[MD] Rorty and Mysticism

[david buchanan]

Matt said to dmb:
This has always been my inmost agony: I want you to be better than you are.  That you wish the same of me is obvious from your catty exhortations that take the form of "it's obvious you a smart guy, so why you actin' so sputid?"  So what do we do?  Chalk it up to different wavelengths?  Is there any common terrain on which we can have a productive and interesting conversation where we both enjoy and take seriously the exchange of opinions?


dmb says:

I'd like to suggest that my "catty exhortations" ought not be dismissed as merely "catty". If memory serves I used the word "incorrigible" as part of a more sustained and substantial explanation of the problem and I was specifically saying that the problem was NOT with your intelligence. For some other reason, I was saying, you are incapable of learning anything on that particular issue. (Pure experience and the baggage hanging) I was trying to explain that baggage in terms of a bad lens. 


This is the point that I really hope you won't dismiss: I think that bad lens is what keeps you from understanding pure experience as Pirsig means it. His central term become a form of Platonism in your Rortarian imagination. I don't think that's a trivial mistake. I think I see how you got there. I think it's fixable. I'm not covert when it comes to insults and that's really not what I'm doing. In fact, your thinking is not alien to me in the least and I think I see what you're doing. My desire to correct you is not based on ill-will nor do I want to improve you. Would you believe that I really just want you to understand something at the very center of the MOQ? Really. It just seems like such a senseless tragedy that smart Pirsig fan who works in the academic world could misconstrue Quality the way you have. When I think of all the students you'll ever teach and all the writings you'll ever write... Seriously. I'm just sick about it. Steve too. And there's no good reason for it. That's what kills me. It's just a mix up.


Addressing this concern IS a form of criticism, but it's not meant as a personal insult. It's the good kind of criticism, where have better ideas afterward. And you're never going to understand what I'm saying if you take it as mere insult. The criticism is going to be a bit unpleasant no matter how I put it, especially if the criticism is valid. If I'm right, it would mean that you really have made a conceptual error. But we all have to be open to that possibility. That's just common decency, right? You would just feel condescended to if I treated you with kid gloves anyway, would you? I mean, dismissing the sore points effectively removes little pieces of the argument. The substance and merit of a point does not depend on how much it does or does not sting. In fact, sometimes a point stings precisely because it has substance and merit.