[MD] Some historical perspective

[X Acto]

John said:

I've never heard or considered such a thing before Ron. 

VERY interesting.



Thank you for your courage in once again braving such 

extreme social disapproval in the interest of sharing truth.



Matt:

Wait, are you making a joke about Ron's very odd denial 

of telling people the authority he's quoting?

Ron:
My very odd denial was in response to recognizing the particular rhetorical devices employed by their request.
(this Charlie Brown is tellin lucy to find another sucker).

Matt:
OH, no, I'm sorry, it was about the East/West semiosis 

thing.  



Whatever flak Ron was talking about, I imagine was 

caused by people with a larger investment in the idea 

that there are two cultures called "East" and "West." 
The 

funny thing, of course, is that this idea was largely 

created by Western colonialists.  But now, in our 

latter-day post-colonial clean-up, the idea is working in 

reverse, as some people (particularly some around here) 

have a large investment in the counter-idea that the 

East--as distinctive entity--can _clean up_ the West and 

its horrible, horrible horribleness.  I don't think this 

counter-idea is in Pirsig, but my guess is that many people 

attracted to him have this investment, despite the ironic 

fact that the general idea is for a rapprochement between 

the two, a bridging, but when you talk about how they 

were never really as split as we had made up, that gets 

frowns.

Ron:
Nail on the head Matt. 

Matt:
But why should we think, given the proximity of the 

ancient civilizations of and surrounding the Fertile 

Crescent, that there wasn't a _lot_ of exchange going on?



Would I be surprised if Eastern religions contained 

Western influence?  No, though I haven't read anything 

on the subject.  But my impression is that the cultural 

semiosis was pretty heavy back then, and the only 

reason we think the West, as distinctive, had more 

influence over the East than vice versa is because 

Alexander was the winner of the war of warriors.



Matt



p.s.  I might as well log my thoughts about Wikipedia here 

as well: while wikipedia might be a wonderful tool that 

isn't often "wrong," it has the same deficiency as any 

encyclopedia/dictionary--it might be "scholastically right," 

but it is thoroughly un-intellectual.  You might be able to 

corroborate the above pieces of my story with wikipedia, 

the individual facts laced together (and even correct some 

of them), but stories like the above do not come out of 

wikipedia--it comes from reading the facts woven together 

by other intellectuals and seeing alternate ways of weaving 

them.

Ron:
Interesting how you use the ancient term of weaving in relation to intellectual discourse.
A strong metaphor, one that concurs with my own beliefs in regard to desired intention.



Wikipedia might be great, but it can't replace the intellectual.