[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Andre,
relevant passage from ZAMM,
Tim

> 
> Andre:
> Yeah, just above the quote I gave ye. The narrator in ZMM sees the
> 'solution' not in Govt. programs because that kind of approach starts at
> the end and presumes the end is the beginning. Social values 'become'
> right only if individual values are right. 'Programs of a political
> nature are important END PRODUCTS  of social quality that can be
> effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right'.
> (ZMM,p291)

[Tim]
this was the right place, my page 267.

I will give a long excerpt, the whole of this part of his chautaqua, I
ask that you pay attention to where all 'I'ness comes in, and 'reality'
too (pg. 263 of 380, ch 25).

"Now that solution.  Throughout this Chautaqua so far this whole problem
of technological ugliness has been looked at in a negative way.  It's
been said that romantic attitudes toward Quality such as the Sutherlands
have are, by themselves, hopeless.  You can't live on just groovy
emotions alone.  You have to work with the underlying form of the
universe too, the laws of nature which, when understood, can make work
easier, sickness rarer and famine almost absent.  On the other hand,
technology based on pure dualistic reason has also been condemned
because it obtains these material advantages by turning the world into a
stylized garbage dump.  Now's the time to stop condemning things and
come up with some answers.
     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
     data-gathering in the sciences because there's no rational format
     for any understanding of scientific creativity.  At present we are
     also snowed under with a lot of stylishness in teh 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 real reunification of art and technology is
     really long overdue.
    At the DeWeeses I started to talk about peace of mind in connection
    with technical work but got laughed off the scene because I brought
    it up out of the context in which it had originally appeared to me. 
    Now I think it is in context to return to peace of mind and see what
    I was talking about.
    Peace of mind isn't at all superficial to technical work.  It's the
    whole thing.  THat which produces it is good work and that which
    destroys it is bad work.  The specs, the measuring instruments, the
    quality control, the final checkout, these are all *means* toward
    the end of satisfying the peace of mind of those responsible for the
    work.  What really counts in the end is their peace of mind, nothing
    else.  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 loos 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.
    I say *inner* peace of mind.  It has no direct relationship to
    external circumstances.  It can occur to a monk in meditation, to a
    soldier in heavy combat or to a machinist taking off that last
    ten-thousanth of an inch.   It involves unself-consciousness, which
    produces a complete identification with one's circumstances, and
    there are levels and levels of this identification and levels and
    levels of quietness quite as profound and difficult of attainment as
    the more familiar levels of activity.  THe mountains of achievement
    are Quality discovered in one direction only, and are relatively
    meaningless and often unobtainable unless taken together with the
    ocean trenches of self-awareness - so different from
    self-consciousness - which result from inner peace of mind.
    The inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. 
    Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are
    levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu
    mystics to live buried alive for many days.  Mental quietness, in
    which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult,
    but can be achieved.  But value quietness, in which one has no
    wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life
    without desire, that seems the hardest.
    I've sometimes thought this inner peace of mind, this quietness is
    similar to if not identical with the sort of calm you sometimes get
    when going fishing, which accounts for so much of the popularity of
    this sport.  Just to sit with the line in the water, not moving, not
    really thinking about anything, not really caring about anything
    either, seems to draw out the inner tensions and frustrations that
    have prevented you from solving problems you couldn't solve before
    and introduced ugliness and clumsiness into your actions and
    thoughts.
    You don't have to go fishing, of course, to fix your motorcycle.  A
    cup of coffee, a walk around the block, sometimes just putting off
    the job for five minutes of silence is enough.  WHen you do you can
    almost feel yourself grow toward that inner peace of mind that
    reveals it all. That which turns its back in this inner clam and the
    Quality it reveals is bad maintenance.  That which turns toward it
    is good.  The forms of turning away and toward are infinite but the
    goal is always the same.
    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 teh exact instant the material is right.
    We've all had moments of that sort when we're doing something we
    really want to do.  It's just that somehow we've gotten into an
    unfortunate separation of those moments from work.  The mechanic I'm
    talking about doesn't make this separation.  One says of him that he
    is "interested" in what he's doing, that he's "involved" in his
    work.  What produces this involvement is, at the cutting edge of
    consciousness, an absence of any sense of separateness of subject
    and object.  "Being with it," "being a natural," "taking hold" -
    there are a lot of idiomatic expressions for what I mean by this
    absence of subject-object duality, because what I mean is so well
    understood as folklore, common sense, the everyday understanding of
    the shop.  But in scientific parlance the words for this absence of
    subject-object duality are scarce because scientific minds have shut
    themselves off from consciousness of this kind of understanding in
    the assumption of the formal dualistic scientific outlook.
    Zen Buddhists talk about "just sitting," a meditative practice in
    which the idea of a duality of self and object does not dominate
    one's consciousness.  What I'm talking about here in motorcycle
    maintenance is "just fixing," in which the idea of a duality of self
    and object doesn't dominate one's consciousness.  When one isn't
    dominated by feelings of separateness from what he's working on,
    then one can be said to "care" about what he's doing.  That is what
    caring really is, a feeling of identification with what one's doing.
     When one has this feeling then he also sees the inverse side of
    caring, Quality itself.
    So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other
    task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate
    one's self from one's surroundings.  When that is done successfully
    then everything else follows naturally.  Peace of mind produces
    right values, right values produce right thoughts.  Right thoughts
    produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be
    material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center
    of it all.  That was what it was about that wall in Korea.  It was a
    material reflection of spiritual reality.
    I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a
    better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about
    relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic,
    full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another;
    or with programs full of things for other people to do.  I think
    that kind of approach starts at the end and presumes the end is the
    beginning.  Programs of a political nature are important *end
    products* of social quality that can be effective only if the
    underlying structure of social values is right.  THe social values
    are right only if the individual values are right.  The place to
    improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands,
    and then work outward from there.  Other people can talk about how
    too expand the destiny of mankind.  I just want to talk about how to
    fix a motorcycle.  I think that what I have so say has more lasting
    value."

So that was RMP, let me now chop it up with my interjections:


"Now that solution.  Throughout this Chautaqua so far this whole problem
of technological ugliness has been looked at in a negative way.  It's
been said that romantic attitudes toward Quality such as the Sutherlands
have are, by themselves, hopeless.  You can't live on just groovy
emotions alone.  You have to work with the underlying form of the
universe too,

[Tim]
there is an underlying form!  Quality will help one see this more
clearly.

"the laws of nature which, when understood, can make work easier,
sickness rarer and famine almost absent.  On the other hand, technology
based on pure dualistic reason has also been condemned because it
obtains these material advantages by turning the world into a stylized
garbage dump.  Now's the time to stop condemning things and come up with
some answers.
     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.

[Tim]
unknown in particular, but known at least to the point of knowing that
it is.

"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.

[Tim]
how can this affective domain of man's consciousness be touted as the
central part if RMP is trying to deny the existence of all 'I's?

     "At present we're snowed under with an irrational expansion of
     blind data-gathering in the sciences because there's no rational
     format for any understanding of scientific creativity.

[Tim]
the sciences parse things up such that this basic aspect of I-ness,
creativity, is ignored.

"At present we are also snowed under with a lot of stylishness in teh
arts-thin art- because there's very little assimilation or extension
into underlying form.

[Tim]
while others underrate and ignore the hard constraints of reality

"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 real
reunification of art and technology is really long overdue.

[Tim]
Is he not suggesting the unification is to come by way of spirituality? 
(Isn't this his choice of word for that need that a good metaphysics or
a good religion is trying to service too?)

    "At the DeWeeses I started to talk about peace of mind in connection
    with technical work but got laughed off the scene because I brought
    it up out of the context in which it had originally appeared to me. 
    Now I think it is in context to return to peace of mind and see what
    I was talking about.

[Tim]
I, I, me, I, I: do you really think he was trying to do away with the
'I'?

    "Peace of mind isn't at all superficial to technical work.  It's the
    whole thing.  THat which produces it is good work and that which
    destroys it is bad work.  The specs, the measuring instruments, the
    quality control, the final checkout, these are all *means* toward
    the end of satisfying the peace of mind of those responsible for the
    work.

[Tim]
'those responsible': it maintains individuality in 'those', and it
maintains 'responsibility' via their choices.

