[MD] The strong interpretation of the MOQ (SIM)

[Mary]

> 
> [Mary]
> What's the difference between "Ukraine" and "The Ukraine"?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Do you attribute behavior to one? "The Ukraine says..."?
> 
> But I'll play with this a bit, even if its on the surface a dreadful
> example.
> 
[Mary replies]
"Dreadful?"  My goodness!

[Arlo]
> "The Ukraine" exists as defined by an authoritative body enforcing
> national boundaries. 

[Mary replies]
You have this backwards.  Some years ago after the fall of the USSR, it
became national news in America that Ukrainian's objected to having their
nation referred to as "The Ukraine".  That is why it has vanished from the
vernacular.  News stories today referring to the region of the USSR formerly
known as "The Ukraine" now refer to the nation of "Ukraine".

http://www.infoukes.com/faq/the_ukraine/

Some excerpts follow.

the Ukrainian language has no articles so this is not a factor except
indirectly.

Does English grammar require the definite article the before Ukraine?
Ukraine is the name of an independent country. There are only two groups of
countries which require the article in English: Those with plural names such
as the United States or the Netherlands. The others have names with
adjectival or compound forms which require the article, such as the United
Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, or the Ukrainian SSR. 

English grammar does not require a definite article before the names of
singular countries such as England, Canada or Ukraine. 

Geographical regions such as the Arctic, the Atlantic, the North, the West,
and the prairies all require the definite article, but these are not
countries. Since 1917 Ukraine has had very definite borders so it cannot be
regarded as merely a region. Some people have mistakenly thought that
Ukraine is a general word meaning "the borderland;' "the steppes" or "the
prairies;' which would require the article. 

A few neanderthal writers in the past have even promoted "the Ukraine" to
reflect the original meaning "the borderland" in order to diminish the
international political stature of Ukraine. They betrayed their ignorance of
Ukraine, or their bias against it, with this usage. See for example, the
view of Robert 0. Grover in the U.S. News & World Report (Dec. 9, 1991). 

When the December 1991 referendum confirmed the independence of Ukraine the
White House in Washington, D.C. officially announced that it would
discontinue use of the definite article before the name Ukraine.

Now, the exception to the rule. Yes, it is possible for "the Ukraine" to be
correct in English but it is a very rare usage in apposition to contrast the
past with the present. For example, one could correctly say, "The America of
George Washington is not the America of Bill Clinton" as well as "The
Ukraine of Shevchenko is not the Ukraine of Kravchuk." 


[Arlo]
While you and I may see very unimportant lines
> on a map, people living in these areas often dispute these areas,
> suggesting that the closer one is involved, one realizes there is NO
> "one true Ukraine"

[Mary replies]
At the Social Level, 'lines on a map' are extremely important, and yes,
there is 'one true Ukraine', which is now known as 'Ukraine' and not 'The
Ukraine' since Ukraine refers to the independent nation while The Ukraine
refers to an amorphous region without defined boundaries and stripped of
nationality.  As mentioned, to refer to the nation of Ukraine today as 'The
Ukraine' is derogatory.

[Arlo]
> 
> In short, "The Ukraine" is mere convention that works better at
> abstract distances, but the closer one gets to the "boundaries" or
> the definitional constructs, the more it falls apart. Also, it works
> at these levels because there is a (typically military) authority
> forcing a particular "definition" (regarding the "geographic Ukraine").
> 
> To keep your analogy, we'd have to agree that "THE metaphysics of
> Quality" is tied to a particular authority and this authority decides
> for everyone where the boundaries to "THE MOQ" are. This points to
> the narrative genre Pirsig adopted, and I think for conventional
> purposes we usually say "THE metaphysics of Quality says..." as
> meaning "Robert Pirsig says..."
> 

[Mary replies]
I am afraid you have made the mistake of misconstruing my analogy.  Now, you
could have chosen to ask me what I meant, or you could have done even a
little bit of research, but you chose instead to presume to already know
what I mean.  Ok.

[Arlo]
> I mean, you don't think "THE metaphysics of Quality" can speak, do
> you? Obviously, IT can't say anything. You can. I can. Bo can. Pirsig
> can. And what we say are our own formulations and revisions,
> extensions and contextualizations, agreements and disagreements with
> (in the case of this forum) Pirsig's ideas.
> 
> But this seems to suggest you think there is "THE metaphysics of
> Quality", rather than Pirsig's metaphysics, your metaphysics, my
> metaphysics, Bo's metaphysics, that may share some commonality we
> can, for convenience, place under an umbrella descriptor, that stands
> apart and is simply observed or interpreted by us blind fools.
> 

[Mary replies]
Actually, I think nothing of the sort, but since you don't seem too terribly
interested in what I think, but instead want to use what you 'think I think'
as a platform to express what _you_ think, I feel a little bit used.

