> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 5:55 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: MF PROGRAM - April 2000 > > "And as Phaedrus' studies got deeper and deeper he saw that it was to this > conflict between European and Indian values, between freedom and order, > that his study should be directed." > > Is this an accurate portrayal? > > But more importantly just what is freedom? > > How does the MoQ provide for it? > > How it the same, different, than other philosophies? > > In other words, what are the qualities of freedom? > [David Buchanan] I've stretched out the seperate questions simply for the purpose of displaying them. I've also deleted the comment about the quote, cause it ""seems" that "by and large" Pirsig is pretty explicit about order and freedom and their connection to the European and Indian values. And the "controversial" nature of Pirsig's assertion is covered well in the first question;... Is this an accurate portrayal? Hmmm. I think Pirsig is correct, but what he's saying is broad and deep more than "accurate". It seems that accuracy is what scientists and carpenters need, but novelist and philosophers need a different kind of rightness. I don't mean to suggest that Pirsig's assertion is vague, just that its very large in scope. In fact, the enlightenment was my focus in college. I studied history and philosophy and concentrated on that specific period of European history. I mention all this only to underscore that Pirsig's generalization is not vague or arbitrary. It explains alot. I honestly can't think of a serious way to contradict his freedom/order idea. It works. Its part of the pragmatic nature of the MOQ. It explains the central conflict in our culture and in our history. In fact, I think we can see this same conflict in our discussions about the conflict. ; ) Questions #2 But more importantly just what is freedom? #3 How does the MOQ provide for it? and #4 How is it the same or different that other philosophies? are summarized by #5 In other words, what are the qualities of freedom? Maybe we could ask, "Just what kind of freedom is he talking about in chapter three?" And we might ask the same thing about order, eh? In any case, I think its an excellent set of questions. I imagine we all agree that these issues are important to the MOQ. On the practicle level he's talking about freedom in the lives of real people, throughout history, and he's comparing Europe to North America in that respect. He's talking about the differences in social values, the conflict between them and the struggle to integrate them. But he's also talking about less tangible things like "open space". This seems to be connected to the Indian values, for example Rigel saying at King's town "There's no space here" compared to Ten Bear's saying "I was born where the wind blows free and there is nothing to break the light of the sun." These contrasting statements seem to tell us that Indian values are connected to the open space idea. Likewise, Pirsig said his insights in the teepee weren't sentimental, narrow or familiar, but that there was "something new opening up"... And this is where we get to the questions about the nature of freedom in the MOQ. I think the teepee ceremony was definately a mystical experience, and Pirsig says later in the book that understanding religious mysticism will produce "an avalanche of information as to what Dynamic Quality is." This is the and the source of freedom in Indian values. I think Pirsig's sense of freedom is connected to open space, and mysticism because they are both associated with DQ. Its about freedom from static patterns, not just political liberty, although that's relevant and important too. And there seems to be another theme connected to Indian freedom and European order; directness and imitation. Pirsig contrasts the direct honesty unceremonious attitude of the Indians with Lila's total lack of originality and the fake Victorian architecture. I think he's asking us to see the dynamic way of being as a more authentic way and that the static way of life only leads to an imitation of life. The clash between Indian and European values is much more than a illustrative example, its way to demonstate the explanatory power of the static/Dynamic split. Its not my purpose to get ahead of the stroy. All I'm saying is that, in contrasting freedom and order Pirsig is introducing his main metaphysical themes AND he's connecting them to the historical realities of Western culture. Remember why Dusenberry was filling Pirsig head with facts about the Indians? He wanted to produce a thesis about how the degree of "backwardness" of a people was in direct relation to how religious they were, or something like that. (By the way, this issue came up last month and I think that this is the idea Pirsig "dropped". I suspect he let go of that approch because its too specific and narrow. Besides that, the MOQ is broad enough to answer Dussenberry's themes without being limited by it or to it.) Anyway, I think the "backwardness" idea relates to the conflict between Indian freedom and European order. Clearly the word is insulting and it represents the view Europeans have of Americans and that American have of Indians. Pirsig lists the prejudices on both sides."Backward" is a term that seems to belong with that list. Remember Pirsig's description of the shabby clutter around that teepee? He said the distance between the highway and the teepee was only a few hundred yards, but it was also a distance of centuries. I think Pirsig repeatedly proves that backward doesn't HAVE to be insulting... He certainly seems fond of the Sophists, those ancient, ancient pre-Socratic lovers of Excellence. And he goes to the very oldest roots in Sanskrit like a linguistic archeologist to trace the orgins of RigHTness. So I think the distance in centuries should be seen in that light. Pirsig uses these things to find out where we've come from. It allows him to investigate the layer that's been buried by modern Western culture. Its not a regression to a earlier more primitive time so much as a return to our own origins and as a way to clear some open space, becasue "there's no space here. Its all filled up with history." I recently discovered some interesting things about Peyote use among the Indians. No one knows how far back it goes but fossilized peyote buttons in a ceremonial context have been found in western Texas. They're 7,000 years old. There are older sites with different hallucinogens like Red bean seeds and Texas buckeye. Some of those are more than ten thousand years old. The tribe that has the longest known practice say that "Peyote-Deer brother" is their oldest god and it is believed that the peyote ceremony incorporates some of thier oldest myths and rituals. Anthropologist Weston La Barre says their society is like a "mesolithic fossil", and that by examining it "one can creep up on Eurasiac history and protohistory so to speak from the flank, and along an immense time depth." Imagine that. The peyote hunt they do to this day (harvesting the plant in a desert between the Pecos and Rio Grand) reveals aspects of their culture that go all the way back to Siberia, before they even crossed the land bridge into North America! The use of peyote by Plains Indians is a reatively recent development. Interestly, it was the Kiowas and the Comanches, Ten Bears' tribe, were the first Plains Indians to adopt its use in the 1880's. (I wonder if Ten Bears was tripping when he gave that speech. Ba Dump Bump.) An anthropologist named Prem Das was one of the first to join the Huichol Indians on their traditional peyote hunt in the early seventies and gives this account... "I heard an answerr that seemed to come from all around me, and it rose in my mind's eye like a great time-lapse vision. I saw a human being rise from the earth, stand for a moment, and then dissolve back into it. It was only a brief moment; and in that moment our whole lives passed. Then I saw a huge city rise out of the desert floor before me, exist for a second, and then vanish back into the vastness of the desert. The plants, rock, and earth under me were saying, Yes, this is how it really is, your life, the city you live in. It was as if, in my peyotized state, I was able to perceive and communicate with a resonance or vibration that surrounded me ... An overwhelming realization poured throught me - that the human race and all technologhy formed by it are nothing other than flowers of the earth. (He had wept and wondered why Western society had become so estranged from the Earth) The painful problem which had confronted me disappeared entriely, to be replaced with a vision of people and their technology as temporary forms through which Mother Earth was expressing herself." His central realization just blew me away; "that the human race and all technology formed by it are nothing other than flowers of the earth". When I read that I grabbed my paperback copy of Zen and the Art and looked at the cover. There is a small image of a mechanic's wrench spouting up out of some leaves as a flower would. Flash! Boom! WOW! Static partterns are temporary forms through which DQ expresses itself. That's the quality of Pirisg's freedom, its Dynamic quality. How does it go? A person only has free will to the extent that he or she follows DQ. I'm sincerely grateful to any reader who's made it this far. Thanks for your time. ------- End of forwarded message ------- MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
