[MD] Stuck on a Torn Slot

[Horse]

Hi Mark

On 05/12/2010 19:00, 118 wrote:
> I am not sure if compartmentalizing each of our views into a category is useful or even relevant.  If you want to create an MOQ school and an anti-MOQ school, then I would have to say that I belong to the MOQ and you are anti-MOQ.

Well given that most of your comments in our recent exchange are 
completely opposed to what Pirsig has said then this would seem to be 
yet another case of your up-is-down view. I have stuck close to the 
text, spirit and message of Pirsigs MoQ, whilst you have opposed almost 
everything that Pirsig has stated and yet I am anti-MoQ and you are MoQ. 
This is what I am coming to expect in having a conversation with you.
The problem that I see, is that what you are doing is producing a 
philosophical position that is based on the MoQ in the same way that, 
for instance, the film 'I, Robot' was based on the story by Isaac 
Asimov. The name is the same and there are one or two characters from 
the story still present in the film, but there the resemblance ends.
You have said in the past that you are anti-authority, so are you 
opposing Pirsig because he is the authority on his own MoQ? It would 
certainly appear that this is the case.

> You have created an intellectual structure that you claim is the Truth of Quality.

I have made no such claim - you may be inferring this but it is 
certainly not a claim I have made. I have merely re-stated what Robert 
Pirsig has said in his texts. No more and no less. If you have a problem 
it is with Pirsig and not with me. But this is fairly apparent from what 
you have been saying. I generally keep very close to Pirsigs original 
ideas as I think they are excellent and I have yet to see that many 
deviations that are better than the original.

> This is Platonism and is what Phaedrus was fighting against.  You take this Truth and then try to fit everything within it making Quality subservient to Truth.

As I said, I am merely restating Pirsig's view of Quality as laid out in 
his books and comments. But again you are making inferences and, 
apparently, constructing strawmen.

> This is classical Western thinking, and something we are trying to change.

Pirsig is attempting to expand rationality with the MoQ. You appear to 
be trying to change it into something it is not.

> If the MOQ continues this way, it will become yet another Western philosophy and there will be no change.

If you have your way the MoQ will disappear into obscurity because it 
will have little support and less acceptance. I also don't believe it 
will be just another Western philosophy as it opposes many of the 
current philosophical positions that exist. There's also the problem, 
with your statement, that it was primarily intended for a western 
audience - but with many subtle twists.

> I am not sure if I am getting through to you, but I am happy to keep discussing it from this viewpoint.

You mean your viewpoint which is at odds with Pirsigs viewpoint as far 
as I can see.

> I think everybody's input is valuable since this is a difficult subject, one of spiritual
> rationalism.

But you oppose and obfuscate any other viewpoint but your own - hence 
you don't value any other viewpoint but your own. This is what is difficult.

> I do not think we are quite ready to start forming different schools like the Sophists did quite yet.  Such a thing would be destructive and not worthy of Quality.

Then why do you insist on taking the MoQ and changing it until it no 
longer resembles anything that Pirsig constructed in the first place.

Horse


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"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa