[MD] Decision

[Matt Kundert]

> The only point of yours that actually got my hackles up was the "I
> haven't followed the threads that led to this decision (but I'll opine
> anyway)" angle.

Yeah, I know, right?  Heh, I hate that shit, but I read 
Steve's brief intercession and went, "What the hell 
happened when I wasn't looking?"  And everybody else does 
it, so why not indulge.  And since, when I read Horse's 
original post "[MD] Decision" and had gotten the impression 
that administrative action was being (or going to be) taken, 
I also thought it was a timely issue that needed prompt 
response if response was to happen at all.  

Reading Horse's later post of clarification today, now I'm 
not so sure.  I guess I really don't know what is going on, 
which usually isn't a big deal (maybe not even new).  
When Horse clarified what he meant by "inference [etc]," 
which I had picked up on for philosophical extrapolation and 
whatnot, he accorded himself exactly with the way I see 
Bo's aggressions on intellectual integrity.  But then, that 
just clouds my understanding of exactly what's going on 
even more.  I thought something new was going on, but is 
this just a camel/breaking/straw/back situation?

I'm still not sure why we need to "draw a line" against 
anybody for "clogging up the entire MD bandwidth," but 
maybe there are practical/material/physical/electrical issues 
that have been aired in the previous stuff I'm ignorant of.  
I don't understand computers.  But if it's just about really 
wanting Bo to "give it break," then I still think administrative 
action is the wrong practical move (though it's unclear that 
anyone was suggesting it now).  Did Bo kill somebody, or 
some analogous intellectual incursion? 'Cuz otherwise I can't 
imagine why "even-handed tolerance" should be lifted as the 
general rule to take care of particular cases.  For example, 
the reason why Fox News represents a different problem _in 
kind_ that requires us to think seriously about lifting the 
general rule is because of the difference in _scale_ between 
a TV network and a crackpot on the corner (just as yelling 
"Fire!" in a crowded theatre represents a different problem 
in kind because of the difference in _urgency_).  Bo seems 
to me just a guy on a corner.  Horse, as he well-understands 
his position, has the kind of power over the 
structural-institutional shape of what we do to effect what 
goes on, and it isn't clear to me that tweaking of the 
structural shape (the "rules" for admission/rejection) is the 
best way to deal with Bo (or anyone).  Can anyone fill in the 
X ("scale," "urgency," etc.) that makes Bo a situation that is 
different _in kind_ from, say, me?

Without a doubt, Bo represents a weird problem, because I 
think Mary gets the issue wrong when she implies that 
(roughly) all Bo is saying is that the kernel of an idea was 
in ZMM that Pirsig drew out differently when he moved to 
Lila (fork-in-the-road shit).  Mary seems to be able to 
conduct herself to say precisely what she means: Pirsig 
went the wrong direction.  Bo, and this is the appearance 
for many of us, does not have the rhetorical control to say 
precisely that, but rather ranges all over the place between 
"Pirsig took the wrong path" to "Pirsig took _my_ path," and 
thinking he's saying _the same thing_ in all the versions.  
And, on top of this, Bo plays this same dynamic out for 
every individual interpreter, I think clearly illustrated by his 
commandeering of my "Excavating SOM" post and the brief 
conversation that ensued.  There is just something 
cock-eyed about how Bo conducts himself on his intellectual 
path that seems intellectually dishonest--Bo's sincere, but 
that just forces everyone else to add, "yeah, sincerely 
delusional maybe."  I don't doubt Bo's sincerity, but I also 
have come to conclusion that he has a few screws loose 
that makes it impossible for me to talk to him, even if there's 
an intellectually sound position to be had in the 
SOM/SOLblahblah thesis (though it is not, in its 
completeness, Pirsig's thesis).  I think Bo staked out a 
genuinely interesting position, though he has increasingly 
become ingrown in his articulation.  I have nothing, and take 
it that Horse and everyone else has nothing, against Bo 
articulating his ideas.  But we are sincere in thinking there is 
something genuinely screwed up in his representation of his 
position, though it is actually quite hard to put your finger on 
it.  (I do sincerely think it is a lot harder than some others 
perhaps do, because I don't think "intellectual dishonesty" 
gets to it, though it may be the closest we've been able to 
get; put another way, we have a blurry dynamic sense that 
something smells like shit, though I'm not sure we've found 
the static latch for it yet, though I'm okay with ceasing to 
look for it).

