From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 13 2003 - 04:20:59 BST
Short,
DMB said:
The easy escape of mysticism?
Matt:
The "easy escape of mysticism" was a quote from Pirsig. It wasn't cited because it was used allusively and the quotes then became more like scare quotes, which Pirsig didn't even use around "easy escape" when he wrote it. I felt validated in making an allusion instead of a citation because of all the attention I drew to those few pages where the short phrase is found. I figured people would either pick up the allusion on first reading or, when they went back to the text to pick up the whole of Pirsig's argument and make sure that I wasn't quoting out of context or wholly misinterpreting him, they'd see it and go, "Oh, how cute, it was a direct quote." A little surprise for the Easter Egg hunters.
And for the record, there is nothing easy about mysticism.
DMB said:
DQ represents our intuition? Beyond the problem that this waters down mysticism to the point that it becomes mere sentimentality....
Matt:
First I get flak from Platt because he thinks I'm belittling everyone for going to great lengths in explaining what "begging the question" means and its consequences and now I get a total misunderstanding of what is meant by "intuition". I thought long and hard about whether I should go to great lengths to explain the history of the word "intuition" in philosophy, but I opted out because of my history lesson with "begging the question". I made an editorial choice because the freakin' thing was already huge. I clearly defined "intuition" and "intuitions" at the beginning the third part. If you don't want to use those definitions, fine, whatever. I tried.
DMB said:
No, the Nazi is immoral becasue he asserts 3rd level static values over 4th level static values.
Matt:
I feel like a teacher.
I want somebody else out there to tell DMB what he just did that my _entire_ series of posts was meant to elicit some understanding of. Anybody? Andy, could you do the honors if nobody else does?
DMB said:
To equate DQ with "a compliment we pay after the fact", our moral intuitions or assumptions or any other static thing.
Matt:
Did I equate DQ with "a compliment we pay after the fact"? Nope. Did I equate DQ with assumptions? Nope. Did I equate DQ with moral intuitions? Almost, you got so close with this one. No, if you had bothered to read the beginning of the third post, you would have noticed my definitions. But we already have seen that you ignored them. Well, in the beginning there, you'll notice that I draw a big huge distinction between moral intuition and moral intuition_s_. Big distinction, big line drawn through the middle, can't miss it.
Well, you'da have to have read it, I suppose. You're startin' to read like Squonk, DMB.
Like that stuff with Platt, I'd like to again exclaim my utter disappointment in myself for being drawn into this petty, stupid bullcrap. But hey, DMB did say something right:
"I honestly believe that the MOQ can be rightly understood only when DQ is understood to be the mystical reality."
I agree with this statement insofar as I think DMB believes it and I think that Pirsig talks very often like he believes it. Hell, I think I even believe it, albeit in a pragmatist way. I wish you read well enough to have gotten my point that this is one way to read the MoQ, a Kantian way, and that I think Pirsig reads it this way, too. But, maybe its my fault for not throwing in the word "mysticism" enough and not drawing enough big fat red arrows and connecting enough of the thousands of dots that can be connected in Pirsig's books. My only defense is that when a person writes an essay as opposed to a book, his effort is not to explain everything, it is to have a thesis and then stick to the thesis and try as hard as possible not to stray down every path that opens up, bird-walking in a thousand different directions. I'm sorry I didn't use the thesis you wanted me to use DMB. But when you write a, what?, "ten-thousand word essay," well, you gotta' edit something.
Matt
p.s. Though I am extremely tired of talking about this to DMB, I would like to point out that DMB is write when he says, "The MOQ prevents the NAZI from co-option by identifyig them and other reactionary movements as the assertion of social levels values in a larger struggle." This is how the MOQian vocabulary prevents the Nazi from winning an argument and careful readers will note that that is what is meant when I say that the only way to keep the Nazi from coopting the MoQ is _concretizing_ it, i.e. defining the terms your way. However, the point of my series of posts was to point out that A) this begs the question in an argument with the Nazi and B) that Pirsig seems to want to say that, though it does beg the question, the Nazi is still forced to play that game.
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