From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 21:20:27 BST
Steve and all MOQers:
> dmb had said:
.....................Pirsig doesn't own the world of ideas and he's not a
> biological scientist, but he still gets to define his own terms and he's
> telling us quite flatly that including animals in this category is a
> mistake. Sure, you softened and qualified Johnny's mistake to some extent,
> but I think its only fair to accept what the author says about his own
> creation.
Steve said:
But, I think it's okay to disagree with Pirsig now and then, don't you?
Doesn't the little angel on your shoulder that represents your conscience
for your intellectual morality tell you that you shouldn't simply accept
someone's word for it no matter how much you respect them? Isn't that the
intellectual over social morality conflict in a nutshell? ....
I'm sure Pirsig would make no claims to infallibility and would have little
respect for someone who takes his word for gospel.
dmb says:
Awww, don't ya know me by now? I doubt if I've ever sent a post that failed
to disagree with one thing or another. The issue is not Pirsig's
infallibility or simply accepting his every word. These are straw men and
they are very far removed from my criticisms. What I pointed out were two
cases where you seem to interpret Pirsig quotes to mean the OPPOSITE of what
he said. I'm not saying that you've violated some article of faith, I'm
saying it violates the rules of logic and is otherwise intellectually
unsatisfactory. To contradict the author so dramatically, especially about
the central question he poses about a fictional character he created,
requires extraordinary evidence. I haven't seen anything like that.
Steve said:
I think the quote above in LC was meant to emphasize that a society in the
sense of a social pattern of value is not just a group biological entities.
I agree with that completely. I'm simply not sure that I agree that
thinking about social patterns can't be applied to other species. I will
have to give that more thought. I'll take Pirsig's words on the matter into
account, but I'll think for myself. It's the intellectually moral thing to
do, isn't it?
dmb says:
Hmmm. Think of it like this. We're not disagreeing about animals. There are
lots of smart animals and the stuff they do is really quite amazing. Its
pretty clear that they have been underestimated and misunderstood in the
past, but this is changing. But that simply isn't something that Pirsig
includes in his third level. Since he invented this category, he gets to
decide what's in it. He gets to define it. If that's what he tells us and
there is no reason to doubt it, then it just doesn't make sense to disagree.
And who could know Lila better than him, really? Sorry if that seems
dogmatic. I think its only reasonable to believe the author knows best what
he means to say. He tells us several times that she has no intellectual
quality. So why should we think that he didn't really mean it? Why would he
say the opposite of what he means. I find such an assertion to be wildly
irrational. I'm criticizing it on those grounds, not theological grounds.
Yes, thinking for yourself is a good thing, but I'm complaining about the
competence of that independent thinking in a particular case. This is
probably coming across as mere insult, but what I'm trying to do is show you
what is wrong with this argument in particular - and more generally I'm
complaining about any such unwarranted and unjustified contradiction - of
any decent author.
Thanks.
dmb
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