Horse added a number of practical suggestions about 
newbies and whatnot, and all of them I can get behind, 
with the real background issue of SOL being the misleading 
of people trying to find their feet (which you echoed Ian).  
But administratively, I don't know what one can do other 
than select certain pieces and positions as authoritatively 
standard (like when some years ago I started talking about 
"mainline interpreters" of Pirsig, my designation for Anthony 
and Mr. Buchanan) and highlight them on the frontpage, or 
where you sign up.  And even that is a contentious step, 
though not unheard of and less contentious than a booting.  
Because the issue I want to wrap my head around is why 
Bo is felt to be different in kind than other idiosyncratic 
posters.  Is the only reason I'm not on the receiving end of 
a decision because I'm not that involved anymore (kinda' 
like a difference in scale)?  There are all kinds of sliding 
continuums we go up and down on, axes along which we 
slide.  Some days I'm abusive, and if that was the only way 
I wrote, the only end of that axis that I was at--given the 
rules about abuse--it would make sense to boot me.  We go 
up and down these axes.  What are the other axes in play? 
seems to be a good question.  Being explicit and systematic 
about them is important, and I'm hazy on what this particular 
(cumulative) "violation" is, in terms of what I would need to 
do to not incur it myself (and I just use myself as a 
convenient lightening rod).  It's one thing to say that 
boots-on-the-ground, practical decisions need to be made 
for which there are no explicit rules (the apotheosis of 
phronesis, praxis over theoria, rhetoric over dialectic, good 
over truth, and any number of other slogans I ascribe to).  
It's another thing to say that there are no explicit rules that 
can be constructed later to make sense of what seemed 
right to do at the time.  That would be an eschewment of 
static latching, of justification.  It's not that Horse hasn't 
judiciously supplied these--Horse knows how to be a 
wonderful administrator and moderator.  I'm just having a 
hard time finding not only what is exactly going on, but a 
sense of the rationale being a good one.

At the end of the day, the fact of the matter remains that, 
in terms of the MD-community and what kind of membership 
I have--which seems to me only measurable by 
participation--I must only have a half-membership.  I'm not 
nearly involved as I once was, and it only makes sense that 
the "moral, pragmatic force" of my voice on issues pertaining 
to how the community should shape itself go down 
accordingly.  It's even worse for Mati, who shows up after 
a long absence.  Because of the nature of this community, 
we vote with our feet (as the American idiom has it), and 
because Mati's feet haven't been here for so long, it makes 
perfect sense to largely ignore his opinion because at the 
end of the day the community needs to shape itself for the 
people active in the community.  But to the extent that the 
community wants to take into it's collective account the 
"possible" community that it wants to court, it might listen 
to Mati's opinion (Mati, of course, is not exactly an "outsider," 
but I hope my point is clear enough).  And likewise for 
me--Horse needs to balance keeping the people actually here 
happy and shaping the community so that it remains open to 
the invisible, possible future members.  I'm a rarer and rarer 
voice, so the need to "please" me, listen and take into 
account my opinions on matters that shape the community, 
matters less than it may have in the past.

I want the best for the MD, because I have many memories 
tied into it, but I cannot promise my active participation, so 
I understand if the community doesn't care much about 
what I think would be best for it.  But I do tend to think 
that the lines of reasoning I've laid out are sound ones to 
think about in the making of these kinds of decisions, even 
if this particular community is not the vested interest it 
once was for me.

Matt

> For me this wasn't the time for even handed tolerance - yes "even" Ian
> can say that. Bo has had several metric tonnes of tolerance over the
> last 8 to 10 years. Horse was drawing a line.
> 
> The only "moral" issue here is Bo's ignorance of the "Bo SOL" issue is
> clogging up the entire MD bandwidth. The issue that many of us do
> ignore him for long periods - until he starts perverting new
> correspondents with his "my story is the Pirsig story" rhetoric.
> 
> Give it a break Bo.
> 
> Ian
 		 	   		  
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