From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 14 2005 - 20:35:28 BST
Ian,
Ian said:
(BTW I didn't think I was fighting you hard ... I was just making onepoint
to bridge you and DMB - I think I agree with you, and was just pointing out
that your disagreement with DMB could be just linguistic.)
Matt:
Oh, I know you were just trying to point out that the disagreement between
DMB and I was just linguistic, but I was just trying to put that to bed as
quickly as possible so people don't start thinking it is. Its not, and in
fact the way you were framing it begged the question in favor of DMB, so if
people did start to go, "Oh, that's just a verbal difference. Matt's just
being stubborn," I would always lose an argument because the way its framed
is for me to lose.
And because we'd been over the same terrain, to much the same effect at
least once before, I took it as continued reticence on your part towards one
of my, shall we say, advances. I think one of the things that seems like a
hang up for you is my use of battle metaphors. You've always seemed
reluctant to use them, but I think they are an important part of interesting
conversation. If there weren't polemics, then there wouldn't be any
interesting progress or change. We can't all just agree. Its the
differences that cause change. I've certainly been one of the people saying
we should be more polite to each other in our exchanges, that we needn't be
so abusive, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be taking stands opposing
each other. And I think lately, at least around the conversations I've been
in, things have been fairly calm. Not a lot of abuse, just the regular,
run-of-the-mill _agon_ that is needed for interesting disputes. I don't
identify as "the fallen priest," as if I'm always on the other side of the
"line in the sand" and that I like it that way (in fact, in this case I
think DMB's on the wrong side for a Pirsigian). I just think creating lines
in the sand is the way in which people figure out whether they like option A
or option B. I create lines as a device to show people how I view the issue
and what I think the consequences are of taking A or B.
Ian said:
(1) You say (your words) you are disagreeing with me, Pirsig and most
Pirsigians. (You are the other side of that "line in the sand". You are the
"fallen priest" after all.)
(2) "Gut feel" and "reflection" were your words - and I explicitly
highlighted the fact - they wouldn't have been my choice.
(3) Somewhere between "pure sensation" or "immediate" and "post-conceptual"
you pick-up on the more subtle "pre-cognitive" (qualia) and
"pre-intellectual" from an earlier discussion. This illustrates again for me
the broad spectrum involved, rather than simple binary choice between two
extremes, with an infinitessimal point where the transition occurs.
Matt:
There is something wrong with this conversation. Of course "gut reactions"
and "further reflection" were my terms. I'm not sure why you'd feel the
need to point that out to me unless you think I'm doing something different
than I think I am. I'm beginning to think we're talking past each other.
For instance, you said in your other, companion response post (in response
to my "It would seem that you'd be commited to saying that one's gut
reactions are to valued more highly than further reflection. But this
doesn't seem right."),
Ian said:
Of course it's not right, and I've never said it. I'm not a binary person.
I'm rejecting the EXCLUSIVE use of Aristotelian reflection - the considered
life and nothing else. I'm advocating that the more immediate experiences
have equally valid value. They need to be taken as a whole - the whole
spectrum of immediate and reflective.
Your words again remember, not mine, ... but I am of course emphasising the
gut feel over reflection, simply because 99% of received wisdom is the other
way around - I'm countering the balance to achieve balance, not the opposite
extreme....
Matt:
Maybe I've misunderstood what you were up to with your interjection, but I
think you misunderstood the situation you were interjecting into. DMB was
making a claim about how _Pirsig_ thinks. I was responding that I didn't
think this was the case. You interjected that the difference I was seeing
was a linguistic one, that we were just using different words to obscure an
underlying similiarity. But what that means, then, is that you've also made
a claim about how _Pirsig_ thinks, not just on how you see the stuff shaping
up. DMB makes claim X about Pirsig. You say, "This is all DMB means by X,"
and the longer train that follows then is, "This is all Pirsig means by X."
This is what I take the last few posts to have been:
1) You took the distinction between pre- and post- to mean X.
2) I suggested that your distinction between pre- and post- conflated the
distinction between "gut" and "further." The former means X1 (distinctively
philosophical), the latter means X2 (distinctively commonsensical). The
obvious, commonsensical utility and absurdity of denying the latter
distinction makes us assent to X2, but you use X2 to get our assent on X1.
