[MD] Creative Freedom in Jazz

[David Harding]

Hi dmb,

I agree with your conclusion here, about how Marsha's de-emphasis of the value of 'truth' results in her being stuck in her present views, however I still disagree here with the use of the terms negative and positive freedom..

> Condensed version of what dmb said to David H:
> I don't think that is a valid criticism because all distinctions are static quality cultural distinctions. ...I'm just using a political notion to illustrate the relations between freedom and order in general and particularly with respect to intellectual quality.   ... I wanted to make this point because some people (Marsha) interpret it to mean that freedom from static patterns can be achieved through sheer apathy. ("I'm not interested in the truth," she says.) I think that's just about the opposite of what Pirsig is actually saying. In fact, "care" is one of the crucial ingredients in becoming an artful mechanic or an artful thinker or an artful anything. It's that Marshan interpretation that I'm pushing back against when I say that rejecting static patterns as a prison, as something that ought to be "killed", is embracing chaos and degeneracy.  ...So, I'm saying that "killing static quality intellectual patterns is valuable" IF you understand that Pirsig means making them 
> part of your nature through mastery and NOT dismissing them as unreal or unimportant. ..See, when I claimed that "real freedom or positive freedom entails mastery and proficiency," I just paraphrasing the quote.
> 
> David H replied:
> ...I see what you were claiming however I'm not convinced there is this direct relationship between negative and positive freedom and what we both appear to acknowledge is the two types of freedom Pirsig espouses.  Perhaps we can talk about this some more...   Would you agree that there are two different types of freedom here?  On the one hand, there are freedoms which are built into the static quality of a culture.   On the other hand Pirsig also talks about, not the limits of or lack of limits to cultural freedoms, but being free from all static quality patterns.  I have been relating these two different types of freedom to Dan based on their historical context.   The freedom of the West which has traditionally been focused on the static quality cultural patterns of freedom and the freedom of the East which has been interested in being free from all patterns, not just cultural ones.
> 
> dmb says:
> Well, I'm not quite sure if I follow your thinking here but... Pirsig himself talks in terms of "negative" freedom and opposes it to Dynamic freedom. AND the quote about the freedom of the Zen monks makes this same distinction, even though he uses different terms. Unlike Westerners, these monks are taught "that you do not free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static patterns." "You free yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is, you MASTER them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of your nature". That is where "Dynamic freedom is found," Pirsig says.

Well I don't see the parallel here with 'negative freedom' as originally espoused by Hegel..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty

which appears to be sociologically based.

That said, I know what you're saying.  There is a danger in following DQ by constantly doing something else.  If we do this, chaos and not DQ results..  I would call this chaos and not negative freedom however.

> This is the difference between negative and positive freedom. Negative freedom is "sometimes called bad karma chasing it's tail," because it fights static pattens with contrary static patterns whereas positive freedom is an achievement, a power or capacity that comes through mastery of static patterns.

Are you suggesting that positive freedom is Dynamic freedom? I'd have the same issues with this which I believe Dan has raised as well with associating DQ with something positive. I'll re-iterate here that I think positive freedom is related to cultural circumstances.  It's distinction with negative freedom has been created to highlight the quality of improved freedom culturally.  These things are important but are not related to being free of all patterns in the way that Dynamic freedom and Zen mastery is.

> We're not really talking about politics here, but 
> the distinction is useful there too. This, Pirsig says, is "what neither the socialists NOR the capitalist ever got figured out".
> 
> "When they call it freedom, that's not right. "Freedom" doesn't mean anything. Freedom's just an escape from something negative. The real reason it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean Dynamic Quality."
> 
> Although we can apply this distinction to the freedom of Zen monks and to political freedom, I want to examine its application to intellectual values to the way we think and do philosophy. I'm thinking about Pirsig's root expansion of rationality, his pragmatic theory of truth and Marsha's distortions of them. Against her anti-intellectualism and relativism, I'm saying that Pirsig is saying that static intellectual quality is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for real freedom, for Dynamic freedom.

Yes and no,  I mean you're right - you cannot master something without acknowledging it's value and you cannot master something without caring for it.  Marsha's devaluation of the stable, high quality intellectual values of truth means that she has nothing to master and thus does not improve her understanding.  But you seem to imply that this is the only way Marsha can experience DQ and I disagree.   Marsha can choose to master anything she wishes.  It doesn't have to be philosophy.  But being that this is a philosophical discussion board, it's implied that she's here to become a better philosopher. Thus our accusations of bad philosophy..

> Like the pragmatic theory of truth, where truth is provisional, "scientific truth always contained an overwhelming difference from theological truth: it is provisional," Pirsig says, and "it's science's unique organization for the handling of the Dynamic that gives it its superiority". 
> 
> "That's the whole thing: to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously. If you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon you're back with the cave man. But if you don't have the freedom to change those patterns you're blocked from any further growth." 
> 
> Pirsig applies this basic principle in every example that I can think of, in every case that I can think of, but the idea is fairly simple. Positive freedom can occur when you "create a stable static situation where Dynamic Quality can flourish". That why we need those static intellectual patterns know as truths. They are necessary to create a stable situation where DQ can flourish. This is why Marsha's anti-intellectualism is so tragic. It would destroy the conditions that make evolutionary advances possible. That's why it is not simply incorrect but also morally degenerate. And, I'd add quite unnecessarily, that I strongly suspect that she has some degenerate (i.e. egotistical) reasons for adopting this nihilistic view. She certainly uses her weird relativism to evade responsibility and I simply suspect that she likes it for that reason.

Well, I'm not so sure that her reasons for her views are egotistical or anything else.  To me, Marsha's misunderstanding is one of intellectual values.  And you have it right, what is stopping her change in views is her de-emphasis of 'truth' as being valuable.  Truth indeed creates a stable intellectual situation where DQ can flourish. 

> "It seems as though a society [or a philosophy discussion group] that is intolerant of all forms of degeneracy shuts off its own Dynamic growth and becomes static. But a society that tolerate all forms of degeneracy degenerates. Either direction can be dangerous." 

That's right.  Part of the reason why I talk to Marsha about her mystic relativism so much..

Thanks dmb,

-David