[MD] Julian Baggini interview

[Ant McWatt]

Ian,

You're fired!   :-)

Best wishes,

Ant


Ian G was taking the MOQ a bit too seriously and stated November 2nd:

>Fellow MOQers, 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


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