Dan, David and all MOQers:
One of the sources of confusion here is that you're both reading my claims as
if I were talking about the mystic reality or Dynamic Quality itself - even
though I keep telling that I'm not talking about mysticism or the ultimate
reality. Obviously, we need to be on the same topic if we're going to
understand each other. Please hear me and believe me. By switching the topic
over to mysticism, my claims are moved into a very different context and so
will appear to have a meaning that is very different from my intentions. By
switching the topic over to the mystic reality, you will certainly
misunderstand I'm saying.
And - this is a very important point - if the difference between Pirsig's
expanded rationality and Pirsig's mysticism is blurred or unclear, you will
certainly misunderstand what Pirsig is saying. This is one of Marsha's central
mistakes. She uses the mystic's objection to metaphysics (the ultimate reality
cannot named or otherwise fit into intellectual descriptions) to denigrate the
intellect in general, to distort the pragmatic theory of truth and the art of
rationality. These are two different topics but she doesn't realize that and
the result is to make a big mess of things.
Sorry, but you guys both seem to be pushing back at my claims with quotes from
Pirsig on the topic of mysticism - even though I keep insisting that my point
is not on that topic. I take this to mean that you're not acknowledging the
distinction between mysticism and creative intellect. Without this distinction,
the mystic's prohibition against naming the ultimate reality will be mistaken
for a prohibition against naming anything at all, against intellectual
descriptions of any kind. And Presto! You have a very vigorous form of
anti-intellectualism wherein thinking about anything is a degenerate activity.
I hope you can see how this might be quite a problem if your aim is to expand
rationality so that science and philosophy are no longer value-free.
That's why you really have to believe me when I tell you that this is NOT about
mysticism. It's about Pirsig's expansion and improvement of intellect - and
Pirsig does this by putting undefined Quality right into the center of
philosophy and science. I agree with the mystic's prohibitions against naming
the ultimate reality but that's simply not what I'm doing. I'm merely
explaining Pirsig ideas, trying to clarify the meaning of his books. I have
nothing to say about the ultimate reality but I have plenty to say about
Pirsig's philosophy. Okay, with that in mind, let's take a look at Dan's
objection....
Dan said to dmb:
Now, I am not claiming to be a mystic but from a pragmatic point of view I
think we need to respect the boundaries that Robert Pirsig has set up between a
static quality reality that is intellectualized and a Dynamic reality which is
to be kept free of all concepts. Labeling Dynamic freedom as negative and
positive is misleading just as using any term to define it is.
dmb says:
This is an example of what I was just saying. You are taking "positive" and
"negative" as definitions of Dynamic reality itself. That is switching the
topic to mysticism, which totally changes the meaning. I'm talking about
creative intellect, not mysticism and so I'm not using these terms to define or
describe DQ. Instead, the distinction between positive and negative freedom is
all about how we treat static quality. One involves mastery and the other
involves rejection and escape. Positive freedom is the ability or capacity to
exercise real options, to create real solutions, whereas negative freedom is
merely a lack of restraints. This distinction between two kinds of freedom is
not an attempt to name of define the ultimate reality.
Dan:
As I pointed out earlier, I am at a loss to find anywhere that Robert Pirsig
uses negative freedom and positive freedom. I searched Lila. I searched Anthony
McWatt's numerous works. I searched through various interviews and essays I
have gathered over the years. I see where he refers to negative experiences
like sitting upon hot stoves but that is not what I take to be a negative
freedom.
dmb says:
Hmmm. You keep saying you can't find anywhere that Pirsig uses these terms.
This is very frustrating. I've posted A quote WHEREIN Pirsig uses the term
"negative" in relation to "freedom" several times already. And you posted one
that employes those terms too.
"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."
"The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling it
"freedom," but in the final analysis "freedom" is a purely NEGATIVE goal."
I think we should be able to put this objection to bed now, don't you? The
hippies, Pirsig says elsewhere, rejected social and intellectual values in a
mistaken effort to be free. That was their mistake. They only escaped something
negative rather than achieving something positive and so what could have been
an improvement turned out to be mostly degenerate. Because biological quality
and Dynamic Quality are not social or intellectual, they confused mere hedonism
with real freedom. In any case, we can all see that Pirsig does indeed talk
about he dangers of negative freedom, of merely rejecting or escaping from
static patterns.
Dan comments on the hippie quote:
Note again how he uses quotation marks around "freedom" to distinguish it from
real freedom. Of course Dynamic freedom didn't exist when ZMM was written but
even then Robert Pirsig took care in how he pointed to it. I think that might
be your mistake, Dave. You using negative "freedom" as an analogy with negative
Dynamic Quality, which just doesn't wash... well, it might wash but it won't
come clean...
dmb says:
Dynamic freedom didn't exist when ZAMM was written? Well, the terms "static"
and "Dynamic" become the central terms in Lila but he was already using them in
his conclusions about this very topic, creative freedom, especially in relation
to his central metaphor (the artful mechanic). He is talking about positive
freedom even if doesn't use that particular term for it. The idea is still
there even if he uses various terms for it. Like I said, this distinction can
be found throughout both books and, as we see in the quotes above, sometimes he
does use those specific terms and explicitly says that NEGATIVE freedom differs
from meaningful freedom.
