From: John Beasley (beasley@austarnet.com.au)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 13:42:46 BST
Hi Matt,
Glad you are still posting. I for one have enjoyed and appreciated your
contributions. While I have not agreed with everything you have said, it has
been refreshing to have new ideas presented intelligently and with some
attention to quality both in your thinking and in your presentation. I have
learned some new things from you, and been forced to reconsider some of my
opinions because of your challenges. I am still considering the arguments
you have brought in from Rorty, and think they have been a valuable input
into the MOQ discussion.
I have been particularly impressed by the whole question of how we
communicate when so many contributors are stuck incorrigibly in their final
vocabularies. This is a real watershed issue, since the abusive nature of a
number of contributors to this forum seems to me to be subverting the
potential of this site. When I receive private emails from people who are
following the site but unwilling to speak up because they simply don't want
to be flamed, I feel they have a legitimate grievance.
Wilber makes the point that the internet can potentially support a
worldcentric perspectivism, but does not in any way guarantee it. He says
"What good is it if thirty million people at moral stage 1 have the means of
extending their egocentric morality? What good is it if Nazis have the Net?"
He goes on to say that "it is almost entirely male occupied; it fosters
anarchic and egocentric male agency ... most disturbing of all, a great
number of the Infobahn males are digital predators - egocentric computer
warriors that couldn't give a damn about intersubjective cooperation and
mutual recognition. So much for global consciousness."
MATT: "I feel the winds have turned on the list and that few people find
what I write useful. My feelings aren't so much hurt as, rather, I feel as
that people like Squonk are speaking for a majority of the list. Though I
think Squonk may be a little more rude than most would be, I get the feeling
that most people would wish that I would just stop writing. All I can do in
response is just shrug my shoulders."
I think your weariness with this site reflects an increase in the sort of
input that Wilber critiques so pungently. While I get sucked in from time to
time, the flame wars are not what I came to this site to find. Ultimately I
stay while I still find people like yourself, (and I would particularly
single out David, Wim, Sam, Rick, and Scott as well), who, in recent months,
have been able to argue and debate vigorously and clearly without getting
their egos tied in knots. I'm learning to skim and delete lots of others.
Ultimately a site like this is only as valuable to me as the growth towards
quality that I experience from it. Nobody forces anyone else to actually
read my posts, so the more extreme reactions, as always, say a lot about
those doing the yelling, and very little about quality.
Which brings me to one other point. The MOQ is elitist. That is, it has the
temerity, in a postmodern age, to accept that moral issues matter, and that
there are better and worse moral outcomes. One of the things I enjoy with
Wilber is his unabashed elitism. When you think about it, the fundamental
message from Pirsig is that there is a moral imperative. He asserts a
dynamic quality which is available to all, but seized only by a few. The
Zuni Indian is his paradigm case. I don't necessarily agree with his
instances, but it seems to me that there is a lure of quality, which tugs me
towards new ways of understanding, and hopefully new ways of being. That's
what is important. Much of the debate that triggers the abuse on this forum
is just so much pooled ignorance. But the lure of quality still comes in
posts such as yours, and I hope you will continue to contribute when you
have something more to say.
Best wishes,
John B
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