[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[skutvik at online.no]

All talking heads. 

On 3 Dec. DMB wrote:

> Nice work, Paul. i think you've sorted things out with refreshing
> clarity here and I'm grateful. 

Paul had quoted half of LILA to show that ZMM's Aretê is Quality 
before the DQ/SQ split, but all his we know, the ..... $.£ question 
is where its static component fits in the MOQ template.    

About this Paul said:

> > Now, Bo will say that aretê and hence dharma is social quality.
> > Regarding dharma being social, he is correct in that, like aretê, dharma
> > was taken from social patterns (from the Vedic use of "rta" in the case
> > of dharma) but it doesn't end there.  Pirsig has this to say in LILA, 

Good! Aretê as pertaining  to Homeric ideals is social value, but 
but then Paul went back to the Hindu landscape again. What 
interests us however is how ZMM's "plot" is to be understood in a 
MOQ light so what happens when we compare notes?  
 
> > "Following the period of the [social] Brahmanas came the [intellectual]
> > Upanishadic period and the flowering of Indian philosophy.  Dynamic
> > Quality reemerged within the static patterns of Indian thought.

OK, what followed the period of (social) Aretê was the intellectual 
level. Still good, the flowering of Greek philosophy brought about 
SOM. And then dynamic quality re-emerged within the static 
patterns of Western thought with Robert Pirsig who saw that SOM 
was faulty and realized that it had its origin with the Greeks and 
then  identified his own Quality with that what intellect-as-SOM 
had destroyed, namely Aretê.  Perfect!          

The following is Paul thinking for himself (for a change): 

> > In a similar vein, the meaning of the word aretê comes from a
> > prehistoric time before intellect and so is heavily linked to social
> > quality, hence the translation into "virtue."  But words invented
> > socially are not excluded from being used intellectually and so it is
> > not necessary to say that aretê is restricted to being a "social era"
> > term for Quality that still meant social quality when it was later used
> > by the Sophists to refer to all-round excellence, including intellectual
> > excellence. 

Correct. The Sophists were contemporaries of Socrates & Co and 
thus "intellectuals", and because everybody in Greece surely 
wanted to be doing quality work the aretê concept surely carried 
on as a catch-word. For instance  Pirsig says that Plato didn't 
reject Aretê , he just encapsuled it in his own philosophy.  

> > As well as
> > social leadership, physical prowess is the subject of an abundance of
> > superlatives in Iliad and Odyssey and the Sophists, after all, were
> > masters of the logos. So I don't think aretê is just social quality,

Agreement. The Sophist's aretê was not static social quality. The 
pure social era would have agreed with Protagoras'  "man the 
measure of all things". If we look to a present-day social value 
culture - the Muslim one for instance - that of being "man-made" 
is the absolute evil. No, the Sophists were intellectuals all right, 
but represented the subjective side of SOM, while Socrates 
represented the objective - truth - side.         

DMB went on:. 

> I just wanted to add the Plains Cree
> also seemed to have a word like dharma in that it retained both
> static and Dynamic connotations. Ive lost the page number for this
> quote from LILA...

> What I especially like it that the Cree are using one term for the
> supreme being and for excellence in everyday life, to manifestations
> of skill and luck. 

Sure, Manito was in all existence for the Cree Indians; there were 
gods for all aspects of life for the ancient Greeks and God 
"participated" in the life of the Hebrews. All these things are seen 
as social reality by the MOQ, the mystery is why the transition 
from this reality to the intellectual reality is presented as a loss of 
Quality. Something that matches Barfield's loss of participation. 

> I think this little description helps to imagine
> what arete may have meant among the ancient Sophists, before it
> became "formal and social and procedural". That's it. I just thought
> it was interesting to find a non-Oriental example. Or is it? If you
> go back far enough, the American plains Indians are from the East
> and I suppose there are some cultural as well as genetic
> connections.

As Paul says, the Sophists weren't ancient in the sense of 
belonging to the social era, the quality they claimed was 
intellectual quality - its subjective side. Only with Robert Maynard 
Pirsig did   ...... Dynamic Quality reemerge within the static 
patterns of Western thought.

The point about the American Indians coming from the East is a 
useful reminder/information.   

Bo