"What really counts in the end is their peace of mind, nothing else. 
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,

[Tim]
again, it is not to do away with either of the two, classic or romantic,
but to unite them.  To see them more clearly by seeing connection (of
the two) rather than separation (of the two).

"and which must accompany the work as it proceeds.

[Tim]
is this not the something that must make it to the utter present,
somehow, for DQ to work best: peace of mind?

"The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it loos 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.
    I say *inner* peace of mind.  It has no direct relationship to
    external circumstances.  It can occur to a monk in meditation, to a
    soldier in heavy combat or to a machinist taking off that last
    ten-thousanth of an inch.

[Tim]
that is, it is not a world shifting thing, but a subtle thing.  The
machinist isn't stopped in his tracks due to the overwhelming import of
it all; there is just a small, but noticeable, difference between the
good machinist and the bad one.

"It involves unself-consciousness, which produces a complete
identification with one's circumstances,

[Tim]
he doesn't say that it requires one to destroy himself, but to be able
to have enough faith, to faithe (verb) himself without wasting his
consciousness so doing.  Rather than being conscious of himself, he can
use his consciousness for Quality.  BUt that doesn't destroy him or his
consciousness, that is how he uses his tools best.

"and there are levels and levels of this identification and levels and
levels of quietness quite as profound and difficult of attainment as the
more familiar levels of activity.  THe mountains of achievement are
Quality discovered in one direction only, and are relatively meaningless
and often unobtainable unless taken together with the ocean trenches of
self-awareness - so different from self-consciousness - which result
from inner peace of mind.

[Tim]
see, self-aware and self-conscious is how he distinguishes them.  You
can be self-aware to the height while doing away with
self-consciousness.  And, self-awareness is fundamental, integral,
what-have-you, but you can't attain inner peace of mind without a 'you'.

    "The inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. 
    Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are
    levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu
    mystics to live buried alive for many days.  Mental quietness, in
    which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult,
    but can be achieved.  But value quietness, in which one has no
    wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life
    without desire, that seems the hardest.

[Tim]
even this hardest, 'value quietness', involves a 'one'.

    "I've sometimes thought this inner peace of mind, this quietness is
    similar to if not identical with the sort of calm you sometimes get
    when going fishing, which accounts for so much of the popularity of
    this sport.  Just to sit with the line in the water, not moving, not
    really thinking about anything, not really caring about anything
    either, seems to draw out the inner tensions and frustrations that
    have prevented you from solving problems you couldn't solve before
    and introduced ugliness and clumsiness into your actions and
    thoughts.
    You don't have to go fishing, of course, to fix your motorcycle.  A
    cup of coffee, a walk around the block, sometimes just putting off
    the job for five minutes of silence is enough.

[Tim]
perhaps because it draws you out of a static trap and puts you back into
the rush of the dynamic.

  "WHen you do you can almost feel yourself grow toward that inner peace
  of mind that reveals it all. That which turns its back in this inner
  clam and the Quality it reveals is bad maintenance.  That which turns
  toward it is good.  The forms of turning away and toward are infinite
  but the goal is always the same.

[Tim]
again, inner peace of mind is for an individual.  And RMP says this is
teh goal ... where I'll add: of the individual as an only-individual.

    "I think that when this concept of peace of mind is introduced and
    made central to the act of technical work,

[Tim]
look at this!  peace of mind as a 'concept' (and a central one!) is
brought to bear on action - in the dynamic utter present, where all the
action is (the seemingly menial utter present of everyday stuff).

"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.

[Tim]
harmony between the I and the work that the I chooses.

"THe material and the craftsman's thoughts change together in a
progression of smooth, even changes until his mind is at rest at teh
exact instant the material is right.
    We've all had moments of that sort when we're doing something we
    really want to do.

[Tim]
this isn't some highfalutin thing for experts; this is something
everyone knows, on occasion at least.

"It's just that somehow we've gotten into an unfortunate separation of
those moments from work.  The mechanic I'm talking about doesn't make
this separation.  One says of him that he is "interested" in what he's
doing, that he's "involved" in his work.  What produces this involvement
is, at the cutting edge of consciousness, an absence of any sense of
separateness of subject and object.

