From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 18:41:55 GMT
Squonk,
Squonk asked me ever so politely:
How do you feel you have improved understanding of Quality?
Matt:
I don't think I can answer that question. My own attempts at explicating
Pirsig's writings will be judged by time, not by me.
But if you wanted one example of what I think I may have helpfully pointed
out to some people, it is that Quality is not an essence. It is an
anti-essence. The thought following from that is that, if metaphysics is
the search for essences, then we should stop doing metaphysics because we
will never find any essences. When Pirsig historicized Quality in Lila, he
made explicit that Quality was an existent, he made it something that
evolves over time. In this way, he resembles Dewey who suggested that we
think of experience and nature as quasi-synonymous and that when we ask,
"What evolves?" we answer "experience."
People disagree with this, though, so I don't know what you are looking for
Squonk. Are you looking for me to agree with your picture of the Truth of
the MoQ, your obscure and barely enunciated interpretation of Pirsig's
writings? You say there is no Quality in what I write, so how do explain
other people finding Quality in what I write, let alone the Quality I find
in what I write? Are we just flat out wrong? But how can we be wrong
about Quality? Hasn't Pirsig already said that we are everywhere and
always in touch with Quality?
Maybe the problem is that you think I'm trying to pose as a Prophet of
Quality. But I'm not. The only Prophet is Pirsig. I'm a simple literary
critic, putting some of the books I've read side by side, seeing what pops
up. As far as I can see, that can't be anymore degenerate than creating a
metaphysics. Afterall, aren't we supposed to compare metaphysics to see
which one works better? Isn't that what Pirsig's doing when he constructs
SOM and compares the MoQ to it? Isn't SOM just the picture Pirsig's drawn
out of the materials supplied by the books he's read, like Kant and Boas?
Isn't he just doing literary criticism when he does that?
I don't know Squonk. I'm not sure what you want, what you are looking for
here, or what you are looking for me to say. I just hope people don't buy
into the funny looking caricature of me that you've drawn. Hell, I don't
see how you can buy into the funny looking caricature of me that you've
drawn. Out of all the absurd things that go on in this discussion group, I
think your reaction to me is the funniest and most absurd of them all.
Matt
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