Hi Matt
Everybody seem to read books and then return to the forum insisting that
the MOQ is to be seen through the eyes of the last read author. I know that
tendency from before, and if you can stand a little reminiscing my own
experience was that of traditional Christianity with which I was force-fed in
my younger days. After reading books which put religion" under the scrutiny
of science I returned armed with this new knowledge and could cut THEM to
pieces! This worked nicely and (not from my effort naturally :) religion in the
Western culture has by now capitulated to science, it is allowed to
administers certain rituals while science is supposed to administer
REALITY.
I can't go through it all, but you know that the scientific world view
(regardless of the claim of not having any) is haunted by its own ghost - that
of rationality described in the early chapter of ZAMM - and I was very much
bothered by it, particularly after a "Phaedrus experience" of my own. Anyway
meeting Pirsig through ZAMM and later LILA and the full-fledged MOQ
brought it all to order inside a new system greater than religion and science!!
In the MOQ the former is the main carrier of social values and the latter that
of intellectual value. The MoQ came to be the ultimate vantage point and
afterwards my reaction upon reading whatever literature is that of pity: "So
near yet so helplessly lost". I am "damaged" as a reader of THAT kind of
books :-)
> If Rorty is read as debating from Social patterns of value, then I
> think this continues to fuzzy the already hard to see line between
> Social and Intellectual patterns of value. Pirsig says (and you would
> affirm) that dialectic is emergent out of rhetoric. You seem to be
> reading this as Intellect emerging out of Society. But, following
> Pirsig's recapitulation of Barthes, if logos is believed to be
> emergent from the mythos, then the change between the levels is not
> discrete.
It must be noted that ZAMM was written before LILA , the dynamic/static
divide and levels weren't worked out, yet parallels might be drawn and that
which explains Phaedrus' sympathy with the Sophists and antipathy for
Socrates & Plato (as told in the former message) I find almost uncannily
accurate.
> As Pirsig says in one of his annotations, there needs to be
> a sharp break between Society and Intellect.
> The contention that logos is emergent from mythos is the contention
> that
> symbols used in rational argumentation can be broken down and found in
> the Society's former mythos. And, as Pirsig says, the logos really
> just becomes the new mythos. A continuation, possibly in a different
> direction, but still a continuation, not a sharp, discrete break.
The break between Society and Intellect is sharp, yet Intellect can't rid itself
of its social roots, in LILA there are much about how scientists manipulate
their experimental data etc. but this doesn't in any way blur the borderline.
The "mythos/logos/new mythos" aegument is from ZMM and not to be found
in LILA.
Lower down the Q scale social value tries to deny its biological roots by
making them into social rituals. Still lower down, biology is forever prone to
inorganic decay (death).
> So, I find your narrative to be in a little "bad faith". An
> equivocation of what is thought to have been done. You seem to make
> the rhetorical redescription into a MoQ vocabulary, but then you make
> a strong rational argumentation claim of "proving" something
The MOQ is out of intellect and thus forever tied to its rationality.
> You also claim that Rorty is functioning at a level
> below Pirsig, when its not at all clear that Pirsig (the rhetorician
> of ZMM) shares your conviction.
"Below" in the sense that Rorty is blind to the said relationship between the
levels and thus in the same category as the "eggheads" described in LILA.
By uttering the words about persuasion he makes a dangerous step
backwards to social value without knowing about any social VALUE. While
we - armed with Pirsig's insight - can avoid the graver consequences of our
"social" sympathy.
You are right about Pirsig not sharing my conviction.
> Your definition of Intellect as "objective truth" is probably what I
> find so objectionable. Particularly if, as I understand it, you are
> equating SOT with "objective truth".
SOT (subject/object thinking) is Scott's term but I gladly adopt it and
Intellect is not "objective truth" but the VALUE of dividing objectivity from
subjectivity. This - seen from intellect - naturally will look like objective truth,
science works from that assumption (phew! Seems like a metaphysical
argument must be solved at the end of each sentence)
> Intellect-as-SOT is not the
> problem. I think there is a lot to be said about making
> subject-object thinking the Intellectual level.
Very encouraging. Really!
> Its when you add
> "objectivity" into the fray that I think things begin to fall apart
> because your narrative essentially, then, calls for a logical
> argument. After the redescription, your narrative defrocks the
> redescriptioning process. Indeed, when rhetoric is forced into the
> Social level, I think many helpful things about Rorty are lossed, much
> as Pirsig felt he had missed out on several helpful things from
> Aristotle.
I repeat that "objectivity" alone isn't Intellect, yet your formulation ..."calls for
logical argument? Who doesn't? Above you used "rational argument" and I
like that one better, as said the MOQ is "out of Intellect" and will (have to)
use its rationality, but under its own control.
Thanks Matt, this piece was a "coming up for air".
Bo
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