[MD] New Age++

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi DMB

Never a dull word from your end. No sarcasm. 

On 15 Jan. you wrote:

> Please notice the reference there to the MOQ's "code of art". I had
> originally planned to include some quotes from Campbell to expand on
> that concept, but they were edited out along with lots of other
> things. Anyway, I think this concept gets at what good and bad about
> the "new age". It gets at the distinction between the regressive,
> reactionary aspects and the evolutionary and creative aspects. If
> there was a "director's cut" of FUN WITH BLASPHEMY, these would be in
> it....

First to the "code of art". What is beyond/above any level (while 
top notch) is of course DQ so what is beyond intellect now is the 
Quality Reality from where we (us initiated few at least ;-) see 
things. I believe we agree in this.      

> Here's Joseph Campbell, in his MYTHS TO LIVE BY:
> "Let me recall at this point Nietzsche's statements regarding classic
> and romantic art. He identified two types or orders of each. There is
> the romanticism of true power that shatters contemporary forms to go
> beyond these to new forms; and there is, on the other hand, the
> romanticism that is unable to achieve form at all, and so smashes and
> disparages out of resentment. And with respect to classicism likewise,
> there is the classicism that finds an achievement of the recognized
> forms easy and can play with them at will, expressing through them its
> own creative aims in a rich and vital way; and there is the classicism
> that clings to form desperately out of weakness, dry and hard,
> authoritarian and cold. The POINT I WOULD MAKE - and which I believe
> was also Nietzsche's - is that form is the medium, the vehicle,
> through which life becomes manifest in its grand style, articulate and
> grandiose, and that the mere shattering of form is for human as well
> as for animal life a disaster, ritual and decorum being the
> structuring forms of all civilization."

I also believe that we agree on seeing the mythological reality as 
equal to the social level. A reality where rituals were what 
everything turned round. The MOQ says that intellect has society 
as its base, but intellect - as SOM - is oblivious of this and looks 
down on (what the MOQ calls) social value with contempt, as a 
subjective/sentimental/emotional remnant that existence would 
have fared better without.      

As intellect regained momentum (after the Medieval setback) it 
took up its contempt of social value (at that time exclusively 
religion) The post-revolution government in France for instance 
abolished Church holidays. This soon became untenable and 
shows that intellect principally despises social values yet can't rid 
existence of them, and - moreover - can't understand why from 
its static point of view. Campbell's a wise man, but as an 
intellectual he really has no tool by which to see the context.  

> I'd be happy to discuss this further, but basically I think this is
> what the code of art means. I think that the basic idea is that each
> of us needs to be "an ommpvatomg center, an active, creative center of
> the life process", to be an "agent of evolution", which begins "in
> your own heart and hands". 

We need the MOQ to see these things because it is the ART  
center beyond intellect, from where all these Campbellian 
deliberations are seen for what they are: the struggle between the 
intellectual and social levels, but also the interdependence 
between them. 

> And I think Pirsig's critique of the hippy
> movement, that it started out as a positive, evolutionary movement but
> degenerated into hedonism, that it became opposed to social and
> intellectual values and then confused the biological with the Dynamic,
> can serve as a warning to the new agers as well. 

Agree!

> Its the same problem
> of regression vs evolution. And isn't it interesting that Campbell
> sees that "ridiculous nature-boy sentimentality" in both the hippies
> and in Germany's budding Hitler youth? Anyway, I think this is also
> the meaning of Pirsig's complaints about the notion of the "noble
> savage" and his idea that we should dust off those old forms and judge
> them impartially, that we should be gratful for the job civilization
> has done in taming the biological organism. And I think the big idea
> here is simply that evolution shouldn't entail destroying the forms
> that have come before, it should build upon them. There is no
> premodern answer to our postmodern problems, but alienation from our
> premodern self is part of the problem. That's why we want to
> re-integrate myth, but not regress to mythic thinking. That's why we
> want to get back in touch with nature, but without abandoning our
> solar-powered laptops or our sophisticated permacultural farming
> techniques. We want a spirituality that stands up to intellectual
> scrutiny so that we can have myth and science at the same time, in a
> worldview without drawers and compartments.

Agreement  ... but why a "spirituality standing up to intellect". It is 
the MOQ that stands up to intellect (as SOM)!

Bo