From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 21:12:02 BST
Sam and all:
Sam said:
My objections to David's attitude (actually, they were objections to a
particular attitude shared by many on both sides of the debate) were simply
that I don't see political arguments in such black and white terms, and I
don't think the MoQ shuts down all political debate. In contrast to others,
I see political debates as partly social v social, and partly intellectual v
intellectual. I don't see it as (necessarily) social v intellectual, which
was what I was trying to get away from by writing my original 'conservatism'
post.
DMB says:
I think the MOQ shuts down political debate at all. I've been engaged in a
political debate here for ten months, which is very much the opposite of
shutting it down. I think the MOQ opens these issues up in new ways that can
allow us to overcome the usual deadlocks. Sam, you're certainly allowed to
believe what you like, but your views on this topic have nothing to do with
the MOQ, except for the occaisional use of lingo. One of the main themes of
Lila in the conflict between social and intellectual values. He uses dozens
of examples from history to describe that distinction, but you seem to
ignore all that. As Pirsig describes it this conflict explains the horrors
of the 20th century and the playing out of a giant evolutionary leap. I
mean, you've totally failed to engage these ideas. You're not going to make
me type all those quotes again are you?
Sam said:
When political decisions - or indeed any decisions - are made, surely, in
MoQ terms, what matters is an openness to DQ in that particular situation.
And what we need are institutions that can foster that openness to DQ and
allow it to flourish; democracy is one such, for reasons that Pirsig
articulates. This is where I think we need to be clear about ideologies and
dogmas, and how to understand and judge between ideologies, and the capacity
to separate from the social background that has shaped our view of the
world. The most scary thing of all is a viewpoint that doesn't allow for the
admission of error - and I would put fundamentalism into that category.
DMB says:
No. Roger makes this same mistake. The balance between static and dynamic is
a seperate issue. Sure, democracy is less likely to shut our DQ than an
authoritarian government, but democracy itself is a static pattern, an
intellectual static pattern. The conflict of the 20th century is between two
levels of static patterns. Not that you have to buy everything about the
MOQ, but we're here to discuss it and try to understand it. And it seems to
me than anyone who has actually read the book can't reasonably make the
claim that the MOQ treats all ideologies equally.
Sam said:
One last thing. I am undoubtedly a conservative-minded (anti-Modern) person
in the religious sphere, and it was pondering that which made me want to
re-examine my previous assumptions about conservatism, which I had viewed -
along with many of my generation in the UK - as being wholly without
Quality. I think I was wrong in that judgement, despite all the efforts of
the Conservative party in the UK to prove it correct. And as I have said
before, it was in part through discussions about the free market with Rog
and Platt that clarified my thinking.
DMB says:
That's pretty much how I see it too. You're a conservative (anti-modern)
person who is not unlike Platt and Roger, both of whom also ignore most of
what Pirsig says on this topic. Although its much less frustrating talking
to you, and I really appreciate your relative calm. I'll try to respond to
your other post as well. There I think you've only helped me make my case,
that conservatism is an expression of social level values.(I saw your
Biblegateway.com today, which further confirms my hunch about your views.)
Oh, and by the way, I'd like to be clear about the distinction between
pre-modern views and post-modern views. In some sense of the word, I guess
they could both be termed anti-modern but they're certainly not the same
thing. Pre-modern is not yet modern and in the MOQ is a social level thing.
Fascism and fundamentalism are the most obvious examples. Post-modernism is
a whole different kettle of fish. It is an intellectual thing. It see's
modernism as no longer good enough. If modernism was a car, them
postmodernism wants to make a better one, one that can go where the old ones
can't go. But the pre-moderns would like to go back to the horse and buggy.
It wants to return to something that's even more limited than modernism.
See?
Thanks for your time,
DMB
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 10:37:56 GMT