Rich
By the way,
not to feed your enthusiasm but
did you know Pirsig wrote Parts of Lila on a canal in Holland?
Marc
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]Namens rich pretti
Verzonden: woensdag 16 augustus 2000 20:14
Aan: moq_discuss@moq.org
Onderwerp: Re: MD Re: MoQ Conference
Hi everyone,
Enthusiasm. Gumption. Caring. That, my friends, is where the dharma, the
cutting edge of Phaedrus' aesthetic knifing of experience, is at. You don't
need to read ZAMM to see this, if you consider Jonathan's last post.
Originally, I was just hoping to present to some friends who will or could
be in Europe at the time an orderly consideration of my understanding of
Pirsig's understanding of Phaedrus' understanding of what reality is and how
it can help in solving some ethical problems. Knowing there are some really
caring and intelligent people on the moq.org list, I thought I'd see if
anyone would like to come and listen and discuss and hopefully present their
own understanding of "what is and what ought to be" - or - whatever.
Honestly, I'm hoping at best that four or five of you might be able to get
the time and money and be interested enough to join in the discussion. By
'conference', I really meant the smaller scale of conferring, or intimate
dialogue with other people, about whether this guy (Phaedrus/Pirsig) is full
of shit and wacky as a dodobird or filled with good ideas and a spiritual
genius, and if, as I suspect, he is of the latter type, what to do about it.
Anything larger, that is, more dynamic, would of course by welcomed by a
correspondingly wide grin of delight. Here are Jonathan's suggestions:
>1. IMO opinion we should aim at a serious gathering of 50+ participants.
>Not all of these would be MoQ veterans, or even current members.
The more the merrier (better).
>2. If we want recognition and respectability, we should invite some
>academics who deal with MoQ-related issues professionally. For example,
>several names have come up in our discussions. Pirsig should definitely
>be invited as a keynote speaker.
As far as academics go, that would be great. Unfortunately, my own two short
years of experience with discussing and writing papers on the moq for
professors of eastern and western philosophy, anthropology, psychology and
religion, has turned up, at best, weird expressions and pseudo-guidance that
this is best put aside for now, if not for good - after all, it's "only a
first or second year essay" (and your grades, which are what we presume you
are here for, will suffer if you don't pay full attention to your required
program of studies). At worst, there has been a stone wall of silence or the
outright rejection of any possibility that the author of "Zen
and...Motorcycles..." could have written anything valid on the topics of
metaphysics and ethics at all. One professor (of aesthetics and ancient
philosophy), who attended the University of Chicago at about the same time
as Phaedrus, said, in effect, that "there were lots of guys like him around
at the time, thinking they had the Answer and were going to let you know in
their Great Book...if they ever got around to putting their ideas in some
sensible fashion..." So - in any future University courses I will of course
keep looking for interest, but for now, I wish all of you luck.
Now, for Pirsig himself.
He "should", "definitely" come.
If he wants to.
This means that our task must be to convince him - classically and
romantically, dialectically and rhetorically - that choosing to join in and
help out is a better - that is, more moral - that is, more dynamic - choice
than sitting in his garden meditating, maybe with piles of money in the bank
waiting for a good (a "rt") investment. I have a couple of ideas on how this
can be done, but want to put the question to the group first:
How do we prove/persuade that it is the most moral choice for him to make?
(If, of course, there is not some more demanding aspect in his life that
requires his attention and presence - in other words, "all other things
being equal")
>3. This is going to be hard to fund. Rich mentions possible free
>accommodation (where? how?), but we need conference facilities too. This
>may necessitate a registration fee. Obviously we want to minimise costs
>for people paying out of their own pockets. I think that some academics
>would be able to justify participation as part of their projects, and
>use their travel money (common practice in academia) - anyone who can do
>so should be welcome.
>We should avoid paying out travel costs for a bunch of invited speakers
Money. Money, money, money. What a pain in the ass, eh? You've got all these
great ideas on how to change the world, but to implement them, what do you
need? The cash. The dough. Now, contrary to what my name may suggest, I
ain't got none. In fact, I have less than none. Hmmm... since the credit
card company has "more than enough", shouldn't they aim at equality and give
me some? If only I could figure out the logic. If only I could use rhetoric
well enough.
Since that won't happen, I'll continue working in blue collars and save my
pennies to travel - if I win the lottery I promise I'll pay for the whole
shebang. As for the rest of you, who knows, maybe some "lurker" out there in
internet land is a generous and intelligent millionaire, maybe someone knows
someone wealthy who, generous or not, might be persuaded that he has a moral
obligation to help out. Whatever works, of course. Provided the course
follows good work.
