Greetings,
Platt. Your comment about the need for Pirsig in the US got me thinking. I have almost no experience
of education over the pond (my brother lectured in astronomy at the University of Texas for three
years and we regularly see, via the newspapers, dead children and teachers being dragged out of the
occasional American school, but that is as close as I have got), however, I am convinced that in
England the pursuit of beauty and truth is paramount. Looking at Amazon.com in comparison to
Amazon.co.uk, it is perhaps instructive that Lila is 2000th'ish on the best seller list in the
States, while it doesn't even make the top 100 000 over here. On the whole, we clearly aren't
interested. I suggest the reason may be that Pirsig is, in the words of Oxford metaphysician, Galen
Strawson, 'rigorously unoriginal,' to most people with a half-decent education. ZAMM, by contrast,
sold by the shed-full. Not for the philosophy, which is disjointed and impenetrably confused, but
because it was a seriously well written and original narrative.
Perhaps you, Platt, could tell me what you consider to be the, "small step from their “transcendent
world of values as the greatest good” to Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality," and I will then try and
tell you what I object to about it. I worry that your answer will rely upon the myth of SOM to
substantiate itself - and that in itself would be an answer to your question of making the small
step - but let us see.
Finally, I have been providing evidence against almost every aspect of the MoQ for almost three
years. Of course I don't expect anyone here to agree with me (they would be unlikely to be here if
they did after all), but I do find it a fun relaxation aside from what I consider to be my serious
philosophical work. I did, at one time, consider putting it all together into one extended piece but
confess that I have never managed to see it as important enough to do so. If I ever were to find the
MoQ becoming accepted by more than a handful of people, then I would consider it my (moral) duty to
publish something against it. As time goes by, I have come to realise that this will never happen
and so am happy to throw a few ideas in whenever I feel like it. It is nice to have a bit of dynamic
debate every now and then, don't you think?
I know I haven't answered your questions fully, Platt. If you could see your way to answering mine
first then I will do so.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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