Dear Gregg,
I read your critique of my comments in "Creating an Organismic MOQ" with interest, and it
seems to me you are quite correct. I have been sloppy in my presentation at this point.
My placing the dynamic at the biological level was in the context of a discussion of mysticism,
which is only a partial excuse, as I readily agree that the dynamic is to be found at the three
higher levels, and it certainly does occur at the intellectual level, as you assert. I actually say
this in my brief suggestive outline of an organismic metaphysics (statement J) at the end of
my essay.
So the issue is how to discriminate between different types of dynamic quality, as it is
encountered at the biological, social and intellectual levels. In my recent reply to the two
Davids in this venue, I attempted to flesh this out a bit, and it also forms the substance of my
other article in the Forum. This is a rather complex issue, and I won't try to rehash it here.
What I would like is to rephrase the section you quote, as follows, and would appreciate
hearing if this makes better sense to you.
'What Pirsig has done is to confuse dynamic experience at the biological level, to which the
mystic appeals, with the dynamic quality experienced at the social or the intellectual levels,
which are dependant upon structures the mystic abhors. While an encounter with dynamic
quality can occur at each of these levels, Pirsig struggles to asert the superiority of
intellectual quality over social and biological quality, while refusing to examine the possibility
that dynamic quality is not all of one kind.'
That would be my amended statement. In support of my last assertion, Pirsig in Lila Ch 9
asks if using quality in the term "'Quality' meats" was incorrect - and has no answer. In ZAMM
Ch19 he rejects the division into romantic and classic quality because "His simple, neat,
beautiful, undefined Quality was starting to get complex."
It is indeed possible that in seeking to discriminate between different types of dynamic quality
I cross the barrier that Pirsig seeks to construct by asserting that dynamic quality is
undefinable, though he notes that even the use of the word becomes a sort of definition.
Pirsig explicitly rejects the romantic/classic division in Lila (Ch 9) and introduces the
dynamic/static as the fundamental division of quality. Yet Pirsig himself is so ready to equate
his 'beautiful, undefined Quality' with a variety of other terms that his attempt to isolate
Quality from scrutiny becomes rather a scandal. Quality is value, is ethics, is perfection, is
undefined fitness, is the fundamental ground-stuff of the world, and so on. My attempt to pin
down some aspects of quality is in part a reaction to this. I do accept that there is one aspect
of dynamic quality which is forever undefinable, that being its absolute givenness in
experience. No amount of prior experience can ever allow us to know in advance what a new
experience will bring. All attempts are fantasy, projection; and usually wrong. Having said
this, I suggest there are significant differences between the experience of quality at the three
higher levels, not so much in the tone of the experience, but in the requirements for having
the experience, and the consequences that flow from the experience. It may be that these
are actually static inputs and outcomes, though I am not sure this is so. At any rate the
mystic views these as static, hence his desire to remain in the biological level, where all
appears dynamic. It was this I was ineptly attempting to explicate in the section you so rightly
criticize.
John B
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:11 BST