From: Ray Cox (baroquenviolin@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Sep 23 2003 - 12:23:04 BST
Matt,
Matt said:
If you mean we should not either directly associate a
bad man with his good theories or make a sharp,
discrete distinction between a bad man and his good
theories, then yes, I agree. The idea is to excavate
and see if there is any association, because sometimes
there won't be (but sometimes there might).
Ray:
Yes, this is what I meant. "It" refered to the bad
man, implying that we should avoid depending on his
character to influence our interpretation of his
ideas, but also avoid being completely independent of
it altogether. Just an unclear paragraph. And
although the original question applied to an imaginary
Pirsig, the conclusion is applicable to the real
Pirsig, as well.
Matt said:
I think what topic we are talking about has a direct
relation on whether we trust the person who has
accumulated a lot of bad static patterns.
Philosophy is extremely abstract, but physics, as far
as anybody has been able to tell, has barely any
relation to the moral interactions between people at
all (besides the extremely abstract sense of valuism).
So, Einstein? Wouldn't matter a wit,
much less so than Lester the Moral Philosopher, in
fact. The closer you get to matters of social
interaction, the more it matters how the person
interacts socially. I mean, what does it matter to
the notes on the page that Bach stole stuff? Nothing
at all seemingly (though in past times, people did
think it mattered). But does it matter what the
former executives at Enron think and write about
politics? You bet it does. They have something very
definable to gain by getting people to side with them
politically (assuming their political positions are
bent for personal gain). But how would the St.
Matthew's Passion aid Bach in stealing horses? As far
as I can tell, not at all.
...The more abstract and further away from social
interaction, the less influence we should think a
person's behavior has on the topic, and vice versa.
The "vice versa" is interesting because I also think
that physics doesn't change the way people behave.
Ray:
My intention was to deliberately identify different
subjects (such as physics) that are of a much more
concrete nature, and then proceed to ask the same
quesiton. And on physics, I'm in aggrement, for the
same reasons. On the other hand, art cannot have such
an easy answer. Absolutely no insult intended, but
you sound like a musicologist, worlds away from a
musician or artist. ;-) Art is both abstract (to the
highet dgree) and simultaneously very close to human
interaction. Bach's life (everything, high or low
quality) had an immense and invaluable effect on his
music. His "notes on the page" are much more than
their definition. And while physics can be separated
from the physician, I would strongly argue that art
cannot be separated from the artist. There is very
little that can be said about art, except that it is
neither a scientific, nor a primarily moral pursuit.
I think what I'm having so much trouble with is that
art has a profound relationship with society, but art
itself is highly abstract at the same time. So it is
extremely difficult to show either way that Bach's
social patterns had or did not have an effect on his
music.
Ray
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