[MD] [Bulk] Re: Humanism

[david buchanan]

Arlo said to dmb:
I don't know if I understand the root problem here, but I suspect it relates back to the idea of "interpretative legitimacy". I continue to ask myself why it was impossible for Bo to simple say "Pirsig says that, I think this, my ideas are better, and here is why." It was a complete blindness to productive disagreement and dialogue, and instead evidence nothing but a need to have the "one true interpretation" of Pirsig, even going so far as to call Pirsig a "weak-interpreter" of his own ideas! 

dmb says:
Yes, it's a very strange thing. Reading always means interpretation but this flexibility should enrich, not paralyze our communications. In Bo's case, it was my impression that he had some rather grandiose ideas about the future of the MOQ and his own role in that future. For Bo the MOQ is bigger or more important than Pirsig's texts. I think MOQ is just a set of idea, a picture painted in those pages. It refers to realities that can't be contained on a page but the MOQ itself is just words in a row and if it's going to have positive effect in the lives of actual people then the only reasonable thing to do is make sense of those words and ideas. So I find it quite disturbing that some people are so flexible with their interpretive "skills" that the meaning of simple explicit statements are completely reversed. I find it disturbing that some people think Wikipedia quotes need to be "interpreted" and explained, as if an encyclopedia entry isn't already an explanation for designed for beginners. 


Arlo said:
.. My ideas are a refutation of what Pirsig said. I would like to think that, given the opportunity to present this argument to Pirsig, he may change his position (this is how evolution occurs), but in the meantime trying to "prove" Pirsig "really meant" to include non-humans in the social-level, or that my "interpretation" of the social level is the correct one, is an unproductive, and frankly dishonest, use of time.


dmb says:
Yes, proving that Pirsig thinks "X" about "A" is completely different from proving that "A" is the best truth. It would be nice if things like that didn't need to be explained to anybody. That's not metaphysics. It's just basic logic and common sense. And as a practical matter, a person would only have to say, "Pirsig disagrees with this, but I think "P" about "A". No problem. Everything's clear and we're still talking.



Arlo said:
I also think this is fallout from the "Intellect=SOM" paradigm. You, the "evil, deluded, conniving, blind, acerdimic-SOMist", are taking the brunt of the animosity from a crowd that aggressively pursues an anti-intellectual agenda. I've said before that I think Bo's "SOL" had produced quite a strange lot of bedfellows, but the common theme is one where "intellect" is to be aggressively considered (in nearly every form) "the enemy". ...

dmb says:
Hmmm. That's true and it make sense. A kind of lightning rod effect. 


Arlo:
...I think Marsha does this out of a effort to make intellect subservient to the aesthetic, the code of art, and I think in many ways draws back to the romantic/classic rift in ZMM. From what I can tell, rather than resolve the conflict via integration (as Pirsig does), Marsha demotes intellect to "classic rationality", and elevates "romantic understanding" to the "code of art". You, then, are the "classic rationalist", stuck in the cold, grey, lifeless world of analyses and relationships and parts and components, and she is the "romantic artist" (often an integration with Lila), and so her understanding must be deeper than yours. When I read her responses to you, this makes perfect sense. YOU don't get it because you are classic square, a shallow intellectual concerned with hierarchies and analysis, but SHE gets it because she is the romantic artist who drums and paints and posts poetry.

dmb says:
I see what you mean and it mostly works. But she was a big fan of Krimel's squareness and he always accused me of being a romantic. Stuff like that and the fact that I'm not as nice as you, I'd just say Marsha does what she can do make a virtue of air-headedness.