[MD] Decision

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Ron,

Ron said:
I respect your call to inquiry.

It brings up questions about the role of a community and 
the responsibilities connected with that role.

Also the question of maintaining and defending the 
distinctions that define that community.

Matt:
Yours was a very thoughtful piece of reasoning, and the 
kind of thing I had in mind when I first wrote.  And to tell 
you the truth, I'm not sure I can exactly disagree with the 
substance of your line of reasoning.  

I'm not sure I catch your distinction between accuracy and 
precision, but I think I get you when you say that Horse 
has determined that Bo is inaccurate deliberately and that 
I don't think so, but--and this is your primary thrust--even 
if I'm right, there is still precedence for an administrative 
move on Horse's part, and it has to do with, roughly, 
propagandizing.  For not trying _hard enough_ to explain 
_and_ defend your line of reasoning, and the evidence and 
arguments that lead you to conclude such and so, you can 
be banned from this conversational institution by virtue of 
evacuating the primary engine of distinctively _philosophical_ 
conversation: the production of reasons for belief.

If I wanted to be high-mindedly metaphilosophical, I might 
talk about how Nagarjuna thought of his practice as 
philosophical propaganda (as did Wittgenstein) and how 
the only way to get the hang of a new language game is 
to just start using it.  But I was saying to Ian that I 
distinctively was _not_ taking this route, but being 
practically oriented around the (re)production of a space 
of intellectual inquiry.  And around your line of reasoning, 
though Horse may have (assuming he is wrong and I'm 
right about Bo's deliberateness) mis-emphasized the most 
powerful portion of his rationale, I think you have 
suggested what it is and why it is cogent.  

Because the most powerful piece is Horse's consistency in 
proving to be a "benevolent dictator," if you will: every 
editor or editorial board for a publishing organ lists explicit 
rules, but also holds the right to exercise practical 
judgment-calls guided by those rules and other implicit 
concerns (regarding the shape of the intellectual space 
they want to promote).  Horse, in my absence from 
resuming my vacational silence, adumbrated some of these, 
and with his usual clarity and institutional acuity.  And I 
find your suggestion that Horse has already exercised a 
consistent kind of action based on a reasonable interest 
for good intellectual inquiry (the demand for reasons) 
thoroughly plausible and forceful.  The rule of precedent, 
stare decisis, is strong and important in institutions, and 
your line of explication, Ron, suggests Horse's history of 
actions to be based on a relatively good precedent that 
has worked: it has promoted a better intellectual space.  
Thank you, Ron.  (And, given how Ron has unearthed and 
made explicit a function that has been implicit in Horse's 
conduct--one that at the least _I've_ been unaware 
of--thank you, Horse, for doing what I hadn't explicitly 
been aware of.)  I've never thought Horse was anything 
but benevolent, but the apprehension of the right pattern 
of reasoning helps to make sure we are all on the right side.

Combined with John's importation of the notion of tenure, 
we might say that some are given lax regard most of the 
time for the production of elongated reasoning-patterns 
because of the occasion of their previous commitments of 
time and energy in previously articulating those patterns.  
A "resting on your laurels" kind of thing which is what 
tenure is for in academia so that the old guard might 
explore imaginatively new lines of inquiry without always 
having to worry about these new lines panning out.  You 
work in the vineyard for a while, get tenure, and then 
based on your record of successful work in the garden of 
previously worked out lines of inquiry, are allowed to try 
some experimental seeds and gardening techniques.  
Pretty much because of respect and trust that your 
energy and time is more worth subsidizing than someone 
who hasn't.  Very similar to how venture capitalism works.  
(Are you going to give your money to someone who's done 
squat, or to someone whose had a few successful outings 
under their belt?)

So the conversational community respects the bad and 
lazy days of some of its members because of their good and 
productive days, sometimes in a distant past.  And newer 
members are asked to cut their teeth a little.  And Horse is 
asked to make the judgment call about when someone has, 
or is perilously close to, running out of slack and falling on 
the bad side of "Fox News or a real news network?"

Some may think I'm still missing the obvious point: that 
Horse was very explicit in saying what the line was that 
was crossed, that SOL is _not_ Pirsig's idea.  What is 
implicit in Horse's articulation of this, that "Bo stops 
repeating what, for most, is the bleeding obvious," is that 
this point can only be appreciated within the community's 
space of intellectual discourse.  My explication of this 
particular idea might be philosophically contentious (e.g., 
what the notion of a "fact" is), but I take it to be pretty 
obvious that it is important that Horse knows that, as a 
moderator, if he's the only one that thinks something is 
obvious, then he might want to think twice before taking 
administrative action.  To appreciate the practical and 
philosophical issues involved in constituting a 
discourse-community by the creation of rules, one has to 
abstract a little from the immediate particularity to look 
at what the space is we want to maintain and how to 
maintain it best.

Thank you Ron, and all due apologies to everyone who 
thought I was talking like an idiot for the last week.  But 
the kind of thinking that I wanted to do, and Ron was 
inclined to take up, does I think need to be done on 
occasion, and can be done with accuracy and precision 
and for practical benefit.  And while my apology to 
everyone is ironic (though not my thanks, Ron), I do 
extend a sincere apology to Horse if he felt I was making 
his life as administrator more difficult than it already was 
and is.  That was not intended.  Or deliberate.  And I 
hope I produced enough reasons for why, perhaps only 
in retrospect, it was a fire worth going through to get to 
Ron's contribution.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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