From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 09 2005 - 02:48:43 BST
Anthony,
Matt said:
To concretize what I’ve been talking about I’d like to focus on the nature,
function, and evolution of the discussion group. This, of course, receives
special notice in our scrutiny of antiprofessionalism in Pirsig because the
MD and its participants are the heir apparents of Pirsig’s philosophy. It
is my contention that whenever a discussion moves from a lax conversation to
a motivated inquiry into a problem that a “profession” develops. By
“profession” I mean simply a group of people who achieve authority over a
problem based on their extended critical attention to a problem.
Anthony said:
However, “profession” also has strong overtones of formalism. Though most
posts on MOQ Discuss tend to be thoughtfully considered, there is still the
throwaway, the spontaneous, the personal and the humorous. Though these are
often intellectually superficial the discussions would be that much dryer
and boring without them.
Matt:
Yep, that’s true. “Profession” does have strong overtones of formalism, but
my loosening of what “profession” means was attempting to highlight the
level of formality that does occur, formal arguments, interpretations based
on evidence, and extended critical attention. Sure, there’s other stuff,
too, and some of it is of interest to the more formal arguments we make.
There’s no disagreement there.
Anthony said:
Firstly, I don’t think there is anything wrong in authority as long as it
corresponds to intellectual quality.
Matt:
Yeah, but, as I’m arguing, that would be the practical view that’s not
afforded one after they’ve accepted the philosophy/philosophology
distinction, particularly with the prima facie view that flies out of “And
what is good, Phaedrus,/And what is not good—/Need we ask anyone to tell us
these things?”
Anthony said:
Secondly, I don’t accept Pirsig is simply being “anti-professional”.
Rather, as mentioned in my last post concerning Pirsig Institutionalized
(Part I), his central concern is “to encourage people to produce their own
literature, philosophy or art by Dynamically involving themselves in
creative acts rather than being reactive spectators of other people’s
literature, philosophy and art.”
Matt:
Sure, he’s not “simply” being antiprofessional, but what are the
consequences of his antiprofessionalism? That’s the question I’m focusing
on.
Matt said:
And Pirsig’s dutiful heirs have absorbed that sentiment (if not explicitly
that doctrine). Pirsig’s own professional class has been emerging for the
last eight years, yet rarely is it acknowledged.
Anthony said:
The colour of grass is rarely mentioned for a similar reason.
Matt:
Yep, and that’s why I’m pointing it out because I would think there’d be a
tension between antiprofessionalism and any kind of profession.
Matt said:
There is one particular instance of this antiprofessionalism in the MD that
I would like to highlight: the problem of “jargon.” Jargon words are
specialized words used by a profession to help in their inquiry. It has
often been remarked that there is too much jargonizing, that the spirit of
Pirsig requires us to be “clear and plain spoken.” It is unclear, however,
how we can be free of jargon when we are doing philosophy. Most people
don’t do philosophy and so have no idea what is meant by the words
“metaphysics” or “epistemology” or “empiricism,” let alone words specific to
Pirsig, terms that have their own very, very special meaning like “Quality,”
“Dynamic Quality,” or “pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality.”
Anthony said:
This is where Matt’s post really starts begging belief. As he will be well
aware there is a requirement for any contributor to MOQ Discuss to have read
ZMM and LILA. Once these texts are assimilated the average contributor will
have some grasp of the specific terminology found in Pirsig’s work as well
as some idea of the more traditional terms (such as “metaphysics”,
“epistemology” and “empiricism”) found in Western philosophy.
Terminology only becomes a difficulty on MOQ Discuss when a participant (and
Matt is one of the largest offenders in this regard) introduces
non-Pirsigian terminology without first properly explaining it and/or
putting it in context.
Matt:
Yeah, participants here, having read and digested Pirsig, will be familiar
with some of the more basic terms of philosophy and particularly Pirsig’s
philosophy. But that certainly wasn’t the point of the above remarks. My
point was about jargon in general. And certainly I am probably the greatest
perpetrator of this crime we’ve seen recently. But again, my point is that
jargon isn’t a crime. I’ve introduced a lot of non-Pirsigian terminology
for two reasons: 1) I think in some cases somebody else’s jargon helps get a
better handle on Pirsig’s problems (and disseminating it helps others get
used to it) and 2) the only way to get Pirsig into a conversation other than
his own is to show the resemblances between his jargon and other people’s.
Matt said:
The problem of jargon is simply one of unfamiliarity. Jargon in a
profession helps create a special language for the profession to help its
inquiry into its special problems.
Anthony said:
Jargon can also be used by a profession to maintain power over other groups.