[Arlo]
> So I don't understand why its so problematic for the SOLists to say,
> "Pirsig advanced a particular metaphysics, and in this metaphysics
> SOM is one of many intellectual patterns. Bo, and others, have
> examined this critically and found Pirsig wrong in this formulation
> and have built a metaphysics from revising Pirsig's ideas so that the
> intellectual level is held to be exclusively SOM."
> 
> Valid. Honest. Simple.
> 

[Mary replies]
I am delighted that you are so easily satisfied.

[Arlo]
> What focus on "THE" does is trap the conversation in "who speaks for
> THE metaphysics of Quality?" rather than "whose ideas are better?"
> And not only that, it leads to absurdity after absurdity. I mean, you
> don't really want to support an "argument" that says "Pirsig is a
> weak interpreter of Pirsig"? Do you? Because since he denies he wrote
> anything in his books that would lead to that conclusion, that is
> what he becomes. Too dumb to understand what he himself was saying,
> and part of the "weak interpreter" camp that promtes a "dead MOQ"
> (whatever that means).
> 

[Mary replies]
Here is what Pirsig says.
ZMM Chapter 16:
Phædrus’ second metaphysical phase was a total disaster. Before the
electrodes were attached to his head he’d lost everything tangible: money,
property, children; even his rights as a citizen had been taken away from
him by order of the court. All he had left was his one crazy lone dream of
Quality, a map of a route across the mountain, for which he had sacrificed
everything. Then, after the electrodes were attached, he lost that.
I will never know all that was in his head at that time, nor will anyone
else. What’s left now is just fragments: debris, scattered notes, which can
be pieced together but which leave huge areas unexplained.
When I first discovered this debris I felt like some agricultural peasant
near the outskirts of, say, Athens, who occasionally and without much
surprise plows up stones that have strange designs on them. I knew that
these were part of some larger overall design that had existed in the past,
but it was far beyond my comprehension.
...
It is probably a long way from what he thought. When trying to recreate a
whole pattern by deduction from fragments I am bound to commit errors and
put down inconsistencies, for which I must ask some indulgence. In many
cases the fragments are ambiguous; a number of different conclusions could
be drawn. If something is wrong there’s a good chance that the error isn’t
in what he thought but in my reconstruction of it, and a better
reconstruction can later be found.

[Arlo]
> So, I'm going to reask YOU these questions, Mary.
> 
> [Arlo repeats]
> Why is the following such a seemingly alien concept for you, Platt and
> Bo?
> 
> (1) Bo's formulation for a metaphysics is a critical revision of
> Pirsig's metaphysics.
> 

[Mary replies]
See above.

[Arlo]
> (2) Bo might say "A metaphysics of Quality that holds the
> intellectual level to SOM is better than A metaphysics of Quality
> that considers SOM to be one on many intellectual patterns", instead
> of "THE metaphysics of Quality holds the intellectual level to SOM".
> 
> Why are you all so obsessively hung up on the word "THE", and what
> value do you think it has?
> 

[Mary replies]
Sorry, Arlo.  My dog's not in that hunt.  I do not have the same attachment
to the article 'the' that you appear to have.

[Arlo]
> Do you disagree with me that we use the phrase "THE metaphysics of
> Quality" as a conventional way of referring specifically to Pirsig's
> ideas, but that it would in fact be more accurate to say "Pirsig's
> metaphysics"?
> 

[Mary replies]
Yawn.

[Arlo]
> Do you not see that obsessing on the "THE" objectifies the "MOQ" into
> some "reality"... that even Pirsig can be "wrong" about? This makes
> no sense. Pirsig can't be wrong about his ideas, but his ideas can be
> wrong. In the same way, Bo's ideas are not "THE MOQ", they are his
> ideas.
> 
> If we drop the word "THE", and instead simply talk about people's
> ideas, do you not see how all this interpretive nonsense and need for
> authoritative legitimacy would disappear?
> 

[Mary replies]
Based on Pirsig's explanation of how his books came about above, no one has
any authority on this subject - least of all Pirsig.

[Arlo]
> In other words, what do you think is wrong with saying "A metaphysics
> of Quality that holds the intellectual level to SOM is better than A
> metaphysics of Quality that considers SOM to be one on many
> intellectual patterns"?
> 
> Does that not sum up your position? Why is it more important for you
> to say instead "THE metaphysics of Quality holds the intellectual
> level to SOM"?
> 

[Mary replies]
Give it a rest.  Too bad we are not speaking in Ukrainian which has no
articles.

Best,
Mary