From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 02:49:59 BST
Andy,
Andy said:
I don't agree that Matt uses anymore unnecessary jargon than any other member in the group. You missed the point of the previous post. I understood Matt's vocabulary BEFORE I read Rorty. Regardless, I can remember many posts from a while back between you and several others going on about Wilber. Needless to say I was lost and I had to do some real hard thinking as well as a little outside homework. I am not complaining. I am often stumbling over many of the MOQ posters chosen vocabulary. Just a few weeks ago I was dumbfounded about Scott's use of the word materialism. It took several posts to figure out what in the hell he was refering to. Then, all the sudden David M and others are bantering about essentialism and nominalism and once again I am confused by the vocabulary. I have to do some hard thinking once again. Matt's use of Rorty for a lense to read Pirsig is not any different than any other member in this discussion group. I think you know that, but for so
me unknown reason you just have to single him out for a hardtime. Well, on second thought, we know the reason. You are arrogant and lazy. :-)
Matt:
Uh, yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
I, too, don't understand Wilber at all. I think on a very, very superficial level I understand what he's getting at with "holons", but, unlike Andy, I've never really felt the need to explore it. Like DMB feels about Rorty, I just don't feel the need to understand Wilber to either agree or to refute. You have to pick and choose your battles and everybody has their reasons. Andy thought it worth it to do a little thinking about Wilber and I applaud him for it. If he thinks it worth it, I hope he gets something out of it. I think what I'll get out of it will be significantly less than maybe what Andy or others will get, so I choose not to pick that battle. Its a choice.
But rather than railing against all Wilberians, or Campbellians, or Barfieldians, or Coleridgeans, or Maslowians, or Wittgensteinians, or Heddegerians, or--whatever! Rather than coming into a dialogue by going, "What you are doing is stupid", I simply choose not to say anything. Its like butting into a conversation about surfing and saying, "You know what I think? I think surfing is crap. I think you should talk about American football." Well, the problem is that the surf-enthusiasts don't like football, so why the hell would they want to talk about it? (I see all of your objections coming, give me a moment.)
Andy said (elsewhere):
I think David is really searching here. I mean he is doing web-searches to support his criticisms of Rorty. I am sure Matt can and will provide a point by point counter to Shusterman's criticism's. But, I would like to suggest that he does not need to. David's mistake is taking Matt's "strong misreading" of Pirsig through a Rortian lense WAY too seriously. The point is not whether Rorty has flubbed up some where and if there are holes in his philosophy. Like all philosophies, there has to be many. In fact, I think this is the point of his philosophy.
The point of Matt's interpretation of Pirsig is to offer another perspective to view Pirsig through. Rorty works for Matt. From Matt's many posts I have found many illuminating insights that have lead me to investigate Rorty. I don't think I am alone in being influenced by Matt. From my investigation of Rorty I have found a lot that I find inspiring. Now if you want to go on a crusade against Matt and his use of Rorty--keep right on going, but I think it is a big waste of energy. No one says you have to follow Matt. No one has even asked you to read all of Rorty's work (ok, that is a lie--I did suggest to you once that you would like Rorty if you read him...I am not so sure about that anymore), but regardless, what is the point of your relentless attack on Matt and his "strong misreadings?" Where is the threat? What or who are you trying to save? Why question Matt's understandig of the MOQ? Why insist there is a proper understanding? Why insist we might eventuall
y arrive at a proper understanding?
I really don't get it. Why does Matt get you so worked up?
Matt:
(And David just suggested that DMB read Rorty, too;-)
I will take up Schusterman's criticisms because I think they are either off the mark and pick Rorty up by the wrong handle or they are good and I think should be addressed. But, I read this out of everybody: they are either off the mark or good shots. And I treat them the same: I address them. I will take Schusterman extra seriously because he displays some proficiency at the language game involved.
The off the marks ones, unfortunately, are about the only ones I see here typically and so I lose patience when I address them over and over and over again to the same people. I would do this, no problem, if I saw some progress being made. For instance, Scott and I have been over the same terrain many, many times: the issue of Rorty's physicalism. And I have become frustrated with Scott at times, just as I might guess he sometimes becomes frustrated with me. But there has been a clear line of progress in our interlocutions. We don't totally forget what note our last discussion ended on, we bring something forward, some element of new understanding (at least, I know Scott has and I say kudos to him; I can only hope I've shown a growing understanding of his position that shows). But with certain conversants, there's nothing. Every discussion starts from the same place with no acknowledgement of past conversations. Nothing. Just epithets, usually. You're a relativist,
or an irrationalist, or a commie. I'm sorry, I just get sick of the whole thing.