Again - fundraising isn't my style, so regarding this consideration, if the
gathering is of any sizable amount of people, money would be helpful and any
suggestions would be most welcomed. But I myself really don't want to deal
with any collection or distribution of funds beyond theory. And when it
comes down to it, the "Church of Reason" does not exist in any particular
building or organization of folding chairs and sound-systems, but in free
and open discussions on the meaning of truth, goodness, beauty, etc., which
can take place equally well (better, in my opinion), by a bunch of
materially poor people in an open field surrounded by nature as in an
auditorium surrounded by technology. Again - if it works in achieving the
right purposes, then it is excel-lent. As for accomodation, there is someone
in Holland who am I hoping to convince to help out, but this is not yet
close to a reality.
>4. We should look for sponsorship. Maybe certain publishers (esp. the
>publishers of ZAMM and LILA) would be interested. Other possible
>sponsors would be local businesses, travel organisations, maybe even a
>motorcycle manufacturer!!!
Sounds good to me. Anyone know anyone who works for Harley-Davidson?
>5. We already need to work on CONTENT. ASAP as possible we should have
>an organising committee, an outline of sessions, session organisers,
>important speakers. We need competent people who can propose a session
>and recruit a couple of interesting lecturers.
>A good model for a lecture session is to have a 2-3 hour session with
>two main invited speakers and several speakers selected later from
>applicants.
>Discussion sessions need a leader who is willing to organise discussants
>and to prepare and lead a structured discussion.
>In scientific conferences, poster sessions are great! A good poster
>packs in much more info. than a lecture and can generate hours of
>one-on-one discussion. Do we have enough people who could consider
>presenting their ideas and schemes as a poster?
I think collections of ideas as to proceedings, such as these, will be very
helpful in convincing Pirsig that it would be worthwhile to join in and help
out.
>6. Potential contributors should send in an abstract or summary of what
>they would like to present. This goes to session organisers, and could
>be the basis of most of the final programme. (One wants to go on
>accepting abstracts as long as possible, but a closing date that allows
>enough time to arrange the programme).
Definitely. I think this should be totally open, and Diana has offered to
use the website as a center for organization. If there is more interest like
Jonathan's, then certainly no one person should have control over times,
dates, places, procedures of activity, etc... It would be real cool if a
page or tool on moq.org could be devoted to the discussion as to how this
thing might work. Actually, now that I think of it, it would be very easy to
broadcast the occasion live on the internet through a web-cam. The
possibilities are pretty much endless.
For starters, as I've said, I would like to do two things. First, statically
express the moq, meaning 'objectively', in the way that I think Pirsig meant
his words to be understood, as a stable set of theoretical principles and
practical guidelines - and dynamically discuss the moq, meaning
'subjectively', as I see it's strengths and weaknesses and its further
applications in my own philosophical considerations and how it and they can
be used to maybe do some practical good. All, of course, I was hoping to do
"with a little help from my friends" as the good Sergeant Pepper says. If
Pirsig was willing to come and explain it himself, that would save me
enormous amounts of work.
As an initial suggestion, then, a year from now seems to give enough time
for interested people to prepare papers and everything. At any rate, that's
when I think I'll be ready and plan to be in Europe. Whatever. The wind is
the best decision-maker.
7. August is a difficult time for some - especially those with family
>obligations. A venue that can accommodate and entertain accompanying
>adults and children would be a very nice idea.
How about a campground? (Maybe the Netherlands isn't such a hot idea after
all - Germany and Eastern and Northern Europe have some beautiful forests
and open land and a bit more room. And I'd love to hang out in Scandinavia
for a while - know any good fjords, Bodvar? If you don't come and explain
your SOLAQI and other good ideas, I'll come there and beat you up...I think
the threat of biological violence is morally justifiable in this case)
>Thanks again, Rich. I hope I'll be able to participate.
>
>Jonathan
No, no - Thank You. I also hope you'll be able to participate.
Rich
Oh - last summer, I was in Chicago and met Roger and it was really cool,
though not long enough to pick his brain to my full satisfaction. Anyways,
Rog, and anyone else who lives within a day's drive of Detroit or Toronto,
I'm on the road camping and whatnot as often as possible, and getting
together for a beverage with someone who shares the same philosophical
tastes is more often than not very pleasant. So, lemme know if you wanna get
together and talk - working through philosophical questions is much easier,
I find, in direct discussion with others than through slower mediums like
paper and electricity.
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