From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 25 2005 - 09:21:48 BST
Hi Mark SH,
This should have its own thread.
> msh:
> Funny, my experience is just the opposite. Anyone who bothers to
> carefully read what I write knows very well that I am far from a MOQ
> purist; I've openly rejected the literal truth of the idea that
> Quality creates subjects and objects, and have clearly said that
> believing so is no different than believing that God created and the
> maintains the universe. It's hard to imagine a more dissenting
> opinion that that.
Firstly, I think your point is spot on about believing "the idea that
Quality creates subjects and objects...is no different than believing that
God created and the maintains the universe". That's exactly what I'm talking
about.
But more crucially, it's not simply that you have rejected that point of
view. My first thought was 'but you're OK coz you're left wing' - but that
was a) shallow, and b) Matt is a counter instance (he's just as left wing as
you are). And it's pondering what has happened to Matt that makes me realise
what the main difference is. The main external authority that you have
brought in is Chomsky; he doesn't particularly undermine the MoQ in the
sense that he is employed in the more moral/political debates, not the
metaphysical ones. Whereas Matt brings in his knowledge of Rorty etc, which
specifically *does* undermine some central tenets of the MoQ - the ones
where the MoQ functions as a substitute for religious faith. I think it is
precisely that bringing in of external conceptions of metaphysics which
provokes the 'cult' like reaction (in a minority) - because it undermines
the faith which some have in the MoQ as a complete metaphysics answering all
the deep questions of life.
My working understanding of 'cult' is the same as my working understanding
of fundamentalism - it's a closed system. Anything which doesn't fit into
the system is rejected as being 'impure' - or, here, 'you're still mired in
SOM thinking'.
What I think is most needed, as I said yesterday, is opening up the windows
to let in some fresh air - for example, linking the MoQ with Rorty, or
Wittgenstein, or anyone else. This doesn't threaten the MoQ as a whole; what
it threatens is a) Pirsig's status as one of the five greatest minds of the
millenium, and b) the exclusivity and importance vested in the MoQ as a
global system of answers. It's adherence to those two things which mark out
the 'cult' aspects - and if nobody here accepts those two things, then I
shall have been disproven in my thesis (grin).
I still think Rick (Valence) had it right in saying that we need the
'rhetoric of Quality' (ie using the word Quality in the way Pirsig has
pioneered, using the levels as a hierarchy etc) and to let go of the
'metaphysics of Quality' (ie all the ways in which the MoQ tries to be a
religious system, with DQ corresponding, via the Jamesian 'mystical
experiences', to God).
Which I suspect you'd be in sympathy with.
Cheers
Sam
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