[MD] Percepts and Concepts

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John]
That was Kat, who said that, btw.   But nevermind 
all that, including who the "duh" is intended 
for, let's get to the meatiest of points:

[Arlo]
Ah the finer points of thread management. Sorry for the confusion.

[John]
Right now I'm building two staircases made out of 
logs - one circular and one straight.  It is 
considered highly artistic by observers.  What I 
used to do before was crank out regular old 
framed stairs - I'd get a "good job" now and then 
but it was never considered artistic.

[Arlo]
I think the problem here is in the "common" 
application of the term. I'd argue, if you CARE, 
evidenced by high-quality work, then there is no 
reason NOT to consider your "regular old framed 
stairs" as "artistic". What looks to me to be 
happening here is the desire for a prescriptivist 
definition of "art" rather than a "descriptive". 
In other words, we shouldn't bother with "what 
must something BE to be considered art", we 
should care only "is this artistic activity?"

[John]
Yet my skills and methods are pretty similar - 
I'm the same guy performing the same function 
with material made from trees.  The round shape 
of logs is art and the square patterns of lumber is not.

[Arlo]
Again, this is a problem with the "common" 
application of the term "art", a situation 
resolved by the MOQ which would say that both 
COULD be art, depending on the quality of the endeavor.

[John]
Even if I do a crappy job on the log staircase, 
it's still considered art. Maybe bad art, but 
art.  Even if I perform perfectly on stairs made 
conventionally, it's never considered art at 
all.  At the most, fine craftsmanship.

[Arlo]
And this right here is a nutshell description of 
the problem the MOQ faces as it diffuses and runs 
into the ingrained, habituated discourse of the 
culture. I don't think such as  thing as "bad 
art" makes any sense from within a MOQ 
perspective at all. And if "fine craftsmanship" 
isn't art, then what is? Indeed, the very 
distinction between "craft" and "art" is 
blurred/resolved/united in the MOQ. So much so 
I'd go further to argue that "fine craftsmanship" 
is a redundancy, like "good art".

[John]
... but there is something there in my experience 
I do recognise as different and I think the 
difference is between the free creativity and following the rules.

[Arlo]
Pirsig touches on this too, and I think its important. Some relevant passages.

"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." (ZMM)

"I think that when this concept of peace of mind 
is introduced and made central to the act of 
technical work, a fusion of classic and romantic 
quality can take place at a basic level within a 
practical working context. I've said you can 
actually see this fusion in skilled mechanics and 
machinists of a certain sort, and you can see it 
in the work they do. To say that they are not 
artists is to misunderstand the nature of art. 
They have patience, care and attentiveness to 
what they're doing, but more than this...there's 
a kind of inner peace of mind that isn't 
contrived but results from a kind of harmony with 
the work in which there's no leader and no 
follower. The material and the craftsman's 
thoughts change together in a progression of 
smooth, even changes until his mind is at rest at 
the exact instant the material is right." (ZMM)

And finally.

"Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad 
workman and compare his expression with that of a 
craftsman whose work you know is excellent and 
you'll see the difference. The craftsman isn't 
ever following a single line of instruction. He's 
making decisions as he goes along. For that 
reason he'll be absorbed and attentive to what 
he's doing even though he doesn't deliberately 
contrive this. His motions and the machine are in 
a kind of harmony. He isn't following any set of 
written instructions because the nature of the 
material at hand determines his thoughts and 
motions, which simultaneously change the nature 
of the material at hand. The material and his 
thoughts are changing together in a progression 
of changes until his mind's at rest at the same time the material's right."

"Sounds like art," the instructor says.

"Well, it is art," I say. "This divorce of art 
from technology is completely unnatural. It's 
just that it's gone on so long you have to be an 
archeologist to find out where the two separated. 
Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost 
branch of sculpture, so divorced from its roots 
by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that 
just to associate the two sounds ludicrous." (ZMM)

This isn't to say that the "craftsman" doesn't 
follow some form of conceived framework when 
building something. Its just very loose, and the 
craftsman will not move sequentially so much as 
causally or aesthetically. Consider that in 
changing the oil of the bike, Pirsig had to make 
the decision to park the bike in shade overnight. 
That's in essence "following an instruction", but 
Pirsig is the master of the instruction, not the 
other way around, and I think that's the 
important distinction. The craftsman can 
"abandon" instructions when needed, reformulate 
new plans, in a dynamic relationship with the activity.

[John]
When the lines are all laid out for you, it's 
craft.  When you have to come up with the lines yourself, it's art.

[Arlo]
I don't think the MOQ supports this distinction. 
Maybe better to say, when all the lines are laid 
out for you, its good work. When the lines are 
unnecessary, its art. (Or in both cases, "could 
be", respectively). But the goal (I'd say) of 
instructions should always be to mediate the 
activity until such a time as the experience of 
the person leads to an agency that makes them 
unnecessary. I think we forget that 
"instructions" or "lines" are temporary guides 
for novices, learning aids as it were, 
mediational support, and the "goal" should always 
be to overcome the need for prescription. And I 
think this goes for any field, for any form of human activity.