[MD] MD and thee

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Marsha,

Marsha said:
I don't know enough of what your talking about to ask a 
specific question.  I would like to know more.  How about 
this list in cyberspace as autobiography?

Matt:
If I perceive you aright, the lack of compatibility between 
my blurting of stuff I'm reading and your concerns/interests 
is a decent illustration of the problem of the MD as it 
intersects with the Pirsigian conception of philosophy as 
autobiography.

When we consider our posts to be autobiographical 
articulations, the problem of discussion becomes a problem 
about intersecting interests.  And part of this is 
compositional: "How does one make their interests 
interesting?"  The art of constructing a post, then, 
becomes part of the larger problem of "composing yourself," 
how to present yourself (in this particular case, in writing) 
so people take an interest--what Pirsig, for example, did 
amazingly in ZMM.

There are ways of mitigating the problem of 
autobiographical intersection by way of external reference 
points, i.e. biographical reference points ("someone else's 
autobiography"), e.g., "If you aren't talking directly about 
what _Pirsig_ thinks, then shut the hell up."  I take most 
consternation in the MD to be covert cries of "I don't find 
what you are saying interesting (i.e. irrelevant to what I 
want to talk about)!"  This is something I've tried to be 
more and more explicit about in the way I compose myself 
in the MD, because I take such an explicit turn towards the 
relativity of relevance to one's own interests to be an 
articulation of Pirsig's own philosophy.  There is a direct 
tension--for the composition of the MD--between Pirsig's 
belief in the centrality to philosophy of each philosopher's 
own interests and his desire for his philosophy to gain 
tread in the heart of every philosopher.  This is the tension 
between making Pirsig's philosophy/biography central to 
what you talk about in the MD and making your own 
philosophy/autobiography central to what you talk about.  
The former is what Dave would only like; the latter is what 
Dave is concerned I only care about.

If we consider the MD to be the playspace of genuine 
philosophers, then the MD is a further manifestation of the 
Emersonian tradition of philosophy, which makes one's self 
central to how one does philosophy.  This places it in the 
same "memoir-y" tradition as the Biographia Literaria, 
Walden, Black Boy, ZMM, and Heartbreaking Work of 
Staggering Genius.  What makes all of those books great is 
that they were all, as Pirsig said in somewhat bewilderment 
over his own great work, kulterbarers.  They somehow, 
and this is almost always an inexplicable event for the 
auto-excavater mining the materials of their own life, 
managed to distill their own culture within 
themselves--which is to say, their composition.

This is, broadly, the ideal for all of us (as, of course, I'm 
suggesting it within the purview of my own autobiographical 
interests), to work at better composing ourselves which is, 
somehow, a better composition for others.  The image of 
the philosopher Pirsig presents is one who somehow 
dovetails care for one's self with care for others.  This 
doesn't always work in all of our compositions.  Sometimes 
we might just care about, say, Pirsig's self, like Dave does, 
and not care about anybody else's.

As an example of intersection and its occasional problems, 
take the kerfuffle over your interest in Relativism that I 
became a part of.  In that dialogue, I wanted (and largely 
failed) to distinguish between my active interest that you 
explore the kind of articulation you want to give of yourself 
that you want (e.g., the vocabulary of relativism) and my 
passive interest in the (supposed) problems and 
connundrums of that vocabulary.  It's similar to my 
relationship to James' radical empiricism, which poses this 
general question to each of us: "How do we balance 
between a cool appreciation of a favored philosopher's 
own way of expressing themself; and the shy, demur 
avoidance of actually taking it up ourself?"  

Philosophy being the kind of thing it is, every active 
expression on our own part has a way of demanding the 
attention of others.  Which is to say: philosophical 
expression typically comes in the form of assertions.  
Stanley Cavell (a supreme practitioner of Emersonian 
philosophy) called this the "arrogance of philosophy." But 
we need to face this problem in our own composition, of 
balancing between the claims of others and the claims of 
ourself.  In a certain way, the model of the University 
Departments come to mind: a diverse set of people, 
brought together under a general rubric, but the best 
departments are made up of people who take an interest 
in their collegues exploring their own interests to the best 
of their ability.  The way, for example, English works 
these days is that every professor is the resident specialist 
of X--which means you might be the only person who gives 
a shit about Emerson, or Relativism.  But the idea is that 
there is generally enough intersection with everyone else 
that you have people to talk to about your ideas, though 
without necessarily turning everyone into Emersonians.  If 
that were to happen, it would be the death of the 
department--because who would teach Chaucer?

Does the above intersect with what you were wondering 
after?

Matt
 		 	   		  
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