From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 20:00:56 GMT
Erin,
Erin said:
see this is what is confusing me, I ask for examples of action and i
get a long talk about stopping the talk. Now I enjoyed the talk a lot. I don't
want you to think I don't appreciate it. But I don't like this guilt trip
that is layed on me for talking about metaphysics when I don't see much more
from the callers of action. I would be interested in the "pratical"
application ideas thrown around here BUT I don't see the value in the repeated
lecture of stop talking, and do something. It reminds me of a parent spanking
a child to teach them to stop hitting their sibling.
Matt:
What Rorty and the pragmatists are suggesting is not that we stop talking,
it's that we stop doing metaphysics with the hope that we can find the
Ultimate Answer so that we can then start changing the world. The impetus
behind the public/private split is that people in a democratic society can
talk politics during the day, and then in their leisure time talk about
metaphysics. But if they want to take their leisure time to keep talking
about politics, then more power to them. I'll just be in the other room
cooling down over a nice cocktail. Rorty's own personal taste in
philosophy would be to talk about pragmatism and literature, but during the
day he can still join in the reformist politics that decide the course of
our country.
So I think you're right, Erin. I personally don't like the guilt trip
because I enjoy the leisure time I spend with this discussion group. I
also don't want to stop them from doing some public action, either. It's
their choice as democratic citizens. However, I do think that Pirsig sends
a very mixed signal as to what he would endorse us to do. I think there's
evidence that he would want us to take action and I think there's evidence
that he would enjoy sitting around discussing ideas and literature and
different walks of life like any bourgeois intellectual would.
Matt
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