From: Ray Cox (baroquenviolin@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Sep 19 2003 - 11:39:30 BST
Matt,
I can't speak for the others, but I wouldn't go so far
as to say that you alone stifle participation. There
isn't a single member of the group that I feel make
the discussions unbearable. The overall atmosphere
can be unwelcoming and at times hostile, but I would
not like to see you kick yourself and take the blame
for everyone. I would also like to add that it is
only natural for those who post their arguments here
to get emotionally involved during their writing. The
grouchiness, aggression, cynicism, etc. that you refer
to only proves that you actually care about what
you're discussing. Anyone who cares about anything is
subject to negative emotions at times. You also say
that the "lurkers" lack confidence, and this is true.
It did not take long for me to notice that the
majority of new ideas submitted into discussion get
torn to shreads, which is expected and helps progress
the overall discussion, but with a certain degree of
bitterness, and that keeps the newcomers quiet.
Your take on alienation was interesting, to say the
least, and it did make me look at it in another way.
Perhaps I do approach the discussions from a wrong
angle if I take the complicated language as reason to
feel alienated. I'm not entirely sure, but in light
of your words: "I don't want people to feel like I'm
demanding that they talk the way I do, just as I don't
want it demanded of me that I talk the way they do",
this is something from which I would do well to learn.
I have a bad habit of blaming someone's depth of
language for my confusion, as if their technical
jargon shouldn't be allowed because it's somehow
"unfair" for me. Thanks for the insight.
I was also intrigued by your wish to open up new
threads of a broader perspective to relate Pirsig (or
at least his work) to basic topics (movies, novelists,
musicians, etc.) If I can find the time, I will try
to address some of these topics, just out of
curiosity.
But to leave the apology, and return to Gert-Jan's
questions:
1) I am a school teacher (children from 4 to 13) - I
often get the urge to teach them the MoQ. Would it be
wise? How would you do it?
Matt: "I'm in the minority, but I do think its a bad
idea. I think it bad because I don't think you should
try and teach philosophy systematically to kids. I
just don't think its a good idea because there are a
lot more important things they should be learning.
But, naturally, this comes out of my view that
philosophy is a thing we do on the weekends."
I would also worry that by teaching children
philosophy as a subject, any knowledge they acquire
will have an impersonal quality to it. The same way
children learn their times-tables or grammatical
rules, all the ideas of Pirsig's work might come off
as a bunch of empty names and definitions, not because
the children are stupid, but because the underlying
form of these ideas do not yet have any personal
meaning for them. It would risk turning the MoQ into
dogma for the students, and this can't possibly be the
intention Pirsig had in mind.
7) Why is a policeman allowed to hit a hooligan, but
is a teacher not allowed to hit a kid that the teacher
can't reach intellectually or social? And why was it
allowed in the old days? What should a teacher do,
if he doesn't want to use this biological
jungle-language?
Matt: "I think that teachers are rightly told that
they cannot hit kids, unlike cops, because kids are
not fully formed adults. The trend to want to treat
kids as if they are little adults is a bunk idea that
has got to go. The reason kids learn so well is not
that they are naturally more creative or that they are
more open-minded, but because they are unpatterned."
Perhaps I used incorrect terms by saying children are
naturally more creative or open-minded. They really
are unpatterned, as you say. I was trying to say the
same, but I fell short. Perhaps I should have said
that children are not more creative, but they are less
static. Picasso once said: "Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows
up." Maybe this says what I was trying to get at.
8) Would it change our feelings about the whole MoQ if
Pirsig appeared to be an ugly child-molesting cigar
smoking bold woman? (like one of Roald Dahls witches)
Matt: "Do we trust the insights on morals a molester
gives? Especially as Pirsig seems to endorse the idea
that it does matter to a person's philosophy the way
they act."
This is quickly turning into a loaded question. I
first thought that a good idea should not be
criticized according to the integrity of its creator.
But now I'm not so sure. What if we rephrased the
question to the following: "Would it change our
feelings about the whole MoQ if Pirsig appeared to
have very low social quality?" Then it sounds like we
are criticizing an intellectual pattern (the MoQ) from
the perspective of a social pattern (social morality);
at the very least, our social patterns seem to be
imposing some kind of authority on the intellectual
level. And I thought that was looked upon as immoral
according to the MoQ.
I'm out of words and out of energy, so I'll say thanks
again to Gert-Jan for getting this started, and also
to Matt for contributing; despite all of your previous
concerns, this was certainly not damaging to the
group.
Raymond
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