I was suggesting that for you and most Pirsigians X means X1 + X2. When I
deny X1, most people usually take me to be denying X2 and make fun of me
(like DMB did when he thought I couldn't see the difference between looking
at art and talking about art). You went the other route and said, "Hey,
Matt. Its all good, all we mean is X2." But you don't. You also mean X1,
or at the least, Pirsig and DMB do. And, for the most part, the reason
_why_ people also mean X1 in addition to X2 is because they don't make a
distinction between the two. They think they're just talking about X.
3) You basically responded, "No, Matt. All I was talking about was X2."
You didn't say that, though, because in your response you seemed to be
taking _me_ as only talking about X2 (for instance, your suspicious comment
that I said "Yes then," your continued enunciation that you're using my
words, but when you do by my lights you keep conflating pure sensation with
gut reaction, rather than making a distinction between the two as I was
suggesting, and when you say that all you're talking about is the
(re)balancing of "gut" with "further"). The reason you think this is simply
a verbal issue is because you think both DMB and I are talking about X, but
I'm making a distinction between X1 and X2 and claiming that DMB wants both
X1 and X2 and I just want X2.
What I've been doing in my posts is taking the terms people give me and
working with them. I've tried to bring out what the consequences of those
set ups seem to be to me. One way to do this is to suggest another
distinction. I suggested "gut" and "further" because that seemed to be the
distinction you were handing to me to gain assent on. I suggested this
other distinction, rather than just using the original terms you were using,
because I was trying to suggest that this other distinction that I was
supposed to be agreeing on is _different_ than the original distinction.
From my perspective, it was a little bit of unconscious sleight of hand on
your part. Its unconscious, though, because it isn't sleight of hand from
your perspective. I'm, of course, not suggesting anybody's being tricky,
I'm just suggesting that they should be making a distinction they aren't.
And the reason it looks like I'm putting words in your mouth is because I
_do_ put words in your mouth, but they are the words that would appear to be
the consequence of what you do say. I'm _hoping_ you don't want to say
them, because then that suggests there's something wrong with the set up I
adopted from you.
For instance, by the first set of terms, you're saying you want to balance
pre-intellectual experience with post-intellectual experience. By the
second set of terms, you want to balance gut reactions with further
reflections. By another, third set of terms, you want to balance immediate
experience with pre-conditioned Aristotelian rationality. By another,
fourth set of terms, you want to balance Dynamic Quality with static
patterns. I slightly different set, Dynamic Quality with SOM.
I pulled all those out of this conversation, by things you've said. You
want to say that all of those distinctions are symmetrical with each other,
they are all saying the same thing. I'm saying that they don't. I
suggested the second set of terms to distinguish them from the first set.
And the reason I put the silly words, you seem to "be commited to saying
that one's gut reactions are to valued more highly than further reflection,"
in your mouth is because that's how some of the _other_ sets of distinctions
make the whole, conflated set work. I'm thinking principally of DQ and
static patterns. Pirsig, on the one hand, does say we should balance them.
Pirsig also says, on the other, that DQ is the ultimate reality (which is
also what Quality is). He says that evolution is a movement towards DQ. He
says that given a choice, all other things being equal, we should choose DQ.
So, are you saying that "gut reactions" are ultimate reality? Are you
saying that evolution is a movement towards "gut reactions," that evetually
we won't have to think? Are you saying that, all other things being equal,
we should choose "gut reactions"? Because if you aren't, there's a problem
because that is, to certain though important sense, what Pirsig is saying
about "pre-intellectual experience." (I think the third one presents the
biggest immediate problem to the conflation. How do you "choose" gut
reactions? That definitely seems like a post-moment thing.) And I don't
think those are just problems for what your position seems to be (as I take
as evidenced from our short conversation), I think those are problems for
Pirsig, too.
The only summary I can think of for this post is (since its basically just a
reworking of the first two):
1) Pay more attention to the short, two-point summaries in the other posts
because it is just those summaries that you seem to be ignoring and running
roughshod over by ignoring the distinctions I would like to make (and then
not acknowledging at all that you're doing it and not explaining why you're
doing it, which is what I want to hear explained to me).
Matt
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