From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 13 2004 - 16:54:46 BST
Greetings Ham,
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 21:44:46 +0000, wrote:
> Ham in response to Arlo Bensinger's message of Thursday, August 12
> Re: MD Proposal to discuss a Metaphysics of Value/Horsepucky???
>
> Greetings, Arlo, and thanks for the caviat. Do you really feel that Dan and
> Mark
> "disagree with my thesis as a whole"?
I wouldn't know.
> On the other hand, I think that we may all be too quick to
> "agree"
> or "disagree" with a particular concept, as opposed to giving it some
> pre-reactive
> consideration. At least, this is what I'm trying to do in the case of
> Pirsig's MOQ
> whose logic and conventions are still somewhat strange to me.
>
I agree with you. Since you did address this below, I'll say now that as much as
the 'blurb on the dustjacket' can not be taken as representative of the book,
it is an important frame in how people will engage with the material. Before
even getting to the content you'd want people to consider philosophically, you
frame your work in words that raised a lot of flags for a lot of people. For me
personally, seeing a Tom Ridge fear-o-blurb in your leading section made me
immediately cautious as to whether your philosophy was "bent" (deliberately or
not) to point to the political right. As I said, if you point was (as you
suggest below) to bemoan all fundamental religion (christian or islam or
whatever), this could have been (and possibley "should have been") made clear
(if even for left-leaning, socialists like me ;-))
The
> "Values"
> commentary on my website is a recent addition aimed at getting more viewers.
The "pure philosopher inner child" in me cringed at this. Let your content stand
on its own.
> and I don't expect everyone to share it. In fact, I see no reason why a
> liberal
> can not, or should not, be an essentialist.
>
Perhaps not. But we liberals tend to be critical (rightfully so, I'd add) of
philosophies that point to one nation state or one government. I am giving your
readings a fair shake, however, but there is a lot there and I am drowning in a
sea of readings as of late.
> Arlo, I have just read an excellent book on the history of fundamentalism by
> Karen Armstrong, whom many consider an expert on this topic. The title of
> her
> NY Times bestseller is "The Battle for God", and I commend it to you.
I'll take a look at it.
There
> is
> no question but that religious fundamentalism -- including the
> Christian-motivated
> Crusades of the Middle Ages -- has played a major role in bringing
> civilization to its present predicament.
Agreed, although I'd add that christian fundamentalism in this country *today*
is crippling our culture as well. Just to point out that it's not "us-then" and
"them-now". Fundamentalism (something Manly Hall was as against as you could
be, by the way) is a fixation of belief on tenacity and authority (Peirce) and
a violent rejection of dialogue and inquiry. Anyways...
One problem here is that because
> we
> now regard "fundamentalism" as pejorative, its root word meaning has lost
> significance. We all aim for a fundamental belief system, whether religious
> or
> philosophical. (Pirsig might have included this goal under Dynamic
> Quality.)
The problem is, you may agree, is that "fundamentalists" take the easy way out.
They do not see the metaphor and analogy that necessarily enters the dialogue
when discussing these things. And so they are trapped in the "literal" words
and miss the greater meaning entirely. This is why, sadly, the occidental
legacy has been centuries of killing over who said "thou shall not kill".
> I'm not an advocate for any religion; but I fear that we may have thrown the
> babe out with the bathwater in refusing to accept concepts that may have a
> "spiritual" or "esthetic" aspect..
>
I agree with you here, I am not an atheist. There was a thread a month or so ago
about the MOQ being "anti-theistic" or not, you will see disagreement here, but
I side with the "not" camp. Just as a point.
> > Next, I am struck after a quick read of several of your pages to a
> > remarkable similarity between your writings and those of Manly Hall
> > (Journey in Truth, The Secret Teachings of All Ages...).
>
> I am not acquainted with this writer or his Teachings.
>
Manly P. Hall was a devotee of esoterica and gnosticism. He founded the
Philosophical Research Society, and spent a great portion of his life writing
the encyclopedic "The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of
Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy". You can
find more info at: http://www.prs.org/mphbio.htm
I disagree with him on many occassions (especially his "secret destiny of
america"), in some cases because he was wrong, and in others because he just
didn't have access to better sources, but reading his work is enjoyable and
interesting.
The one I would recommend to you is his "The Philosophy of Value".
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0893142131/002-4792275-3619236?v=glance).
(A lot of people have published books with this title, I know).
Anyway, your writing (both prose and in some cases content) reminded me of his
work.
> I'm only recently acquainted with Pirsig's ontology, but I can't imagine
> Freedom
> as anything but a divine gift to man. Latching this concept to "static"
> Quality
> would seem to be a rejection of teleology. (I definitely recall Pirsig
> mentioning
> teleology as an ongoing process of the DQ type.)
>
I don't see it is "latched". I see it as mutually enabled. Without DQ there
would be no evolution, and thus there would have been no escape from the
inorganic. But without sq, each advance made by DQ would have been lost and
would need to be endlessly recreated. Even the hypothetical "man free in
nature" would not exist because "man" is a product of static qualities.
Hopefully, I'll have more essentialism-related comments for you down the line...
Arlo
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