QUOTES FROM PIRSIG that I take as evidence for the claim that static patterns
are a necessary ingredient for dynamic freedom and the art of rationality. I
take this as evidence against relativism and nihilism, which has infected a few
MOQers.
"That's the whole thing: to obtain static AND Dynamic Quality SIMULTANEOUSLY."
The whole trick is to "create a stable static situation where Dynamic Quality
can flourish".
"In the past Pheadrus' own radical bias caused him to think of Dynamic Quality
alone and neglect static patterns of quality. Until now he had always felt that
these static patterns were dead. They have no love. They offer no promise of
anything. To succumb to them is to succumb to death, since that which does not
change cannot live. But now he was beginning to see that this radical bias
weakened his own case. Life cannot exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no
staying power. To cling to Dynamic Quality is to cling to chaos. He saw that
much can be learned about Dynamic Quality by studying what it is not rather
that futilely trying to define what it is... Slowly at first, and then with
increasing awareness that he was going in a right direction, Phaedrus' central
attention turned away from any further explanation of Dynamic Quality and
turned to the static patterns themselves."
"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."
"They don't tell him to shatter those static patterns... ...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... There at
the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns, the
dynamic freedom is found."
THE PROBLEM - "Our current modes of rationality ...the whole structure of
reason, handed down to us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins
to be seen for what it really is...emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless
and spiritually empty." The problem is that "Reason and Quality had become
separated and in conflict with each other" back in the days of Plato.
THE SOLUTION - "He felt that the solution started with a new philosophy, or he
saw it as even broader than that...a new spiritual rationality...in which...
Reason was no longer to be "value free." Reason was to be subordinate,
logically, to Quality."
"...I'm trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn't that you
abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's
capable of coming up with a solution."
"Now I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be
tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal
recognition of Quality in its operation."
"That was exactly what is meant by the Metaphysics of Quality. Truth is a
static intellectual pattern within a larger entity called Quality."
"I think that it will be found that a formal acknowledgment of the role of
Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at all.
It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to actual scientific
practice."
The MOQ "says that Dynamic Quality [is] the value-force that chooses an elegant
mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a
confusing, inconclusive one" and "Dynamic value is an integral part of science.
It is the cutting edge of science itself."
"A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a
study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the
art of rationality itself."
"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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