[MD] Intellectual activity

[Heather Perella]

Hey Arlo,


> [SA]
> Just as Pirsigs' MOQ is a unique way to become
> enlightened, which came from
> Pirsig himself.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Here you align with Platt, but I disagree. Platt and
> I have had this
> conversation before, so let me just restate briefly
> my position.
> 
> The MOQ not only came from Pirsig, but from Kant,
> Hegel, the Chairman, Chris,
> the English department secretary, the Sophists,
> Dusenberry, Kluckholn, etc...
> Each of these had a voice in the "choir" that became
> the MOQ. Certainly, Pirsig
> is what I call the "keystone species" in this
> ecological perspective. (Platt
> hates this, just so you know.) But without the
> voices (the historical dialogue)
> of others, "Pirsig" would have never been able to
> come up with the MOQ. In
> other words, Pirsig is the "latest speaker" in an
> ongoing dialogue built upon
> previous speakers, from which the ability to speak
> comes.

     Yes, and the keystone species is difficult.  I as
well give equal credit to society (which I have
traditionally been lead to believe means two or more
people) and the individual in the society on all
levels.  What is so difficult about keystone species
is that the fine line between the individual and this
term you apply closes into a gray area that I agree
with Platt and then I read what your saying and begin
to think your saying the same thing, until, you state
you disagree.
 
> To restate my position on the
> "individual-collective" dichotomy, my view does
> not give absolute credit to Pirsig or the
> collective-historical dialogue, but
> from the "interplay" of the two. BOTH are valued
> equally, and their
> significance is not contrasted with the other, but
> derived from it.
> 
> Make sense?

     Yes, makes perfect sense, but since the
individual Pirsig is an entity to interplay with
society, then something defines Pirsig differently
than the rest of society even if that difference be
MOQ.  Pirsig used many other voices, as you noted, but
it took the individual, freely wandering amidst the
group of society to notice that sparkled idea that was
different he had to give it a different name.  That
naming he gave was by him.  He challenged others in
the classroom and outside the classroom to bring
attention to this MOQ, but it was the focus called
Pirsig that introduced this MOQ to a fuller extension
than any one person did before him.  I know somebody
named Joe could have lived the path Pirsig lived and
he could have been their sitting under the bodha tree
(to pull an example from Buddha), but Joe didn't. 
Pirsig isn't this almighty individual that came up
with something that nobody else could ever have.  The
historic dialogue seemed to demand a Pirsig due to
what quality promises and society needs, thus, a
Pirsig was inevitable.  It simply was a guy named
Pirsig, or we could even say it was a tree because
Pirsig could have looked at tree and got the idea, but
it was Pirsig, this individual that became the focus
of this inevitable understanding.  
     We probably are approaching this from different
angles, and I don't know if we ever need to even get
past these different angles of ours.  I am feeling
sick, so it could be the sickness, maybe not, but I am
feeling that to come to some clarity as to whether
Pirsig is an individual on the intellectual level or
not might stir us away from the actual path we should
be walking which is to move past the dichotomy into
the real quality existing beyond this.  What would
that be?  Well, it would be this.



SA 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com