Jesus might not have been the first person to think "love thy neighbour",
but the way he said it made everyone else think it. So what is more
important, the message itself which has probably existed in the subconscious
for a long time, or actually conveying that message and bringing it to
awareness for everybody? In the light of history, the answer is obvious.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Angus Guschwan
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 4:09 AM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Beauty & DQ
Sam,
> Hmmm. My sense was more that they were climbing the
> same mountain from
> different sides, the mountain in this case being the
> rejection or reappraisa
> l of scientific/modernist thinking. But they are
> really quite different in
> how they climb the mountain, IMHO.
Well of course they are different, Wittgenstein did
all the work. Pirsig is going up the mountain with
oxygen. He's no Sherpa Denzing. I mean, he wrote his
thing in the 70s. Either way, Wittgenstein was hopping
mines in World War I and already he was tracing the
Eastern tradition within the Western tradition. Heck
we could go back to Schopenhauer. I mean van Gogh and
Gaugin were incorporating Japanese art into their
paintings in the late 1880s. Historically, integration
of East and West of Pirsig is EXTEREMELY late.
HOWEVER, he probably EXPRESSED it the best. He is a
rhetorictician [sic], not Derrida.
> Wittgenstein is very much a product of turn of
> the century Vienna, and
> pessimistic about culture, whereas Pirsig is (a
> product? a part?) of the
> 1960's counter-culture, and optimistic.
Dude, that's like the weakest argument...
"Wittgenstein is not like Pirsig because he is from
Vienna." I know you have better thoughts than that.
> To my mind Pirsig is original in that he 'shows the
> fly the way out of the
> fly-bottle' from within the Western
> scientific/rational mindset.
At least for you. That is the trend in the
justification of Pirsig: "he connected with me."
That's great: that does not mean it is original.
> I don't
> think that has been done before.
Emphasis on "don't think." You should "look" instead.
Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Heidegger.... ok, you're
not German maybe that is why it didn't connect....
>Certainly
> Wittgenstein does something
> similar, but the jump he makes is much larger and at
> a much higher level of
> abstraction.
Agreed. Pirsig expresses it better.
> They're compatible, but not identical.
They're identical.
> It's not that one is better than
> the other; both are
> needed.
But who is original? Do you remember Wallace? No. You
remember Darwin.
>As for people like Heidegger, to my mind he
> is still within the SOM
> mainstream metaphysical tradition,
As if MOQ is so better? MOQ is just a as much a
rhetorician's tool. Saying Heidegger is SOM is again
so weak. You can come up with something better than
that. In some situations SOM is the best option, as
advocated by Pirsig. So in SOMe situations, Heidegger
is best by YOUR definition.
>whereas Derrida
> is a rhetorician.
I'm surprised you didn't call him a "clown."
>Neither
> (IMVHO) are any of them anywhere near as
> artistically satisfying as I find
> Pirsig, especially in ZAMM.
I agree. But is the BEST expression the truth? Is
Stephen Jay Gould better than Darwin?
> I don't think we can
> separate out the content of
> what Pirsig says in ZAMM from the way in which he
> does it, and *that* to my
> mind is why he counts as a profound thinker, and
> original.
Again, a weak agrument. You are saying "it is
unprovable that he is the best so he must be the
best." Join Aquinas in that line of anointing Pirsig
king. Can you say "fig boy" sycophant?
>I just find ZAMM
> tremendously satisfying, at every level.
That is fine, it does not mean he is ORIGINAL. I find
Tori Amos' version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
satisfying, did she write the song?
> His language and mode of expression are original
> (and therefore able to be
> dynamically assimilated),
You have had exactly ZERO statements supporting this
statement OTHER than it FEELS good. God help us all if
that is the criteria for TRUTH. That is why Pirsig
wrote LILA: it feels good is no justification.
Angus
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