Arlo said to Adrie:
...Mostly, I think I agree with Paul, but am rather saddened by how this paper
has been used, either with Ian's statement that context two is "narrow SOM", or
David's insistence that these contexts are "Dynamic/east" and "static/west". I
think the biggest source of my frustration is that Pirsig's ideas form a
coherent whole, that these views, or voices, reflecting epistemological and
ontological (which is Paul's distinction, and one I support) positions, and do
not represent two 'separate but valid interpretations' of the MOQ, but that
when they are "combined as phases" form a coherent whole that "enacts a major
expansion and evolution of the modern Western mythos".
dmb says:
Exactly. Instead of understanding the MOQ's central distinction WITHIN a
unified and coherent picture, it is misconstrued in various ways to produce two
opposed interpretations. Instead of trying to strike a balance between the
static and the Dynamic, there is this bogus battle wherein static quality is
denigrated in favor of pure flux. According to this bogus view, static values,
especially intellectual values, are regarded as an impediment to be killed, as
a prison to be destroyed and as an illusion to eliminated.
If I understand what Paul is saying about the second "context," those who hold
the bogus view are basically just rejecting the ontological structure of the
MOQ. They don't just put DQ at the center of this static structure, they
misconstrue its centrality to oppose the static structure. But, as Pirsig says
repeatedly, in both ZAMM and LILA, both are absolutely necessary.
“Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they demand
blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change. But static patterns, nevertheless,
provide a necessary stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress from
degeneration. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this
world in which we live, these patterns of quality, the quality of order,
preserve our world. Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the
other.” (LILA, p.121)
To say, as Pirsig does, that "truth is a static intellectual pattern within a
larger entity called Quality," is a simple and elegant way to say that truths
exists in a relation to DQ. More specifically, it's a clean and neat way to say
that intellectual truths are subordinate to DQ. This second context, this
static structure, already has DQ built right into it. These are not two
separate interpretations or two separate ways of looking at the MOQ. Static and
Dynamic are the central terms. They represent the first and most important
distinction of the MOQ. It's a hell of thing to get wrong being many further
mistakes will inevitably follow from such a blunder. It's not exactly trivial
or nit-picky, you know? These two elements are suppose to work together in a
coherent picture.
Contrary to Marsha's anti-intellectualist readings, Pirsig explains what it
means to "kill" static intellectual patterns just a few pages later...
"Zen monks' daily life is nothing but on ritual after another. Hour after hour,
day after day, all his life. They don't tell him to shatter those static
patterns to discover the unwritten Dharma, they want him to get those patterns
perfect. The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that you do not
free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static
patterns. That is sometimes called 'bad karma chasing its tail.' You free
yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is, you MASTER
them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of your nature.
You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There in
the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns the
Dynamic freedom is found."
And he was saying the same thing about structure and freedom back in ZAMM too.
It's the key to his central metaphor - motorcycle maintenance - and to any
other kind of fixing. Intellectual static patterns are NOT the enemy of
creativity. Quite the opposite. They're not enough all by themselves but they
are necessary.
"If you want to build a factory [or an argument], or fix a motorcycle, or set a
nation right without getting stuck, then classical, structured, dualistic
subject-object knowledge, although necessary, isn’t enough. You have to have
some feeling for the quality of the work. You have to have a sense of what’s
good. That is what carries you forward. This sense isn’t just something you’re
born with, although you are born with it. It’s also something you can develop.
It’s not just ‘intuition,’ not just unexplainable ‘skill’ or ‘talent.’ It’s the
direct result of contact with basic reality, Quality, which dualistic reason
has in the past tended to conceal.” ZAMM 284
"In the past Phaedrus' 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 can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no
staying power. To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns
is to cling to chaos."
It's easy to see that some thinkers might prefer to emphasize the creative and
subversive aspects (DQ) of the MOQ while others might prefer to emphasize the
stabilizing and unifying aspects (static quality). But both sides risk
distortion. The first group risks an incoherent relativism and the second group
risks a world too tightly woven or too rigidly fixed. The first one is too
dynamic and the second one is too static. The way to strike a good balance
between these two tendencies is to see that life is a continuous process of
adjustment and adaptation wherein the static and the Dynamic work together in
an ongoing relationship. Creativity is not simply a matter of rejecting static
patterns or our structured reality but rather eliminating sticky old ideas in
favor of better ideas. That's how you get growth and change rather than
destruction, degeneracy or chaos.
"Value is the predecessor of structure. It’s the preintellectual awareness that
gives rise to it. Our structured reality is preselected on the basis of value,
and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding of the
value source from which it’s derived. One’s rational understanding of a
motorcycle is therefore modified from minute to minute as one works on it and
sees that a new and different rational understanding has more Quality. One
doesn’t cling to old sticky ideas because one has an immediate rational basis
for rejecting them. Reality isn’t static anymore. It’s not a set of ideas you
have to either fight or resign yourself to. It’s made up, in part, of ideas
that are expected to grow as you grow, and as we all grow, century after
century. With Quality as a central undefined term, reality is, in its essential
nature, not static but dynamic. And when you really understand dynamic reality
you never get stuck. It has forms but the forms are capable of change."
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