> [djh previously] > Mental illness is when someone rejects the reality created by the values of a > culture in favour of their own and not simply pursuing Dynamic Quality.. > > [Arlo] > Hi David, I appreciate the quotes, but I don't think they address my > question. I'll add some clarification and context. > > We can agree that both the Hippies and Lila rejected intellectual and social > quality (although I'd argue that the Hippies were very communal and were only > anti-social in their rejection of *specific* social patterns). At this point > Pirsig seems to treat the Hippies and Lila differently, saying that the > Hippies moved towards biological quality but Lila moved towards Dynamic > Quality. > > In this context, the only (so far) difference you've suggested (to account > for Pirsig's differentiation) is that Lila was "going insane". That is, > "mental illness" is evidence of "someone pursuing Dynamic Quality"? If we > hold Lila up as our exemplar of someone 'pursuing Dynamic Quality', and the > only evidence of this we have is that she was "going insane", then we are, in > effect, championing mental illness as a 'better' trajectory than, say, > Phaedrus' pursuit of intellectual quality. > > However, in the above quote you differentiate "mental illness" and "pursuing > Dynamic Quality". As you previously held "mental illness" as the determinant > factor in arguing Lila was "pursuing Dynamic Quality", can you elaborate > here? What is the difference between "in favour of their own" and "pursuing > Dynamic Quality"? Can you use this distinction to contrast the difference > between Phaedrus' breakdown and Lila's breakdown? Wasn't Phaedrus rejecting > cultural value "in favour of [his] own"? > > Back to what you were saying…
[djh] To be clear - just because someone who goes crazy first pursues Dynamic Quality - doesn't mean that *everyone* who pursue's Dynamic Quality goes crazy. To further clarify - I previously argued, that the distinction between Lila and the Hippies is her mental illness - not that mental illness is evidence of someone pursing DQ. To be even more clear - if we draw a Venn Diagram we can have a large circle representing folks who pursue Dynamic Quality, and within that circle a smaller circle of folks who are classified as crazy. Now to speak once again to the distinction between Phaedrus breakdown and Lila's breakdown. Phaedrus breakdown is a 'mystic style' breakdown whereby he rejects all patterns quite explicitly. Lila's breakdown on the other hand is a breakdown in the 'alternative patterns style' whereby she creates alternative imagined patterns outside of the culture within which she can escape, rest and not suffer. I'll put it another way - in order to understand folks I think it's best to put yourself in their shoes and understand what they value. When Phaedrus went crazy he didn't give two hoots about static quality including his own 'cultural' values. This is made clear by his actions when he went crazy to the point where he didn't even go to the bathroom or value the importance of his fingers holding a burning cigarette.. In other words - from Phaedrus perspective static quality as a whole was unimportant. On the other hand - Lila went crazy and yet still had a whole cultural universe which she valued. She had a baby which she looked after etc. So this is why I don't think it's right to say that Phaedrus was rejecting cultural values in favour of his own as he didn't care (value) for his own cultural values or any static quality really.. All that said - it's good to note that Phaedrus was still misguided in his explicit objection to static patterns as is explained in Lila.. "But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of. Purity, identified, ceases to be purity. Objections to pollution are a form of pollution. The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born — and to whose birth no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life." > [djh previously] > Mental illness is when someone rejects the reality created by the values of a > culture in favour of their own and not simply pursuing Dynamic Quality... As > RMP explains - Lila ran away from the cultures patterns (and towards DQ) as a > way of emptying out the junk of her life.. That's okay. That movement was > moral. But the problem was that she settled into some new patterns that were > in conflict with the patterns of the culture and this is what made her insane. > > [Arlo] > This is very confusing to me. You begin saying that mental illness is a > rejection of cultural value (this is conflict), then end saying that it was > conflict with cultural values that "made her insane". In other words, you > move from a definitional to a causal, and I don't understand the point you're > trying to make. > > My underlying point in this is to question the use of Lila as a 'mystic' of > some sort, or to offer her as an example of what someone who is pursuing > Dynamic Quality looks like (and this may put me at odds with Pirsig's > descriptions of Lila in LILA, I get that). At the very least, it seems to > reduce Dynamic Quality to chaos, which is much more appropriate description > of Lila; chaotic. > > In other words, I would agree with your follow up point, that there is more > to 'pursuing Dynamic Quality' than simply 'rejecting patterns' or 'destroying > patterns'. But I do not see that in Lila, despite the elaborations of > Pirsig's Phaedrus in the narrative. [djh] Mental illness is more than a rejection of cultural values. There is an important difference between rejecting patterns and being in conflict with them that I think you're missing. Someone can reject patterns and yet not settle into patterns which are in conflict with them. This is what it means to follow Dynamic Quality and find a Dynamic solution. Not living in direct conflict with the patterns of the culture but rejecting them nonetheless.. "So the third possibility that Phaedrus was hoping for was that by some miracle of understanding Lila could avoid all the patterns, her own and the culture's, see the Dynamic Quality she's working toward and then come back and handle all this mess without being destroyed by it. The question is whether she's going to work through whatever it is that makes the defence necessary or whether she is going to work around it. If she works through it she'll come out at a Dynamic solution. If she works around it she'll just head back to the old karmic cycles of pain and temporary relief." > [djh previously] > Hopefully I have already made this distinction clear above but Lila is > "driven mostly by Dynamic Quality" because she wants to escape the pain of > the patterns of the culture with which she is in. > > [Arlo] > Would this not apply to every barfly and drug addict in the world? How do > they differ from Lila? [djh] They don't differ. This does apply to every barfly and drug addict in the world. Mystics as with barflies and drug addicts reject static cultural patterns. The difference between the mystics and the drugs addicts is that the mystics reject all patterns while the barflies and the drug addicts reject most patterns except settle into degenerate biological ones making them not dissimilar from the Hippies. But to clarity; as is explained by RMP in LIlA - Lila wasn't a mystic but a crazy person who had settled into her own contradictory insane patterns. > [djh previously] > That movement away from static patterns is a moral movement but the problem > is that to relieve the pain she settles into crazy patterns which are in > stark juxtaposition with the patterns of the culture. > > [Arlo] > So, if I understand, both the drug addicts and Lila begin with a moral > movement to 'relieve pain', but settle into patterns that contrast cultural > patterns, and this make them 'crazy'? > > As above, this is the same jump of definitional to causal, but here I think > you directly contradict yourself. If "moving away from static patterns" is > moral, one is, by definition, always in 'stark contrast with the patterns of > culture'. One doesn't suddenly find oneself in conflict with cultural > patterns only after re-adopting alternative social patterns, and even so, if > the moral movement was to reject cultural patterns in the first place, why > would we expect anything but conflict with 'the patterns of culture'? [djh] What is Dynamic Quality Arlo? By definition it isn't static quality. Does that make it in conflict with static quality? In other words - is Dynamic Quality *always* in conflict with static quality? I'll put it another way - according to the Code of Art - rejecting static patterns is moral. But let's say we always do that. Let's say we forever reject static patterns - is that good? No - for if we always did then this would itself become a pattern of its own and thus not a rejection of static patterns. You cannot define Dynamic Quality. You cannot say that it is always a rejection of static patterns for this would, by definition, be itself a pattern and thus not Dynamic Quality. That's why there is a difference between rejecting static patterns and being in contradiction with them. That's about as good an answer as I can give.. Thanks for the questions Arlo - as always direct and to the point. Hopefully you find my answers in similar vein. 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