[Tim]
don't run with this 'absence of any sense of separateness of subject and
object'.  RMP is not doing away with subject and object.  For one, if he
is doing away with anything, it is a 'sense' - which is maintained only
by a subject.  For two, 'separateness' is used in the common sense, for
the every-reader (not just the expert).  This 'separateness' is used in
teh sense that someone might say, 'my job is my job, I just do it cause
I need money...  RMP, as I read him, is saying that the caring worker
doesn't think that way, but just goes about working in a connected (as
opposed to separate) way: subject and object unite higher up - it is not
that the good motorcycle mechanic denies the existence of a motorcycle.

""Being with it," "being a natural," "taking hold" - there are a lot of
idiomatic expressions for what I mean by this absence of subject-object
duality, because what I mean is so well understood as folklore, common
sense, the everyday understanding of the shop.

[Tim]
again, this is not a highfalutin idea, but a common one - that may be
hard to describe.

"But in scientific parlance the words for this absence of subject-object
duality are scarce because scientific minds have shut themselves off
from consciousness of this kind of understanding in the assumption of
the formal dualistic scientific outlook.

[Tim]
so this description is to give to those who don't have the common sense
of it.

    "Zen Buddhists talk about "just sitting," a meditative practice in
    which the idea of a duality of self and object does not dominate
    one's consciousness.

[Tim]
notice the word 'dominate'!

"What I'm talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is "just fixing,"
in which the idea of a duality of self and object doesn't dominate one's
consciousness.  When one isn't dominated by feelings of separateness
from what he's working on, then one can be said to "care" about what
he's doing.  That is what caring really is, a feeling of identification
with what one's doing.  When one has this feeling then he also sees the
inverse side of caring, Quality itself.

[Tim]
one is not destroyed.  The thing he's working on isn't destroyed.  It is
just that the focus on these as wholly separate can dominate one's
perspective (perhaps because we can never be quite right in how we see
and know things, including our selves), and then this gets in the way of
caring, bad work results...  Getting rid of that DOMINATION can show the
Quality that runs through all.

    "So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other
    task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate
    one's self from one's surroundings.

[Tim]
again, this is a common usage of separation.  Unify and connect rather
than separate.  BUt either way, there is still 'one' and one's
surroundings.

"When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. 
Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right
thoughts.  Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions
produce work which will be material reflection for others to see of the
serenity at the center of it all.

[Tim]
look at this: 'peace of mind' is an inner, individual 'concept' that
makes it even through the utter present.  The first thing RMP says it
produces is 'right values': how do we classify these according to the
MoQ?  These produce 'right thoughts': intellectual level stuff.  Which
produce 'right actions': dynamic stuff.  which produce 'work' which is a
reflection, of the self in general - that we account for the case when
serenity isn't at the center of it all.  notice, 'for others to see':
this both admits of others, and suggests that 'work' is to be viewed for
its social ramifications.  So the question again, how do we classify
'right values'?  IS this a social thing?

"That was what it was about that wall in Korea.  It was a material
reflection of spiritual reality.

[Tim]
again this word 'spiritual' which I pointed out above.  And of course,
Reality!

    "I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a
    better place to live in,

[Tim]
I don't think he is talking about inorganic or biological stuff.  And I
don't think he is talking about what is essential to 'I'ness.

"the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political
nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and
their relationship to one another;

[Tim]
Human law (like natural law) requires very precise definitions (only,
the human ones can never be perfect).

"or with programs full of things for other people to do.

[Tim]
I would argue this because individual choice is at the center of all
this.

"I think that kind of approach starts at the end and presumes the end is
the beginning.  Programs of a political nature are important *end
products* of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying
structure of social values is right.

[Tim]
here he says 'social values' explicitly, so from teh above RMP probably
did not limit himself to teh social only (but I still think that was his
focus, even if sub-conscious)

"THe social values are right only if the individual values are right.

[Tim]
you still think that RMP does away with individuals?  Seems to me he is
saying that the 'I' is about as essential as Quality itself to the MoQ! 
And that the social is the pinnacle of it.

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and
hands, and then work outward from there.  Other people can talk about
how too expand the destiny of mankind.  I just want to talk about how to
fix a motorcycle.  I think that what I have so say has more lasting
value."

[Tim]
Andre, this last is what you provided me before: how can you get rid of
the 'one'?

Tim


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