[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[david buchanan]

Bo, Mati, Paul and all MOQers:

Bo said:
...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 says:
I'm not following you with respect to Protagoras and Muslims. But I 
certainly object to the idea that the Sophists "represent the subjective 
side of SOM". That stikes me as quite incorrect and seems to miss of of 
ZAMM's central points. I mean, philosophically speaking, the climax of the 
book occurs when he can identify his own Quality (DQ) with the Good of the 
Sophists over Plato's "encapsulated" version (sq), which was taken from 
them. "And really, the Quality he was talking about WASN'T classic Quality 
OR romantic Quality." (ZAMM P.212) " Their Good and his Quality (DQ) "was 
not an Idea at all. The Good was not a FORM of reality. It was reality 
itself, ever changing, ultimately unknowable in any kind of fixed rigid 
way." (ZAMM p.342) My point? The Sophists were mystics, not intellectuals or 
romantics. Or at least it is this mystical understanding of the Good that 
makes them so central in ZAMM. "From Phaedrus' viewpoint, James's 
epistemology might be understood as a reversal of Plato's synthesis and a 
return to the Sophists' perspective." Guidebook page 171

dmb had said:
...the Plains Cree also seemed to have a word like dharma (Manito) in that 
it retained both static and Dynamic connotations. ...What I especially like 
is that the Cree are using one term for the supreme being and for excellence 
in everyday life, to manifestations of skill and luck. 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".

Bo replied:
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.

dmb says"
I'm a bit skeptical about Barfield. As I understand the evolution of 
consciousness, original participation describes the hunter/gatherer 
societies but not homer. But let me save that point for another day. 
Instead, I'd like to dispute the idea that "all these things are seen as 
social reality by the MOQ".  The main point in fact was to show that we are 
talking about DQ and not static quality, whether it be social or 
intellectual. I mean, its quite clearly expressed in that quote. Again,...

"...as David Mandelbaum noted in his book THE PLAINS CREE, 'The term MANITO 
primarily referred to the Supreme Being but also... manifestations of skill, 
fortune, blessing, luck, to any wonderous occurrence. It connoted any 
phenomenon that transcended the run of everyday experience.' In other words, 
'Dynamic Quality.'

As I understand it, the distinction that really matters with respect to the 
loss of mysticism is NOT between the 3rd and 4th levels, but between DQ and 
sq. Social level ritualistic religions and intellectual level metaphysical 
systems are both capable of depicting DQ and both of them are capable of 
failure. As Pirsig puts it, intellectual patterns are any more true than 
social level forms, they're just more open to change. And as you may have 
gathered by now, its seems pretty clear to me that philosophical mysticism 
is built by adding up those social level forms and giving an intellectual 
expression of that combined ancient wisdom. And I think the way those Cree 
Indians used the word 'Manito' shows that DQ played a central role in their 
lives and in the way they viewed life. The way they used the word showed 
that DQ was alive in their culture, so to speak. I think its doesn't really 
matter whether social static patterns block out the light or if intellectual 
level metaphysicians turn it into a fixed and rigid thing. Either way the 
danger is being too static. I posted a quote in another thread that may be 
useful here. This is Robert Morrison in Volume 1 of the WESTERN BUDDHIST 
REVIEW...

"In the West, this Platonic world-view provided the theological framework 
for Christianity. As Augustine tells us, 'Christianity is Platonism for the 
people'. 8 Plato's 'True World' becomes Christianised as the 'Kingdom of 
God', which is now accessible to more than philosophers as one can enter it 
by faith alone. However, the object of faith can only be verified at 
death-what is called 'eschatological verification'."

When Plato stole the Good of the Sophists and encapsulated it, he created a 
situation where the "True Reality" is some kind of eternal abstract entity 
outside of life. Likewise, Christianity and other theistic religions offer a 
supernatual being and an otherworldly reality that can't be known. This is 
the situation that blocks out DQ and makes us enemies of the world rather 
than a part of it. Either way, social or intellectual, this is contrary to 
the Good of the Sophists and to Pirsig's DQ.

Here you can see how Christianity goes bad as static views overtake it...

"What had started as a timeless myth encoding perennial teachings now 
appeared to be a historical
account of a once-only event in time. From this point it was unavoidable 
that sooner or later it would be interpreted as historical fact. Once it 
was, a whole new type of religion came into being - a religion based on 
history not myth, on blind faith in supposed events rather than on a 
mystical understanding of mythical allegories, a religion of the Outer 
Mysteries without the Inner Mysteries, of form without content, of belief 
without Knowledge." The Jesus Mysteries, p.207

Plato's blunder only shows that the intellectual level can commit this same 
error, that the same error can express itself on either level. See, 
mysticism is basically excluded from Western science AND Western religion in 
the name of eternal truths about reality. Whereas Pirsig says, "Its all a 
ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed 
world we live in." ZAMM 31

"Their object was not any single absolute truth, but the improvement of men. 
All principles, all truths, are relative, they said, 'Man is the measure of 
all things'. These wre the famous teachers of 'wisdom', the Sophist of 
ancient Greece." " ZAMM 337

Thanks.
dmb

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