Dan said:
... I would still say there is a difference between real Dynamic freedom and a
stable situation created so that Dynamic Quality can flourish. The former is
free of all patterns; the latter while allowing Dynamic Quality to flourish
constrains the situation with stable static patterns.
dmb says:
No, Dan, that's the crucial error I'm talking about. I'm talking about creative
intellect, wherein it makes no sense to be "free" of all static patterns. This
is switching the topic over to mysticism. In conflating these two topics you
will certainly misunderstand what I'm saying and you'll misread Pirsig too. The
mystic reality or DQ itself is free of static patterns but I'm talking about
creative intellect, about "science's organization for the handling of the
Dynamic" and Pirsig's claim that "the whole thing [is] 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." If we were
talking about mysticism it would makes sense to talk about being free of all
static patterns but since we are talking about the art of rationality, getting
free of all static patterns would be the worst kind of degenerate, negative
freedom. In the context of science, rationality, philosophical t
hinking, escaping from all static patterns would be a complete disaster. And
if you use the mystic's prohibition against naming the ultimate reality to
prohibit the use of intellectual descriptions in science and philosophy, then
you will certainly end up holding a profoundly anti-intellectual position. This
is one of Marsha's most destructive mistakes, from which many other errors flow.
Dan said:
I don't see that I am espousing any such notion. I am simply saying Dynamic
Quality should be kept concept-free. My concerns are not about killing static
patterns but rather with having them overrun Dynamic Quality.
dmb says:
Okay, I hear you saying that your intention is to protect DQ from being overrun
and you haven't intended to espouse any anti-intellectualism. But I'm trying to
get you to see how you're ending up there anyway. This is the result even if
it's not your intention. Please notice how your efforts to protect DQ from
definition have resulting in shutting down my attempt to discuss the intellect!
I've been quoting Pirsig on the topic of mastering those static intellectual
patterns and you keep coming back with quotes prohibiting the use of static
patterns. I'm talking about what makes scientific progress possible, what makes
creativity and innovation possible and yet, despite my repeated protests,
you're taking this to mean something like a claim "that reality as a whole is
intelligible in principle" and then warning me that "we cannot completely
define reality intellectually".
We don't disagree on that point, Dan. But it's a mistake to make that point in
this context because I'm not trying to define all of reality. I'm doing
something much less ambitious; to explain Pirsig's repair job on rationality.
Isn't this the focal point of his work, after all. He says that he did absolute
nothing for Quality or the Tao, what benefits from his work, he says, is REASON
and rationality. That's where we have a problem and that's where he has a
solution. That's why anti-intellectualism is such a heart-breaking
misinterpretation. It spoils the main point and purpose of his work.
"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."
This is how he gets rid of value-free science, makes truth and intellect itself
a species of value, makes motorcycle mechanics into motorcycle scientists and
artists. This improvement is achieved through a formal recognition of Quality
in the operation of rationality. And yet we have MOQers using Pirsig's
mysticism to assert that intellect should never have anything to do with
Quality! Oh dude, that is a misconception right in the middle of it all, a
total wrecking ball.
Here's a way to think about it that might help.
The problem, Pirsig says, is that "Reason and Quality had become separated and
in conflict with each other" back in the days of Plato. More specifically Plato
had made Quality subordinate to reason. The solution is to reverse that
priority. "Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality." That's how he
puts it in ZAMM but then you see this same solution in Lila. "That was exactly
what is meant by the Metaphysics of Quality. Truth is a static intellectual
pattern within a larger entity called Quality." To say that truth is within a
larger entity called Quality is to say that reason is subordinate to Quality.
As the mystic will point out, Quality cannot be defined because definitions can
only exist within Quality. Definitions have a relationship to this larger and
more primary reality but it is a subordinate relationship. DQ can't be put into
an intellectual truth because intellectual truths are within DQ, derived from
DQ, were formed on the basis of DQ. It's that contai
ner problem, right?
"Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it
within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality
cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than
Quality itself."
To define Quality is to subordinate it to reason or intellect. We both agree
Quality can't be defined. But I'm talking about Pirsig's reformed intellect,
which is improved by making it subordinate to Quality, by making the formal
recognition that our intellectual truths exist within Quality and are
subordinate to it. Then having them both simultaneously not only failed to be a
transgression, it's exactly what you want when practicing the art of
rationality or any other high quality endeavor.
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