> [djh said to Arlo] > I agree that we cannot say whether something is or isn't categorically better > unless there is a creation of something better. But privileging DQ is a > mistake? The statement "rejecting static patterns is moral" - is wrong? The > Code of Art claims that DQ is above sq. Is the Code of Art a mistake? > > [Arlo replied] > I do not think the Code of Art is simply "reject static patterns". I think > the Code of Art is "create better static patterns". > > [dmb replied] > Yea, there is nothing artful about simply rejecting static patterns. And how > could it be moral to reject values? To reject static patterns of value or > static patterns of quality is to reject morals and the mythos. Given the > meaning of these terms, the claim is an absurd contradiction. You might as > well say that it's moral to reject morals or it's healthy to reject health.
[djh] In the MOQ there are two sets of morals though DMB. Not one. It is [Dynamic Quality] moral to reject [static] morals. Here is the relevant passage from Lila where RMP describes these two types of good and evil. "Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new. It was the moral force that had motivated the brujo in Zuni. It contains no pattern of fixed rewards and punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil is static quality itself - any pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life. Static quality, the moral force of the priests, emerges in the wake of Dynamic Quality. It is old and complex. It always contains a component of memory. Good is conformity to an established pattern of fixed values and value objects. Justice and law are identical. Static morality is full of heroes and villains, loves and hatreds, carrots and sticks. Its values don't change by themselves. Unless they are altered by Dynamic Quality they say the same thing year after year. Sometimes they say it more loudly, sometimes more softly, but the message is always the same." > [dmb replied] > I'm watching this conversation in horror, you know? Where does this idea come > from? Why do so many MOQers hate static values so much? That is way, way off > the mark. It turns Pirsig's work upside down and guts it. It just kills me to > constantly watch this intellectual vandalism going on. [djh] Without a 'rejection' or 'killing' of static quality things never change, they never get better. It is Dynamic Quality and folks like the Brujo who reject the static patterns of the culture and follow some sort of undefined quality that he could barely articulate even if he wanted to.. "If you had asked the brujo what ethical principles he was following he probably wouldn't have been able to tell you. He wouldn't have understood what you were talking about. He was just following some vague sense of 'betterness' that he couldn't have defined if he had wanted to." > [dmb replied] > DQ is presented as a way out of insanity for Lila. Like shock therapy, it can > clean her slate, so to speak. Her problem is clinging to her own private > patterns. She's a culture of one, a religion of one and it doesn't stand a > chance as a culture or religion, of course, because its only purpose is to > relieve her own personal suffering. > > Pirsig's trip, by contrast, spoke to the culture at large. It was a > culture-bearing book and in Lila he explains how the contrarians play a vital > role in the evolution of cultures. Please, let us NOT glorify mental illness > as such. It's usually just sickness and suffering and there is nothing holy > about it. Lila's illness is a conflict of ordinary values; mother or whore. > And apparently she has failed at both. Can't go forward, can't go back. > Totally stuck. Rather than get locked up forever or become the reformed > sinner (with Rigel as her self-righteous guide), she could go to a quiet > retreat and empty herself out of all the patterns, private and public. This > is where a Zen-like mysticism could help her get "better than cured". This is > the situation wherein it makes sense to become a dead man, to kill all > intellectual patterns, i.e. when those patterns are killing you. > > "This solution is to dissolve ALL static pattens, both sane and insane, and > find the base of reality, Dynamic Quality, that is independent of all of > them." (LILA 374) > > AS WITH SHOCK TREATMENT > > "..But sometime the patient, in a moment of Zen wisdom, sees the > superficiality of both his own contrary pattens and the cultural patterns, > sees that the one gets him electrically clubbed day after day and the other > set him free from the institution, and thereupon makes a wise mystic decision > to get the hell out the there by whatever avenues is available." (LILA 375) > > "That's what Lila's involved in now, a huge vacation, an emptying out of the > junk of here life. She's clinging to some new pattern [baby/doll] because she > thinks it holds back the old pattern. But what she has to do is take a > vacation from ALL patterns, old and new, and just settle into a kind of > emptiness for a while. And if she does, the culture has a moral obligation > not to bother her. The most moral activity of all is the creation of space > for life to move on." (LILA 376) > > Chapters 30 and 32 really brings these questions into focus. And he's > wrapping up the whole book too. I think it's safe to say that it's important > to understand the title character. [djh] I agree with all that you write here. 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
