[MD] Hot stoves and those who sit on them

[John Carl]

Home for lunch!  Geez I like working close to home.

And 1 1/2 lunch breaks.  Must be nice for some people, eh Arlo?  Don't you
wish you were a former woodcutter/chicken rancher?

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 9:15 AM, Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:

> [John to Marsha]
>
> But it raises interesting questions in my mind as to whether we as a group
> can decide things for ourselves, seeing freshly for ourselves what is good
> and what is not good, without appeals to authority figures.
>
> [Arlo]
> I think you're hitting the "philosophy/philosophology" distinction here,



Yes!  I was thinking of it in those terms as well.  But also, a recurring
theme, is Quality actually real?  Or to put the question slightly
differently, do people really believe in it?




> and its important. Pirsig referred back (in Baggini?) to the point in ZMM
> where the Chairman shouted "We are not here to learn what YOU think!", and
> this is an important part of Pirsig's "message", namely, to get to a point
> where you can answer the question "what do YOU think?"
>
> This said, appeals to authority are helpful to act against reinventing the
> wheel every ten seconds. And in the finite amount of time we exist we can
> make it further if we at least have the advantage of continuing the dialogue
> (evolution?).
>
>
But Arlo, appealing to authority is EXACTLY reinventing the wheel every ten
seconds.  It's refering to what's been done as the answer to the question of
what we oughta do.

I find "authority" most helpful when it confirms what I've already figured
out as the right way to go.  Otherwise it's a just a mental-conditioning to
let others do my thinking for me.

And that certainly ain't right.

Lot of it around, tho, I have to admit.


Appeals to authority are fine (IMO) when they are used to align one with, or
> bring light upon, what others have said before. They become problematic when
> they are used to provide carte blanche support (Pirsig said it, therefore it
> is true). Of course, in the maligned Academy, appeals to authority also
> derive from the capitalist notion of "intellectual property", a sort of
> "fee" for using someone else's "property".
>
>

Now that's looking at it in a way I never considered before.  "Objective"
knowledge constrained by an artifact of materialistic capitalism.  Cool!  I
got a new thought-toy to play with.



So I do think the "goal" should always be "what do YOU think?", but along
> the way clarity and consistency are instilled in the dialogue by referencing
> where others have already beaten a path that you feel is precursive to what
> you "YOU think".
>
>
The question is always, who is a recognized authority.  To my thinking, when
it comes to the thinking of RMP, this forum is actually the recognized
authority.  Pirsig himself set it up so, by encouraging its existence and
refusal to authoritate all over it.  Is there anybody else in the world so
versed in the MoQ as those who have discussed it over and over and over?

You could point out that this group doesn't constitute a unified whole, but
my response is neither do any of us "individuals".  We are all each of us,
constantly debating with "ourselves" and our past and our differing
influences and what we present as a unified whole is actually an
interpretation of many factions.

So I guess my answer to my own question,, "Who is our recognized authority?"
to Marsha is, "we are."




> In other words, everything that is said is said in response to what has
> been said before, and in anticipation of what others may then say in
> response to you. Appeals to authority are one way to "mark" one's place in
> that historical dialogue (when used with care).
>
>
Well I've noticed one unfortunate tendency, and that's to immerse ourselves
in argumentation over static authority mainly, in support of an indefinable
dynamic that can't be captured by a moment's static excellence.

In fact, that was the gist of a post I had in mind for this lunchtime, an
image as a moment.

But first, I must eat.