LS Re: Quality Event


Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Fri, 7 Nov 1997 17:46:01 +0100


Maggie wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I need some help with the Quality Event, which we've talked about, and I've
> looked back through past LS letters. I 'm still not clear on it.
>

Maggie, here is my contribution (the passages in your letter that I
have omitted are just fine): For some reason I have become connected
with the Quality Event expression (the title of my essay probably),
but this is very much a ZMM thing: the mystic Pirsig. In LILA he
doesn't speak so much about QE and I believe it is because the
passage "...the event at which the subject becomes aware of the
object..etc." has some heavy subject/object connotations. In the MOQ
proper it is replaced by the dynamic/static value division. Well, I
bring out my "red pencil" and make the following corrections to your
"Brief Background" foreword:

 (it finally became so cluttered that I rewrote it).

Brief background of Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ).
(Please note that the terms 'value', 'quality', 'morals', and 'good'
are interchangeable). MoQ involves a way of perceiving reality, quite
different from the subject/object viewpoint that underlies Western
thinking and language. The first proposition of MoQ is that
everything is value, and that the primary division is between
dynamic- and static value, not between subjects and objects. The
undifferentiated, undefined, pre-existing source of all tings is
referred to as Dynamic Quality, but in this undifferentiated "ocean"
there has formed sets of stable "wave patterns" of which the
first is the material universe itself. The MoQ recognizes four such
discrete value patterns (other terms are: 'levels', 'dimensions' and
'areas'). They are in rising order of good:

1. Static Inorganic Value (Matter)
2. Static Biological Value (Life)
3. Static Social Value (Societies)
4. Static Intellectual Value (Ideas)

 
> The Quality Event (QE) is the point at which....
>
> Static and Dynamic Quality interact. ???????
> OR
> or static patterns of value interact with other levels or DQ????????
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Which is it?

If I am to try to define the "Quality Event" it's definitely the
first alternative (Dynamic-Static). The interaction between the two
is hard to define, a trite example is the relationship between a
medium and the message. For instance are (spoken) words pressure
waves in undifferentiated air. Such waves may become changed by the
medium itself; new patterns may form. It is said that if a microphone
is placed inside a soundproof room, after a while it starts to pick
up sounds from its own internal dynamics. The greatest Quality Event
must have been when the material universe formed, but another major
one happened when life manifested itself. The next one was the social
cooperation among life forms, and finally the step out of the social
bonds into intellectual reedom. Now, as Intellect is the youngest
it is also most dynamic, and every time static intellectual patterns
(ideas, thoughts) are created and/or a major shift takes place, a
little Quality Event has happened. I notice that in Doug's reply he
delivers a more "exotic" version of what takes place when dynamism
and stability interact (the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum
Mech.) I'll answer him separately.

> Here's the same question in a the context of a different passage:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In general, the application of MoQ insight to social theory seems to offer the
> possibility of sorting out conflicting forces into component parts that are not
> otherwise seen.
 
This is correct!

> The leader/follower relationship is a social pattern of value. Leadership is a
> social pattern that utilizes the non-social behavior or insight of one person
> to mediate the social patterns of a group, thereby giving freedom from the
> constraints of static social patterns, creating new ones.

This was new to me, but it looks good, definitely.
 
> The initial connection between leader and follower may be formed by a Quality
> Event at any level, but must be maintained by the social level.

I am not so sure if I understand the "any level, but..etc" sentence,
I think the leader/follower configuration is typical for the social
level.

> The Leader experiences DQ, creates a DQ-mediated intellectual pattern (the
> insight), transfers that to an intellectually-mediated social pattern
> (message), shares it with someone. If the person internalizes it, and sets up
> and maintains a social relationship with the leader, a static social pattern is
> maintained. If a group of people, a sub-culture, adopts the message, it is
> referred to as a "routinized charismatic message".

Yes, with a little qualification. Let's take an example from
the ancient times before the Intellectual level became a motivating
moral force, and still part of (in the service of) its parent level.
A leader, say Moses of the Israelite's tribe, went up on
Mount Sinai and experienced a QE and came down to his people and
delivered his message. He did so by way of language (even written
on stone slates!), but I wouldn't call it "intellectual" . Even if
language was to become the the great mediator of intellectual
values it was solely society's servant at that time. (Compare it to
before Life. The carbon atom was to become the mediator of biological
value, but at that time it was just "dead" inorganic matter....and
still is from matter's point of view). The Isrealites did adopt his
message and it became what you call "a routinized charismatic message
(ritual).

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here is the question again, context from the paragraphs above:
>
> What is the second person's (the follower's) experience? I'm asking about the
> important, meaningful experience that sets the relationship? Is it a DQ
> event, or an intellectual Quality event? Or a social Quality event?
>
> I expect that most of us think (or have thought) it is DQ. Do you still think
> so?

If I stick to my example, the followers' experience was definitely -
a social event, at that moment their society was
transformed from a multi-god nomadic tribe into God's own
people which they felt was very good. If they had experienced
it as bad social value Moses would have been chased away, and nobody
would have heard of it later. But it is just as valid to-day. In our
capacity as biological bodies we experience only good or bad
biological value; as social beings we experience good or bad social
value, and as Intellects we experience good or bad intellectual value
(if it is very good we may even call it "truth")

To respond to your intriguing questions was good intellectual value.

Bo.

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