[MD] MD and thee

[MarshaV]

 Hi Matt,  
 
 
On Mar 24, 2010, at 10:26 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:
>  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.

My inquiry has nothing to do with you blurting anything out.
I was wondering about a list such as the MD, in cyberspace, 
as a place where characters are sharing their 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.

I've considered, too, how a writer could become an avatar
and tinker with a character's voice.  Then it would be the art
of constructing a character in cyber-time.  I can see the 
potential for all sorts of interesting happenings, all focused
on working out a particular philosophy.  I can see endless
possibilities:  Lila's game.       


> 
> 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.

I'm really not very excited by Dave's new trick.  It seems an
endless regurgitation of the latest lecture he's heard, or the
the latest textbook he's read.  Oh, excuse me, in his case the
text would be a "professional, philosophical tome."  -  I'm left
wondering about every lecture he hasn't heard and every 
philosophical tome he hasn't read.
 
 
> 
> 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?


Yes, and I like the concerns for the personal.  I'll work a 
bit at presenting a better post.  RMP wrote a pragmatic 
metaphysics, I think you point to a very good way of 
implementing its usefulness.   You've just reminded me
of how much I enjoyed reading Virginia Woolf's 'A Room 
of Ones Own'.  

Thanks Matt. 



Marsha
 
 
  












 
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