Platt responds:
Yes, what Pirsig said about that era is unique. He said the SOM
intellectual framework that blossomed in that era, especially the
scientific intellectual pattern, has screwed everything up. Seems to me
that's what we've been discussing here for the past two or three years.
Have you something new to add?
DMB says:
Something new to add? I Hope so. I also hope you're not suggesting that its
all been said and done already. Seems like there is still a great deal of
misunderstanding about the problem. More specifically, I think you don't
really get it. (Perhaps this is the reason for your appparent reluctance to
explore the issue?) For example, it seems that you tend to use the failure
of the enlightenment on matters of morality as an excuse to dismiss
intellectual values in general, and this seems to me like a case of using a
sledgehammer where a razor is the proper tool. As another example, you tend
to describe the MOQ as a system that puts morality at the center, which is
true, but in a very special sense of the word. It seems to me that you don't
really comprehend the sense in which the author means it, but instead use
morality in the traditional sense, which is just a third level social code.
So, if the responses to Modernism have been postmodernism on the one hand
and Pre-modern reactionary attitudes on the other hand, it seems to me that
you are only giving voice to the latter. Your posts may be cloaked in
Pirsigian languange, but for the most part I think they are full of
reactionary non-sense and usually miss the point. To alter my perception
that your use of the word "morality" is something more than a reference to
social codes, I think you'd have to provide me some explanations about
"morality" at the 1st, 2nd and 4th levels. And in the very same vien, I
think you've got to use the word "values" in a way that is different than
the way the religious right uses them. See? I don't think your response to
the failure of the enlightenment is distinguishable from the standard
reactionary view. If I'm mistaken and you can correct what is only a
misperception on my part, well, I'll never be happier about being wrong.
Please, convince me. It could be very enlightening, but I suspect it will
only be thunderous. (bad pun)
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