Matt:
Uh-huh, yeah, but the point still remains that there isn’t anything wrong
with jargon per se. Its like Foucault saying that everything is enmeshed in
webs of power and that this is a problem. It can’t be a problem because, by
the lights of the argument, nothing could be any other way than enmeshed in
webs of power. What counts is how power/jargon is used by individuals and
groups.
Anthony said:
The more jargon a profession uses the more difficult it becomes for
outsiders to understand what’s being discussed. Unless the purpose is
simply to retain social power (which goes against the grain of an
intellectual concern such as philosophy), I think new jargon should be
introduced as selectively as possible.
Matt:
Yeap, still true. But should we curb the jargon of physics? I don’t think
so. I say let them develop their tools as they need them and they can later
de-jargonize them when they tell us what they’ve been up to in “popular
science” books. We shouldn’t just make everything utterly obscure to
outsiders, but neither should we hesitate to develop new tools if we need
them.
Matt said:
To simply dismiss a new word out of hand as “jargonistic” is a reactionary
move without much justification because the only way to accrue justification
is to become familiar with the new jargon, which means being able to
understand it and use it.
Anthony said:
If Matt understands all this then why does he keep introducing philosophical
jargon and terminology (largely derived from Rorty) without explanation? It
might make him look “academic” but ultimately it just undermines the overall
understanding on a discussion group devoted to Robert Pirsig and where
academic philosophers are in a distinct minority.
Matt:
Well, as I said before, because I think some of the terms useful for
understanding what’s going on in Pirsig’s philosophy and how it relates to
the Western canon. Now, I’ll admit that when I first came back after
reading Rorty these tools were very new and I didn’t have perfect control
over them and perhaps proliferated them a little too fast. But that doesn’t
mean they aren’t good and helpful, that just means you can’t understand them
and I’m not being good and helpful. And people inquired, “What is all this
you’re going on about?” and I tried to explain. Some people understood,
some people didn’t. Some people understood and disagreed. Most people
didn’t understand and continue to claim they do and disagree. I’ve been
explaining ever since, so it’s pretty facetious to say that I use them
without explanation. And I don’t understand how I could be undermining or
impeding the understanding of Pirsig if all you have to do is ignore me? A
lot of people do. Mark/Squonk does for one. We used to tangle
relentlessly, but now we don’t. He does what he does, I do what I do.
Maybe someday we’ll try and engage in a conversation again, try and hook up
what he does with what I do. But neither one of us is impeding the other.
This is what I don’t understand. It’s not like I break into everybody
else’s conversations constantly and puke up my filth (which some people do).
I didn’t participate for a long time until a couple of months ago when I
interjected on behalf of Sam. I’m pretty sure that was the first and last
time I interjected (at least at any major length) in someone else’s
conversation without an invitation (to which I would include talking about
me in a different conversation) in this last run of things. And that
started the whole fiasco again, with me being bombarded by, not really
questions anymore, but denials and “refutations.” I take them as they come
and respond to them as I can. At a certain point it became apparent to me
that the only way for me to respond properly was to write “Pirsig
Institutionalized” because it was the only way I can make sense of all the
vitriolic hostility. If participation in conversations is optional, and
you’ve figured out that what I write is bunk (no less because of the way I
write, rather than what I write), then why keep it up? I can, and have
been, safely ignored by many. Its only if you think I represent some kind
of epidemic, say, nihilism, that is tearing a hole through our universe that
you would think that I must be stopped at all costs. I’ve tried to explain
part of the motivation behind the vitriol in “Pirsig Institutionalized”:
most of us here are antiprofessionalists and its leads to some of the
arguments I’m seeing. I’ll get to the nihilism (which I’ve answered in the
past) in a bit in a slightly different place.
Anthony said:
Finally, it’s also difficult to understand why Matt hasn’t taken his own
advice that writing an essay is a better vehicle than a Discuss post to
develop philosophical debate. An example of the latter is Matt’s “Pirsig
Institutionalized, Part I” post which is basically just a shorter version of
his “Philosophology” paper. The question then arises: “Why the
contradiction between the preaching and the practice?”
Matt:
Oh, Anthony, no. That’s weak. One, “Pirsig Institutionalized” announced
itself as a continuation of “Philosophologology.” Two, I’ve never said that
the MD is worthless to philosophical debate. To the contrary, I’ve often
said that I float initial theses and arguments I’m working on to get some
initial feedback, a “peer review,” if you will. I do intend, by the way, to
rewrite “Pirsig Institutionalized” for the Forum. What I have suggested is
that there needs to be something further than the posts if we want to move
the philosophical conversation along between people with very deep-seeded
disagreements. There simply is no contradiction as far as I can see between
my “preaching” and my practice.
Matt
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