I think Andy picks me up by exactly the right handle when he says, "David's mistake is taking Matt's "strong misreading" of Pirsig through a Rortian lense WAY too seriously." One of the tools I've been using lately is a distinction between playfulness and seriousness. Pragmatists are playful about philosophy. They think it a fun game to play, something to do when they get home from work. Metaphysicians typically take philosophy very seriously. They think that if they don't get philosophy right then their life will be meaningless (or, rather, that they'll find out their life is meaningless no matter what meaning they thought they had before), or that our political institutions are meaningless, or that our taste in movies is meaningless. The spirit of seriousness is everywhere in DMB's manner on this site, from his arrogance to his demand that we stick to the subject. "This is serious business and we should be as professional as possible. We should be able to draw up p
roblems that the MoQ cures, problems that are created and should be solved, a method to do all of this, and then we should move ahead and tick each problem off after we've solved it. Everyone must get this right, because if we don't--look out, the world will come to an end." (Everybody with a copy of Consequences of Pragmatism out there should read Part III: Irrationalism and apply the microstructural lesson Rorty pulls out of the APA to this discussion group. I read it last night and it was very illuminating.)
Pragmatists don't believe this. Everything will be just fine. Well, maybe not fine, but the world will still be here as messed up as ever and I don't think talk of Plato and Pirsig are going to help much one way or the other. Maybe in the long run, but I doubt in the way people here think it.
The one objection I will listen to, that I think pertinent, is the objection that this is a Pirsig site, so why don't I talk like it? This objection comes straight after my surfing conversation analogy. Aren't I trying to change the conversation from Pirsig to Rorty?
I could point to all the places I talk about Pirsig. I could point to all the places that others do not. I could point out that "Pirsigian" isn't the name of a language and that, even if it was, nobody has ever spoken it here, that a Pirsigian vocabulary, like a Rortyan vocabulary, simply refers to a short list of idyosyncratic terms that need a lot of other common terms to be supported in any meaningful way. I could do that, but I won't because I think I've taken all of those tacts. Instead, I'm going to answer that I've come to discuss philosophy with other philosophy lovers. This site provides a space. Don't like it? Don't listen in, change the channel, walk out of the room, do all the other things people do to not take part in a conversation: delete the e-mail.
That is the most liberal line in the sand I can draw. Delete my friggin' e-mails if you think I'm bunk. Its as easy as that. But don't try and drown me out if I'm talking to somebody else. That's impolite.
I'll say one last thing (don't worry, this ain't over; I have a lot more to say, I just have to go home): When I step back from the situation, I think these conversations I've had with DMB and Squonk (to drag in my old, stubborn interlocuter) about how I should just get the hell out are very, very funny (Platt, to his credit, has never, to my recollection, accused me of being off topic). DMB and Squonk both think I should leave, take my business somewhere else. Here's the same tip I gave Sqounk (which I think he learned): if you want me to go away, don't talk to me. Never did I spill so many wasted words then in "conversations" with DMB and Squonk. I think Squonk learned the lesson I was trying to teach: we now rarely converse. In fact, I think Squonk has visibly restrained himself because in the last month I've rapped off a few posts meant to provoke. He hasn't bitten and generally neither do I. We get along fine in our seperate little conversations. There's no prob
lem. What DMB, I think, has failed to notice is how little I contribute to this forum when my name doesn't come up in a tag line. Go ahead: everyone should take a little field trip to the archives and see the number of posts I've had per month since, say, January. It fluctuates a lot, doesn't it? If you look a little closer, there are periods this summer when there's nothing from me for weeks (slight exaggeration). And while you're looking, you'll notice that I don't take part in a large breadth of conversations. If people stopped talking about the few topics that interested me, which I don't think is hard, then I would probably disappear. Unlike DMB, I don't feel the need to interject my opinion everywhere.
Why did I get so involved recently? I got pulled in. Somebody mentioned an issue I enjoy, pragmatism, I lightly put my toe in, and then I got drawn in by continued references to me. The few times I started a thread it would usually die quickly. People aren't interested. Oh, well, I don't sweat it. I spend most of my time here apologizing for what I do then actually doing it. I find that hilarious.
Want to get rid of me? Ignore me. Its so easy. But for some reason you want to meet me on my own terms, or rather, you demand that I meet you on your terms and, because I do enjoy a good game of cat-and-mouse, I continually dodge out of the way and explain why I think your terms are shite. And you won't agree to my terms, so....
I shrugged again.
Matt
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