[MD] humanity is the measure

[Arlo Bensinger]

To this "Man is the measure of all things."

[DMB asked]
I'm getting an overdose of critical theory and all that biz in a class on 
methodologies and it occurs to me that this motto is basically an ancient 
form of constructivism.

[Arlo]
I'd say what ZMM proposes in "mythos as building of analogue upon analogue" 
is more akin to "social constructionism" than "constructivism", the way the 
words are today. The latter emphasizes primarily how an individual, upon 
receiving input, "constructs" mental representations of this. But the 
individual does not construct these mental representations outside of 
social negotiation, and more importantly the individual constructs these 
representations through culture, or the "mythos". This is a recurring theme 
in ZMM and LILA where Pirsig talks about the sand-sorting and mythos, and 
about language ("Any language is more than an instrument of conveying 
ideas, more even than an instrument for working upon the feelings of others 
and for self-expression. Every language is also a means of categorizing 
experience. The events of the "rear world are never felt or reported as a 
machine would do it. There is a selection process and an interpretation in 
the very act of response. Some features of the external situation are 
highlighted, others are ignored or not fully discriminated. Every people 
has its own characteristic class in which individuals pigeonhole their 
experiences. The language says, as it were, "notice this," "always consider 
this separate from that," "such and such things always belong together. " 
Since persons are trained from infancy to respond in these ways they take 
such discriminations for granted as part of the inescapable stuff of 
life."- Pirsig quoting Kluckhohn). So for me, "man is the measure of all 
things" makes sense only when one understands the social-cultural origins 
what "man is". (To some degree too, I'd aruge, that even our bodily-kinetic 
experience is mediated to some degree by culture. What may be painfully, 
and low-quality, cold to you or I, may be a pleasant, high-quality day for 
an Inuit. If we say, "he's used to it", we are really saying its a 
"biological acculturation", which is the point.)

[dmb]
The evolutionary and collective nature of this process, not to mention the 
unusual status of the subjective self, saves it from being any kind of 
solipsism, of course.

[Arlo]
I'm not sure what you mean here by "unusual status of the subjective self". 
But I do think that the emergentist nature of the MOQ, which exemplifies 
the collective participatory nature of activity on any one level as the 
foundational ground from which higher levels originate, allows us to dispel 
of the old dichotomy that one must privilege "individuals" or the 
"collective". And I think it de-privileges the notion that "man" exists 
outside the "flow". As Pirsig says of Descartes,  "If Descartes had said, 
"The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think, 
therefore I am," he would have been correct." Neither "French culture" or 
"the 'I' of Descartes" is privileged, but rather the true dialogic and 
unintertwinable relation between the two is seen.

[dmb]
I think its just expressing the now very fashionable idea that we construct 
our reality, except without all the jargon or Lacanian nonsense.

[Arlo]
I only have a peripheral understanding of Lacan's work. For me, it lacks 
"materiality", something I find much stronger in the work of Vygotsky, 
Leontiev, Marx and Bakhtin. I think the notion that there is a construction 
process in the building of our "reality", I think those who adhere to 
Piagetian constructivism more or less fall prey to the same amaterialism as 
Lacan, not to mention ignore the negotiative nature (social) and 
mediational (cultural) -- this is somewhat a rhetorical and arbitrary 
distinction -- nature of the constructive process.

[dmb]
But its all kinda fuzzy to me at this point. I'm getting by way of art 
criticism and gender studies and other complications. What do you think?

[Arlo]
I'm not sure what you're asking? What do I think of gender studies and art 
criticism? Or what do I think of deconstruction and/or textuality?

[dmb]
How would you go about it if you wanted to make a connection between 
mysticism and postmodernism in an academic context?

[Arlo]
Actually, I think the MOQ did just this. Okay, it wasn't so much an 
"academic context", but it provides a foundational connection between 
mysticism and postmodernism. I also find Poincare's and Einstein's thoughts 
on hypotheses creation akin to Peirce's notion of "abduction" as a form of 
reasoning along with induction and deduction. Umberto Eco has also written 
on this, extending Peirce (of whom he is a big fan), with the idea of 
pre-semiosis, or proto-semiosis (which I'd argue maps onto Pirsig's 
pre-intellectual awareness nearly perfectly). These are some inroads I have 
come to find interesting. Of course, as is often mentioned here, Campbell's 
work on mythology is a nice parallel to approaching the undefinable Quality 
be examining the metaphors and analogies all peoples have used to describe it.

[dmb]
I have hunch that it can be done and I'm kind of excited about it. Well, 
okay. I'm ecstatic about it. Sue me.

[Arlo]
I have a hunch that you will do it.