[MD] The MOQ at Oxford University

[Ian Glendinning]

Thanks Dave,

It was the use of the word equalizing that threw me ... I see your
intent now ... to contrast it with Pirsig's intent in the word
"unify".

If I may rephrase in my own words ...

You say "uniting" in relation to the MoQish view because it kinda
"integrates" these art, science & philosophy domains, without
devaluing or undermining any of them - the sum is greater than the
parts.

You say "equalizing" in relation to a view that sees it as kinda
"flattening" all three to some common "intersubjective" concensus -
the sum risks being a lowest common denominator of the parts - shot
through the head.

I'm reminded of this from Mary Parker-Follett
"There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination,
compromise,and integration. By domination only one side gets what it
wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration
we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish"

Regards
Ian


On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 6:01 PM, david buchanan<dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ian said to Dave:
> - be interesting if you could unpick that distinction between uniting and equalizing those three domains?
>
> dmb says:
>
> As far as equalization goes (making art and science equal by shooting them both in the head), the specific example of postmodern relativism I would point to is Rorty's "Texts and Lumps". Or is it "Lumps and Texts"? There, he says poets shouldn't even try to be like physicists. If anything, it's the other way around because truth is just a matter of getting your peers to agree. Rorty's notion of intersubjective agreement more or less says that the truth is determined by a consensus of the experts, which I would characterize as a kind of educated, pro-status quo relativism. But in the MOQ art and science are united by way of Quality, the primary empirical reality. In the MOQ, there is a kind of empirical realism that keeps us honest and it's nature that tells us when our ideas are no good, not experts. In the MOQ, the intersubjective agreement that Rorty places at the center of things is based on Quality. There is a key passage in chapter 25 of ZAMM about this unification of art and science through Quality.
>
> "Phædrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even perception, at the moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is no object. There is only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness of subjects and objects. At the moment of pure quality, subject and object are identical. This is the tat tvam asi truth of the Upanishads, but it's also reflected in modern street argot. "Getting with it," "digging it," "grooving on it" are all slang reflections of this identity. It is this identity that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the technical arts. And it is this identity that modern, dualistically conceived technology lacks. The creator of it feels no particular sense of identity with it. The owner of it feels no particular sense of identity with it. The user of it feels no particular sense of identity with it. Hence, by Phædrus' definition, it has no Quality.
> That wall in Korea that Phædrus saw was an act of technology. It was beautiful, but not because of any masterful intellectual planning or any scientific supervision of the job, or any added expenditures to "stylize" it. It was beautiful because the people who worked on it had a way of looking at things that made them do it right unselfconsciously. They didn't separate themselves from the work in such a way as to do it wrong. There is the center of the whole solution.
> The way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from technology. That's impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is ... not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both. When this transcendence occurs in such events as the first airplane flight across the ocean or the first footstep on the moon, a kind of public recognition of the transcendent nature of technology occurs. But this transcendence should also occur at the individual level, on a personal basis, in one's own life, in a less dramatic way.
> The walls of the canyon here are completely vertical now. In many places room for the road had to be blasted out of it. No alternate routes here. Just whichever way the river goes. It may be just my imagination, but it seems the river's already smaller than it was an hour ago.
> Such personal transcendence of conflicts with technology doesn't have to involve motorcycles, of course. It can be at a level as simple as sharpening a kitchen knife or sewing a dress or mending a broken chair. The underlying problems are the same. In each case there's a beautiful way of doing it and an ugly way of doing it, and in arriving at the high-quality, beautiful way of doing it, both an ability to see what "looks good" and an ability to understand the underlying methods to arrive at that "good" are needed. Both classic and romantic understandings of Quality must be combined."
> ...
> "The answer is Phaedrus' contention that classic understanding should not be OVERLAID with romantic prettiness: classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level. In the past our common universe of reason has been in the process of escaping, rejecting the romantic, irrational world of prehistoric man. It's been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature's order which was as yet unknown. Now it's time to further an understanding of nature's order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled from. The passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man's consciousness are a part of nature's order too. The central part.
> At present we're snowed under with an irrational expansion of blind dat-gathering in the sciences because there's no rational format for an understanding of scientific creativity. At present we are also snowed under with a lot of stylishness in the arts - thin art - because there's very little assimilation or extension into underlying form. We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly. The time for a real unification of art and technology is really long overdue." (p. 294)
>
> ..."Peace of mind isn't as all superficial to technical work. It's the whole thing. ...The reason for this is that peace of mind is a prerequisite for a perception of that Quality which is beyond romantic Quality and classic Quality and which unites the two, and which must accompany the work as it proceeds. The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and TO BE AT ONE WITH THIS GOODNESS as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through."
>
> Emphasis is Pirsig's in the original.
>
>