[MD] So cometh MOQ, what next?

[jjengele]

I wrote this letter a week ago before I changed ISP's.  I thought that the topic 'So cometh the MoQ, 
what next? was getting out of hand when I realized how it started and so I wrote this stuff. 
Jim Engele




At 09:59 AM 10/25/2006 gabby wrote:
>To all MOQers, is it merely enough that we partake in discussion and end 
>it there? Discourse is important, but so too is metapragmatics.

I'll try to bring this thread back to where gabby started it.

the reason I joined this list a little over a week ago was because I've been trying to integrate the MoQ 
into my life.  I first discovered it in 1998.  I felt the earth shift under me as I read it and immediately 
recognized the significance first with ZMM and even more so with Lila.  I let the ideas stew inside my 
brain for a few years as I tested it out in various situations that seemed relevant. My thinking was, 'if it 
continues to stand up and be valid after the test of time it will grow in importance to me.' It has.

I now have two children who are growing up with or without my wisdom and insight.  That has prompted 
me to really make an effort to implement the MoQ in my life and also in theirs.  If I can set them up so 
they won't have to deal with this problem, that's one big problem out of their way.  With a little luck, 
they will never even know that this trap has been cleared from their path.  I'm aware that they will learn 
more through observation than anything so I am first and foremost trying to understand the MoQ as 
clearly as I can so that my actions will speak louder than my words.  The guidebook/primer discussion 
seems like a great idea not just because of the opportunity to teach children but also because of the 
simplification of concepts that is yet to be done.  

The MoQ is evolving as we speak as I've learned with Bodvar Skutvik's letter equating SOM with the 
intellectual level.  I discovered this on the thread 'extricating MoQ from SOM'.  It seems to me that the 
MoQ is applicable to everything.  I'm particularly interested in politics and global corporatism.  Stella 
Lindblom has started a thread 'Capitalism and "the free market" was: (redux ad nauseum)   ' that I'm 
particularly interested in.  (Unfortunately, she has decided to leave the discussion so I won't be able to 
learn from her experience, I'm disappointed to say)

Things have certainly changed since Pirsig wrote ZMM.  For example, I think that the American 
automotive industry incorporated the far more successful Asian concepts of car building.  As RP 
pointed out, the Eastern cultures never really fell into the SOM trap.  It may be too little too late 
however for the US car industry.

I see the rise of the religious right and I can't help but think that no matter how skewed their efforts are, 
that they are in no small part reacting to the very issue we are all coming to terms with.  I hear them 
talk of the danger of moral relativism and I think of the monistic 'quality'.  Their instincts are right, I just 
don't like their methods.  Ironically, I see the religious right allying with the political right and their 
common ground seems to be the epitome of moral relativism.

My point is, that my world all starts with me.  If I can understand better the MoQ, I will apply it in a 
meaningful way to everything I touch.  I think this discussion is as important as anything in the world.


Jim Engele