From: storeyd (storeyd@bc.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 29 2004 - 03:25:50 BST
Hi all
David M said: I have been disappointed by the overall reaction to Sam's
>ideas, seems to me that we should be promoting the MOQ for all not driving
>out people who bring in heavy baggage like Christianity or pragmatism or
>whatever. Although I equally think people should not take offense at a bit
>of heated argument or even abuse, but we aren't all as non-sensitive as I
>am.
While tolerance is an indispensible attitude to productive discussions, it is
not the ceiling of discourse, and ultimately it is a limited perspective.
Why? Because of the same problem that plague many a postmodern pluralist:
nonjudgmentalism. it's when the subject does not merely reserve judgment in
order to acquire a critical, multi-lateral perspective, but becomes incapable
of judgment, and lumps all views under a the relativistic banner of pluralism,
sanctioned by watchwords like sensitive, pluralistic, inclusive, etc. This
is, to an extent, all very good, but in the impassioned rush to achieve
inclusivity, one risks conflating and ignoring the irreconcialable differences
between different views; in other words, not all differences are formal
(however, much of the postmodern world believes all ideologies, viewpoints,
perspectives are different amalgamations of forms, signs, surfaces, texts,
etc., that is, it does not believe in qualitatively different content (which
is another way of saying that it does not believe in spirit, meaning, Quality,
etc.) This is what happenned with Sam. Remember, Pirsig certainly feels that
some views are of a higher caliber of quality than others. Christianity
(well, what C.S. Lewis called "mere christianity", which basically means the
sine qua non of the faith, meaning that the incarnation was a literal, actual,
historical event, the only way to God) confuses DQ with SQ, and that means,
according to Pirsig's metaphysics, that it is a low or limited quality view,
period. No buts. The truth, David M, is that Sam removed himself from the
discussion, we did not drive him out. The insensitivity, you see, is due to
him, not to others who disagreed with him and tried to convince him otherwise.
"heavy baggage", after all, tends to weigh one down, and in general, it is a
nuisance to those who sincerely wish to travel.
What do you think?
-Dave
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