[MD] guidebook/primer

[ian glendinning]

DMB, I've clearly offended you and left you doubting my sincerity, but
it's good to keep talking. Sorry I missed you behind the bike sheds,
but I was otherwise engaged for a fortnight, no honestly, I was :-).

Anyway ... Dumbing Down ? Pirsig stands on his own merits. His MoQ
stands in academic circles according to the work of Ant and others ...
When you wrote your excellent piece for the 2005 conference you didn't
start with technical philosphic terms you started with the story of a
boy and his dad on a campsite. Different writing for different
purposes. Rhetoric. People shouldn't be spared the hard facts, just
led to them with quality engaging narrative. (You are the last person
to need my advice on writing quality !)

(The irony is Mark since confirmed his piece with the 3 out of 5
opening technical terms was indeed for a gradutate philosophy audience
anyway.)

What is the "pitfall" I'm trying to save "us" from ? Losing good
contributions from good people who get turned off by the cliquey,
cultish, inner circle, laying on of hands impression, and who vote
with their feet. Paul, Matt, Scott, and no doubt others anonymous to
me. Sam of course too, you will point out, but as a theologian he was
always going to have hard time "inside" the atheist MoQ, but his
thinking and argumentation is nevertheless a quality contribution
lost.  That's my only "conscience pricking" motive. I do not have it
in for Ant or anyone else, except maybe Platt ;-) in any personal way.

E-mail is a useless medium for communication, BTW.

Regards
Ian

On 10/12/06, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ian said to Mark:
> Your point (1) inlcudes five words three of which would be a turn-off to a
> "lay person" Metaphysics, Mystic and Monism. Quality is the word people will
> recognise ... that's why Bob chose it. ...As I say an expert on the subject
> is not necessarily the best person to draft or edit public facing summaries
>
> dmb says:
> I disagree. Comprehension of the subject is a crucial pre-requisite, a
> necessary but insufficient condition. And I think your suggestion that the
> "lay person" be spared terms like "metaphysics", "mystic" and "monism" shows
> exactly why. This kind of omission would distort the MOQ beyond all
> recognition and turn Pirsig into a platitude spouting romantic. It stinks of
> dumbed-down compromise already.
>
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