> -----Original Message-----
> From: diana@hongkong.com [SMTP:diana@hongkong.com]
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 5:55 PM
> To: moq_focus@moq.org
> 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 -------
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