[MD] On Balance: Dewey, Pirsig and Granger

[David M]

Hi Arlo

Thanks for below, the relationship between
DQ and SQ surely has to be characterised as
such.

David M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 10:34 PM
Subject: [MD] On Balance: Dewey, Pirsig and Granger


> All,
>
> I've been holding off dialogue over David Granger's book as I am only 
> about
> halfway through it. (By the way, I heartily recommend it. It should be
> available by now in your local library, or via interlibrary-loan at your 
> local
> library. Please give it your time, its worth it.)
>
> The notion of "balance" is something a few of us have been discussing 
> lately,
> namely "balance" between Dynamic and static forces as being integral to
> evolution and freedom. From LILA, "That's the whole thing: to obtain 
> static and
> Dynamic Quality simultaneously. If you don't have the static patterns of
> scientific knowledge to build upon you're back with the cave man. But if 
> you
> don't have the freedom to change those patterns you're blocked from any 
> further
> growth." The goal is to "create a stable static situation where Dynamic 
> Quality
> can flourish".
>
> In the Introduction to his book, "Dewey, Pirsig and Lived Experience", 
> David has
> a very eloquent section on "balance". I relate it below, hoping he does 
> not
> mind the lengthy quotation.
>
> "Importantly, according to Dewey and Pirsig, these incidents [moments of
> aesthetic immediacy and experience] presuppose that human beings are 
> active
> participants in a world that manifests certain basic characteristics or 
> traits.
> In a world substantially different from our own, they argue, consummatory
> satisfactions of this sort would be virtually impossible. This is because 
> the
> consummations are contingent upond environments that are marked by change 
> and
> flux, or what Pirsig calls "Dynamic Quality", in conjunction with periods 
> of
> rest and stability, Pirsig's "static quality". Dewey describes it this 
> way:
>
> 'There are two sorts of possible worlds in which esthetic experience would 
> not
> occur. In a world of mere flux, change would not be cumulative; it would 
> not
> move toward a close. Stability and rest would have no being. Equally is it
> true, however, that a world that is finished, ended, would have no traits 
> of
> suspense and crisis, and would offer no opportunity for resolution. Where
> everything is already complete, there is no fulfillment. We envision with
> pleasure Nirvana and a uniform heavenly bliss only because they are 
> projected
> on the background of our present world of stress and conflict. Because the
> actual world, that in which we live, is a combination of movement and
> culmination, of breaks and re-unions, the experience of a living creature 
> is
> capable of esthetic quality.'
>
> Need or desire and its fulfillment would simply not exist in either of 
> these
> alternative worlds. There must be a productive mixture of contingencies 
> and
> regularities:
>
> 'The live being recurrently loses and reestablishes equilibrium with his
> surroundings. The moment of passage from disturbance into harmony is that 
> of
> intensest life. In a finished world, sleep and waking could not be
> distinguished. In one wholly perturbed. conditions could not even be 
> struggled
> with. In a world made after a pattern of ours, moments of fulfillment 
> punctuate
> experience with rhythmically enjoyed intervals.'
>
> Maintaining his bike now provides Pirsig with a wealth of those venerable
> moments."
>
>
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