[MD] The Abomination of Conflation

[david buchanan]

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions."
Arlo said to Krimel:
You're conflating the terminology of ZMM and LILA. Remember that in LILA, the "Quality" of ZMM is "Dynamic Quality".

Krimel replied:  

...Instead it [Pirsig's answer to Paul Turner] has created the ridiculous conflation Arlo mentions where "Quality" becomes replaced by "Dynamic Quality." That is not what Pirsig said. Quality remains the Tao, the unity of opposition. For clarity sake in MoQ discussions we should be clear about which pole of the duality we are speaking of. But the fact remains that Arlo, dmb and other insist on perpetuating this monstrous error. ...

dmb says:
No, Krimel, I'm 99% certain that you're mixed up about this. A little bit of sympathy is in order, I suppose, because there are some changes in Pirsig's key terminology from one book to the next. But he walks us through it pretty carefully. He slowly builds up to the static-Dynamic distinction and continues to develop it all the way through, but you'd do fairly well if just re-read chapter nine. 

In chapter five you can see that he's hinting that the term "Quality" is a feature of his first book (where it was divided into romantic and classic) and that he used it in ZAMM to refer to the reality of the mystics. You can also see what he's saying about that mystic reality; that it is pre-conceptual or pre-intellectual experience. 

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions." (Lila 63)

Then in chapter nine he explains why he's dropping the classic-romantic terminology (because the vision quest couldn't be explained in those terms)....

"Since this whole metaphysics has started with an attempt to explain Indian mysticism Pheadrus finally abandoned this classic-romantic split as a choice for a primary division of the MOQ. The division he finally settled on was one he didn't really choose in any deliberative way. It was more as if it chose him." (Lila 109)
These are the passages where we hear about Ruth Benedict's "patterns of culture" and the story of the Zuni Brujo, etc..

"After many months of thinking about it, he was left with a reward of two terms: Dynamic good and static good, which became the basic division of his emerging MOQ.   It certainly felt right. Not subjects and objects but static and Dynamic is the basic divison of reality. When A.N. Whitehead wrote that 'mankind is driven forward by a dim apprehension of things too obscure for existing language,' he was writing about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new. ..It contains no pattern of fixed rewards and punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil is static quality itself - any pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life."

There are several things going on in these passages but please notice what Pirsig says about the mystic reality in particular. In chapter five he says the mystic reality that he'd called "Quality" in his first book is "direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions". In the quote from chapter nine he says "Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality". Isn't it fairly obvious that "Quality" as it's used in his first book MEANS the same thing as "Dynamic Quality" in his second book? Doesn't "experience prior to intellectual abstractions" mean EXACTLY the same thing as "pre-intellectual experience"? It seems so obvious to me that your objections to Arlo's clear and concise formulation strike me as quite silly and even absurd. 


You could probably read chapter nine pretty carefully in less than a half hour. Please do that - and then maybe take another shot at this issue.