[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[david buchanan]

Hello Khoo,

Thanks very much. Your points are well taken, encouraging and exceptionally reasonable.

I think you're quite right about opposition. It does sharpen both sides of the debate, at least potentially. But in those cases where one or both sides are defending a ridiculous position, I'm not so sure that it does any good. Like you, I also "hope we can explore the new vistas an expanded rationality can explore". The East-West fusion is completely worthy of a philosopher's time and energy too. But this place is too cluttered up with confusion at the most basic levels of understanding. And it's perpetrated by a just small handful of incorrigible long-timers. It's literally a drag. It's truly a bummer and I think it's reasonable to complain about it.

Thanks again for your kindness.
Dave

 
> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:04:17 +0800
> From: khoohockaun at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Babylonian intellectuals
> 
> Hi Dave,
> 
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 2:49 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:
> 
> >
> > This is a misconception and it is just one of many examples. In the MOQ,
> > the difference between abstractions and concrete reality is the difference
> > between static intellectual patterns and direct everyday experience. It's
> > the difference between sq and DQ. You are simply misconstruing the MOQ as
> > SOM.
> >
> Khoo:
> Yes, IT really boils down to this.
> 
> That many can read an author like Pirsig and come away with widely differing
> understandings is to be expected.
> 
> I would have thought a more open dynamic mind would be completely receptive
> to what Pirsig was trying to convey. A closed static mind, sees the MOQ only
> in its own mould.  In Bo's case, I would venture fourth stage meta-stasis
> had already set in years ago.
> 
> Pirsig should have added a caveat, that the MOQ is not for everyone to grasp
> at first instance. For some it could takes, years, decades or even a
> lifetime.
> 
> Dave added:
> 
> 
> > I really, really hate what you're doing to this place, clogging it up with
> > this hair-brained nonsense all the time. I listened to it for over a decade
> > now and I'm just sick to death of it. Please, get a hobby. Go away. Let us
> > do philosophy, will you? That would be "a promising development".
> >
> Khoo would like to say:
> 
> I, for one, really appreciate all your exertions, as do all else who labour
> like you do to clarify our understanding of the MOQ and Quality as presented
> by Pirsig.
> 
> It is not wasted, even if it might be on Bo.
> 
> It has helped instead to refresh our perspectives, place into context, again
> and again by repeated defence against the assault on Pirsig's MOQ.
> 
> Lurkers and newbies alike, if I may say so, who disdain but endure the
> endless, sometimes pointless argumentation over basic definitions, see much
> value in defending Pirsig's formulation of the MOQ, given that it is THAT
> which drew them here in the first place, not a pretender's version.
> 
> If and when, we, as a discussion group,  leave all this "adolesecent"
> sparring behind, I hope we can explore the new vistas an expanded
> rationality can explore.
> 
> We still have not bridged Western and Eastern philosophies yet, which is one
> such great promise of the MOQ finding common ground I look forward to;
> by understanding how Eastern civilisations have achieved their respective
> intellectual levels as compared to the SOM-dominated Western worldview.
> 
> We will cross the bridge when we come to it. But we are not there yet.
> Not when we still have to come to terms with tendencies no matter how overt
> or latent, for Western hegemony over the rest of the world.
> 
> It does looks like a slog, but then again, who can ask for a better cast of
> characters than on the this list to make philosophy an ongoing dynamic
> battle, an everyday real-life clash of ideas sometimes couched in terms of
> "biblical proportions" and implications. It gets the adrenaline pumping;
> emotional drivers that help meld the static and the dynamic to yield
> creative insight by the clash of the rhetorical swords.
> 
> You stay keen and sharp by your own vigilance for the real and good. This
> state of mind does not come in the absence of opponents and detractors who
> distract by imposing themselves on you.
> 
> Thats all they do and want to do.
> 
> Best regards
> Khoo Hock Aun
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