[MD] Julian Baggini interview

[ian glendinning]

Fellow MoQ'ers, Ant, Mark, ... it's appropriate to re-inforce a very
important point here concerning development of the MoQ as a
philosophy, distinct from any individual interests.

(I've said many times, editorial control in the hands of individuals
is deadly. LISTEN UP. Ant has abused that privelidge. Mark is pointing
this out to us. Mark, someone who until recently I would have counted
as a close friend of Ant's.)

Ant McWatt  strangely, said
"Hello Ian. :-)"
In response to Mark

Mark therefore responded
"Hello Ian? Hello Mark surely?"

A freudian slip by Ant methinks, since I have tried to be a prick in
Ant's conscience for quite some time over this, Clearly I need to be
more than a prick.

For me any doubts as to Ant's propriety in such matters go back to his
response to the hoax (Still linked on my site, but see Rich / Glenn's
site directly.) I publicly expressed my dismay at both some aspects of
the hoax, and at Ant's "airbrushing history" response to it. Given
Ant's personal anguish at having his PhD celebration day "ruined" I
personally cut Ant a huge amount of slack, and tried to advise him
off-board of my opinions as to his best actions. As a result I
practically became "mediator" between Ant and Glenn / Rich / Struan
for some months. (I had little history of Ant prior to the conference
and hoax, and none of Glenn / Rich / Struan at that time, and was in
no position to "take sides". When mud is slung, some sticks to
everyone.

On more than one occasion since, Ant has done editorial things with
his site (or asked me to do them with mine) and I have responded with
the "I'm not about to air-brush history" riposte. Perhaps that phrase
echoed in Ant's head when he read Mark's recent post.

Offline, I took Ant to task about his approach to the Baggini
interview. He had indeed organised it, and promised on his own site to
post the "transcript" (A collection of e-mail questions and
responses). When the full transcript was published by TPM, a Q&A about
the conference hoax was included. I suggested to Ant that by an
appropriate public response to this he could set the record straight,
without any (further) loss of face to himself, and we could all move
on. An oppoertunity. But no. Ant failed to post the transcript, posted
his own "Pisrig approved" summary, and didn't even post a link to the
transcript or even Baggini's own article based on the interview. I
despaired. There was a fair bit of correspondence led by Matt at the
time about more fair minded critical debate of that stuff. It remains
on MoQ.Discuss, and I have several linking posts on my site. (There
are no such links on robertpirsig.org )

Anyway, depite public advice, and private advice behind the scenes, we
now have the situation Mark describes. Only a filtered public record,
which leaves at the very least a bad taste, as far as anyone taking
MoQ seriously in academic circles. Mark, is rightly concerned about
this and so should we all, inlcuding Ant.

My motive ? As ever is to get public facing material which represents
a fair record of critical debate, AND to ensure that any public MoQ
materials accessible outside academic circles, and edited for such
audiences, are edited transparently on our behalf, and not by any one
individual. (Any individual is of course free to publish "his or her"
view anywhere anytime.)

Ant, as Pirsig himself pointed out, is "very determined".
Ant, my friend, please clean up your act, for all our sakes.

Mark, I hope you manage to sort things out at Liverpool.

As Marsha said, leave it to a bunch men to f*ck it up.
Sincerely
Ian