[MD] subject / object logic

[Ant McWatt]

Ham Priday stated:

What I see as Pirsig's "rationale" is to re-arrange the attributes of 
existence to invent a new perspective.  Like the cartographer who, feeling a 
bit tipsy one day, looks at a relief map of the world and decides to draw 
his own boundaries,

Ant McWatt comments:

Ham,

That’s a good analogy derived from Di Santo & Steele’s excellent “Guidebook 
to ZMM”.  Nice to see it being used here.

Ham continued:

Pirsig looks at common experience and divides it up in an uncommon way, 
making Quality the "moral superpower" and classifying subjective and 
objective elements as its subordinate levels.

Ant McWatt comments:

Would Pirsig's ideas be considered uncommon in some East Asian philosophical 
traditions?  Probably not.  Moreover, I think the important consideration 
here is to determine whether or not this metaphysical re-organization of 
Pirsig’s is a better one than SOM based derivatives.

Ham continued:

Having redefined everything to suit his moralistic rationale, he sits back 
and says, "See--this is what reality really is.  Isn't morality wonderful?"  
How stupid of us ignoramuses not to see that we were looking at morality all 
the time! That's poetic license for a writer, of course.  But PHILOSOPHY??

Ant McWatt comments:

Ham, isn’t this redefining “everything to suit his moralistic rationale” 
exactly what you’re doing with your obscure ideas concerning Essence?  
Anyway, with the Tao Te Ching in mind, I think the distinction between high 
quality poetry and high quality philosophy can be a difficult line to draw, 
at best.

DMB then asked Ham Priday August 19th:

So let me get this straight. Pirsig is a rationalizing, drunken, 
condescending, moralizer?

Ant McWatt comments:

David, you forgot womaniser and crank…

DMB continued August 19th:

Is that really what you think or are you just expressing frustration at your 
own inability to comprehend the MOQ? Given the overly emotional tone, the 
ridiculous straw man you portray and the lack of any coherent thoughts 
behind your insults, I'd bet big bucks on the latter.

As I like to say from time to time, reading the works under discussion is 
the only requirement for participation here. You obviously have not done 
that. Or if you have read the books, your level of comprehension must be 
somewhere near 0%. I mean, genuine criticism is perfectly cool, but you 
first have to know what it is you're talking about. Otherwise, those who 
have read Pirsig are never going to take you seriously. Not even Platt, 
that's how bad it is!


After unhelpfully editing out Ham’s post, Platt then made the irrelevant 
comment about DMB’s reply to Ham, August 19th:

"Another gratuitous personal insult from the radical left Marxist fringe."

Ant McWatt comments:

I think DMB’s non-partisan reply was largely fair comment especially as you 
_do_ often take Ham to task on this forum about his misunderstandings 
concerning the MOQ.  However, regarding your gratuitous personal insult 
about DMB’s post, that just indicates a relative lack of humour on your part 
and how much your mindset continues to be influenced (with little, if any 
critical analysis) by neo-con radio talk ideology and their narrow frame of 
debate.  Quite disturbing to observe really.


.

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