, not mysticism or politics. Okay? Can we
please all agree that a person knows what his own point is?
David Harding said:
...Marsha's devaluation of the stable, high quality intellectual values of
truth means that she has nothing to master and thus does not improve her
understanding. But you seem to imply that this is the only way Marsha can
experience DQ and I disagree. Marsha can choose to master anything she
wishes. It doesn't have to be philosophy. But being that this is a
philosophical discussion board, it's implied that she's here to become a better
philosopher. Thus our accusations of bad philosophy.
dmb says:
You think I'm implying that this is the only way Marsha can experience DQ? To
read that implication I think you'd have to ignore what I'm explicitly saying,
which is that Marsha's apathy about truth and general hostility toward static
intellectual values is both incorrect and morally degenerate. I have explicitly
said this several times. This is about Marsha's anti-intellectualism. It's
about the intellectual disaster that results when "killing" the intellectual
patterns is taken negatively instead of positively. It is just negative freedom
when it's taken to mean we should escape from them or fight them with other
static patterns. But positive freedom, Dynamic freedom means you kill them by
mastering them and making them part of your nature.
"That's the whole thing: to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously.
If you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon
you're back with the cave man. But if you don't have the freedom to change
those patterns you're blocked from any further growth."
Again, static intellectual quality is a crucial ingredient for this kind of
positive freedom. That's what it takes, as Pirsig puts it, to "create a stable
static situation where Dynamic Quality can flourish". This is the point. Static
intellectual patterns are necessary to create a stable situation where DQ can
flourish. You gotta have both at the same time. This is why Marsha's
anti-intellectualism is so tragic. It would destroy the conditions that make
evolutionary advances possible. That's why it is not simply incorrect but also
morally degenerate.
"It seems as though a society [or a philosophy discussion group] that is
intolerant of all forms of degeneracy shuts off its own Dynamic growth and
becomes static. But a society that tolerate all forms of degeneracy
degenerates. Either direction can be dangerous."
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