From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 28 2002 - 23:19:01 GMT
John,
You said:
I want to understand Pirsigs' work, I have no university training, I came
to Zamm and Lila as a Motorcyclist not a philosophy major, therefore I
haven't done the reading that most of you have done.I will try to rectify
but it's going to take some time.
Your posts, I find, are the most helpful, constructive and comprehensible
even if I don't agree with everything you say. As I get more time to devote
to this study I hope to ask better researched questions in the mean time
can you just answer my stupid ones?
I think what's been happening with the questions being asked by Mari, Rudy,
Paul and myself is that they are a different style of question. Do you
think what we have here is a Classic-Romantic split in how we have come to
appreciate Pirsigs' work?
Matt:
Well, I'm glad to hear you can understand my posts because, as others would
have it, mine are the most difficult ;-)
You asked about the difference in appreciating Pirsig's work and I do think
there is a difference. I hesitate to call it a classic/romantic split
because I think its a lot more complicated then that. The classic/romantic
split also implies that one way of reading is "deep" and the other surface
orientated. I think that's the wrong way to contextualize the differences.
I think the difference depends on people's different life experiences and,
in particular, what kinds of books they have read. For instance, Bo takes
Pirsig very personally because he had a personal experience that closely
resembled Pirsig's. John B. is an avid reader of Ken Wilber and so reads
Pirsig with that in mind. Sam is an Anglican priest and so will read
Pirsig with that context in mind.
This brings me to your statement about not being a philosophy major and
asking stupid questions. When you say, "I haven't done the reading that
most of you have done," I think that is the best way to put the difference
between you and I: we haven't read the same books. Rorty suggests that we
not privilege any particular way of reading a text over another. The fact
that I'm somewhat trained in philosophy means that there's a strong change
I'll read books with philosophy and all of its "problems" in mind. The
fact that you aren't probably means you won't. But that doesn't mean that
my way of reading a text is inherently better than yours. The only way to
tell which way is better is to ask what purpose we are using the text. If
we wanted to know about philosophy, we might tend to ask someone like me.
If we wanted to know about motorcycles, we might tend to ask someoe like
you. God knows, we shouldn't ask me. I think motorcycles are death traps ;-)
The point is that there aren't any "stupid questions." If you want to
increase your philosophical context, some of us can help. I think the most
important thing to remember is that we can simply make suggestions on how
to interpret Pirsig. None of ours are privileged. We can simply offer our
personal readings, which are influenced consciously or unconsciously by our
past experiences.
Matt
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