[MD] extricating MOQ from SOM

Jaclyn Engele JENGELE at mass.rr.com
Tue Oct 24 21:10:38 PDT 2006


SA said:

>     I am hoping the more experienced discussors of
> the MoQ will take up this line of questioning.  Is
> this really what the MoQ has been trying to do all
> along?  Shift the weight from an objectively heavy
> culture to a more balanced SOM culture, thus, the MoQ
> emphasizes quality or subjectivity to shift this
> overload to a more balanced perspective?  When we
> shift this overloaded cargo of objectivity to allow
> for more subjectivity, if this is what the MoQ is
> emphasizing, then our perspective must obviously
> change, and this is the whole pigeonhole talk that
> Pirsig mentions.  But first, is quality and
> subjectivity a semantic point?
>
> Thanks,
> SA



What I'm trying to get at is this:  People who are predominantly subjective 
don't appear to have as much trouble with recognizing and appreciating 
quality, for example: artists.  I'm not suggesting that they are entirely 
subjective, just that they emphasize subjective values throughout their 
lives to a greater degree.  Conversely, people who are primarily objective 
in their outlook on life have much more trouble accepting and appreciating 
quality due to their conceptualizing of all things in SOM terms. 
Subjective people don't do that.

Robert Pirsig (from letter to Bodvar Skutvik):

"...recent experiments are showing that the right side of the brain, the 
"artistic" side, filters all experience before it reaches the left 
"rational" side of the brain. this would concur with the MOQ assertion that 
value precedes concepts in human understanding...This is not to say that the 
right brain creates the quality, only that it filters it before passing it 
along to the left brain for conceptualizing."

Subjective people still have a problem, it's just not the quality issue that 
the objective people have.  (This is an interesting observation I've made, I 
am curious.  It's important because I discuss the MoQ with subjective-type 
people who cannot seem to relate to it). However, the answer for both types 
of problems seems to be the meeting of the two or the 'balance' of the two.


Is it appropriate to explain the MoQ using the term 'balance' regarding 
subject/object?  Is it appropriate to think of subjectivity and objectivity 
as tools to use in gaining access to quality/truth/reality?  If they are 
tools then I'm inferring that I exist indepentantly of my perspective 
because I can choose the tool to use.  This sounds like it could be MoQ. 
I'm just trying to think this through in a way that I can explain to other 
people.

Jim Engele







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