From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 20:45:14 GMT
Rudy, Mari, all,
Yesterday when I received Rudy's post I thought, "Hmm, maybe I should
respond with something." Whenever people new to the MoQ and the website
come on asking for direction and the like, I feel like being a good little
teacher and helping out. I think I have a pretty good understanding of
what Pirsig's up to. Platt even said so, once. But judging from past
responses to my recent interpretations of Pirsig, I think I would get a
little flak if I claimed to be able to help with understanding the MoQ
(where is Squonk, these days, by the way?). But then a day or two ago,
Mari actually asked for my opinion. Well! How can I resist from throwing
my hat into the ring ;-) If someone asks me, "Hey, who asked for your
opinion!?" I can point to Mari.
Of course, this was all before I actually read Rudy's post. After reading
it, all I could think was, "Oh my God! This guy needs help?" I must say,
Rudy's post isn't so much a plea for answers to questions (as in, "I need
some help understanding Pirsig") as it is an amazing commentary on Pirsig,
asking all the right questions that need to asked and answered before a
MoQian philosophy can be developed. As Glenn says before launching into
his satirical responses to the questions, "Yours [sic] is the best post
I've seen in 6 months at least." (Aside to Glenn: its "your's".) I would
second that motion.
Before I go into the specifics of what Rudy said, I would like to add this
apologetic for my writing style. Rudy first put a "I'm unsophisticated"
caveat (I suspect more out of humility or in an attempt to disarm us)
before launching into his rather lucid and, dare I say, sophisticated
commentary and then added at the end, "If you want to flame me with
high-level philosophical constructs or Ken Wilbur [sic] ramblings, go
ahead, all I've got is a half-empty water pistol." If Rudy's been here
long enough to remember a Wilber ramble, then he's certainly had to delete
quite a few Rorty rambles. Paul then added, "As it stands, the direction
of conversation here is largely controlled by WPM, drowning out many of the
transient visitors here." I thought this might be directed towards me and
Wim confirmed it saying, "It's a pity that you need so many words to make
your point (and have probably 'drowned out some more of the transient
visitors' if Paul is right)." These are pertinent observations and I
honestly do try not to be an elitist. I simply try to use as many words as
I think fit the required explanation of my views.
At times I do ask a lot of my readers, but then, if they don't get it, A)
I'm always happy to try and explain in different words and, failing that,
or if they just delete them because of there length, B) Oh well, nobody's
loss, really. The only thing I hope for, the only thing I think anybody
can hope for when in the midst of a discussion that can quickly climb the
ladder of sophistication (which I think is both inevitable and good), is
that some of my words might capture a person's attention, tempt a person to
go, "Wait. I'm not sure I quite understand what he's saying, but what he's
saying looks interesting. Maybe I should look into it..." If nobody's
interested in what I'm saying, then, like I said, oh well. Nobody's loss.
The sophistication of our language isn't bad, especially when it concerns
private projects like philosophy. What's bad is when we try to
oversophisticate our language in the public realm, when discussing good
policy. As Rorty likes to say, philosophy is a good servant, but a poor
master of politics. All we can hope for in our hyper-sophisticated,
transgressive romps over the intellectual landscape is a few good tools to
bring back to the public arena. When we try and say that the public arena
should start to talk like this, that's when the majority of people crinkle
their noses and lambast the ivory tower elites.
This, of course, brings me to Rudy. And yes, I do realize the irony of
apologizing at length about the length of my posts. But as you'll see, it
ties into what I have to say to Rudy.
Rudy has a long string of questions about the practicality of the MoQ that
ends with, "How would you justify the costs and disruptions to the 99% of
us who aren't saavy about metaphysics?" This is where I say to Rudy, "The
purpose of Pirsig's writings are not to bring about a revolution in
thinking. They are supposed to give us a few extra tools to help reform
our thinking." The outcome after a suitable amount of reform is the easy
restructuring of textbooks and taxcodes to the way people now think.
Things become outdated so we update them. To think that we need a
revolution, that we need to overthrow the tyrannical SOM, that this all
needs to happen in one fell swoop, that's Marx talking. Its better to not
think of Pirsig talking in Marxist-revolutionary terms, but in
pragmatic-reformist terms.
Now, the problem is that Pirsig _is_ talking about a revolution in
thinking. So is, in fact, my other hero, Rorty. But the success of these
"revolutions" is not by a grand, one-shot restructuring of education or
discourse. Take the example that Glenn gave us: what he might call the
"creeping evil of postmodernism." Post-modernist lingo, for good or ill,
has seeped into our discourse over the years. There hasn't been a
restructuring, but it has gradually reformed some of the ways in which we
think. And part of this is, as Glenn pointed out, the replacement of
academics. That's how change occurs. The old ways die out, which many
times cashes out into, "The old people with the old ways die out." The
revolution in thinking will happen on a person to person basis in private
and in a revolutionary-type way, but the public restructuring and reform of
communal discourses will, rightfully, take a long and gradual path.
When Rudy goes on to ask, "if you actually intended to implement MOQ into
the daily workings of society ... what are the benefits?" and finishes
with, "I'm just not convinced that the MOQ is the answer to all of this," I
have to nod my head in agreement. I don't think the MoQ is the answer to
all our problems. Once again, this is a Marxist thought. I don't think
anything has the answers to all of our problems. The greatest thing the
MoQ and Pirsig can do is nudge us in the direction of a better world. And
I think it does this, particularly in ZMM. Pirsig tapped into a general
feeling of discontent and got us to think about it. And that's what's
being played out here, at this site.
You're next two paragraphs are observations about ZMM and Lila. I think
you're on the mark when you say, "I think that Pirsig's reflections on
[Quality] (mostly in ZMM) are way too fuzzy to be extended into a general
paradigm of thinking. In ZMM, Pirsig makes some delightful observations
while pondering the meaning and nature of "quality", based on his
experiences as a teacher. And, recalling his graduate studies, he
effectively attacks the ancient Greek origins of our current western value
paradigms." However, I would stop there. I think its good that he was
"way too fuzzy to be extended into a general paradigm of thinking." This
is one of my pet projects, though, so I'll merely reference you to my
"Confessions of a Fallen Priest" posting in July of this year (if you are
interested in this line of reasoning). I'd hate to prolong this post any
further, given the amount of people I've already drowned out and driven
away with this post. (If you go to the "Confessions" post, ignore the
punctuation. It was a tranference problem.)
On evolution, I think you're right to get the creeps by Pirsig. There's a
lot there that can be co-opted by demagogues. I don't think he's
completely off the mark, however, we just have to take him the right way.
To think Pirsig is offering us a way of objectively determining right and
wrong is a poor interpretation. That lends him way to easily to
demagoguery and I don't think it takes his stance on objectivity accurately
(at least, what I remember his stance to be). I can offer several better
ways, but they stray to interpretations I've given before and, once again,
I hesitate to go into them without someone asking me to.
So, I hope these were constructive reflections. They're more just
beginnings then anything, but endings are so hard to give in philosophy.
Matt
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