[MD] Rorty and Mysticism

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Matt:
... I try to be sympathetic to these concerns, but I think I'm pretty good at using whatever tone is appropriate to the situation. Since I disagree with you, I use a disagreeable tone. Anything else would be forced, fake pandering and I'm not going to do that. If that's a deal breaker for you then I'll just have to live with that.

Matt replied:
This is, apparently, another place we disagree.  For two people who have a history as ours, I do believe the licenses you take in tone are poorly chosen _if_ your primary goal was the respectful exchange of philosophical opinions.  It has led me to believe that you have a poor interpersonal sense--not a necessary prerequisite for good thinking, as you tirelessly point out, but probably for good conversations with strangers.  If you truly think that to not choose the tone you so often do would be to pander, and are not just scoring cheap rhetorical points, then I think you have a black and white view of the world of interpersonal situations, and would wish you more sensitivity in that arena.  You don't have to say "asshole" to behave like one.

dmb says:
I'm well aware of what it's like to be insulted. Happens to me here pretty much every day and so I don't have to imagine what it's like for the other guy. In fact, before I went to Liverpool I began to worry if my tone in this forum was offensive to Pirsig and so I rehearsed an apology. And when we finally met, about two minutes after he walked into the pub, that's the first thing we talked about. He was not offended. Quite the opposite. He's grateful for my efforts, he thinks I'm hilarious and he called me his "body guard" - several times. More recently, when I dropped out of the discussions for a while, he encouraged me to get back in there. And I'll remind you that Pirsig is seeing exactly the same thing you're seeing. Am I guarding the MOQ or just an asshole scoring cheap rhetorical points? You and Pirsig answer that question very differently. He is comforted and amused by exactly the same thing that you find completely intolerable. So yea, we definitely disagree about who is being disrespectful and who is being the conversation wrecker. As I see it, the MOQ needs to be guarded against bad interpretations and yours is one of them. I'd have to be pretty damn oblivious to think that would be pleasant for you. It would be delusional to expect calm, cool, civility as we talk about this stuff because I think you've completely evacuated the MOQ of all its most meaningful content. As I see it, this is a very serious error and my tone reflects that seriousness. So who is being oblivious here? Is my anger and frustration meaningless to you? You've never done anything but shrug at my concerns and most of your efforts seem to be centered around dismissing those concerns - not least of all by calling me an asshole. I have no legitimate reason to disagree with Rorty, you keep saying, he's just my punching bag. And when I make the undeniably reasonable request to explain what you mean (By the terms you use, like "strong poet" for example) you just take that as an opportunity to dismiss my concerns again. You think that constitutes a respectful exchange of ideas? I don't. That's just a refusal to exchange ideas at all. Period. You're hiding behind jargon when you could easily say what you mean in your own words. It really seems like you don't want to be understood and you're not at all interested in what I'm trying to tell you. That's a show stopper. I'd be happy to put the insults aside and just focus on the content but - in effect there isn't any because you can't be bothered to simply say what you mean. I shouldn't have to go read a book just to learn the meaning of one of your sentences. As I see it, that is just a ridiculous evasion. 



Matt said:
...Further, you often imply or say explicitly that I don't .. explain myself, on this or that particular point.  Sometimes this maneuver is warranted, and I have been much less likely to explain myself to you lately, but that's only because I've tried so hard for years previously.  
... So what do you hope from this tactic except scoring cheap rhetorical points (which to me at least again implies ill-will)?  On top of the "you don't explain yourself" you mount the "you are unnecessarily obscure" complaint, but if the obscurity is all I have on these particular points, what, again, do you hope from the grandstanding?


dmb says:
As I see it I'm only asking you to say what you mean. I'm telling you NOT to assume that I am familiar with Rorty's technical jargon. I'm telling you that I don't know what you mean when you use that jargon and I'm asking you to say what you mean in your own words. I really don't see how the reasonableness of that request can be denied. I can speak english, I know the language of philosophy to some extent, pragmatism is even more familiar and of course I'm very familiar with Pirsig's jargon, to the limited extent that he has any. This should be way more than enough to ensure effective communication. I really don't see why it should be a problem for you to make your ideas clear to me. To say this complaint is nothing but a cheap trick or that it constitutes grandstanding is, I think, completely dismissive and very insulting. Think about it, Matt. You're angry because I'm asking you to say what you mean, because I'm asking you to define the terms you use? That is so unfair. Isn't that just the most basic demand placed on anyone who wishes to communicate about anything? I think so. And your apparently refusal is more than a little suspicious. I mean, it's hard to believe that you're really trying. 



Matt said:
Let me say this as plainly as possible, because I'm not sure we've quite been communicating that well on this point: I think I can construe "pure experience" as Pirsig means it as a perfectly fine piece of non-Platonism.  Pirsig, for the most part, doesn't bother me. What bothers me most of the time is the use to which the phrase "pure experience" is put in other people's sentences.  This patten of bad (or at the very least obscure) usage leads to the creation of a category called "the rhetoric of purity"--it's not the concept of "pure experience," exactly, that is my concern, it is the notion of "purity" that people start thinking implies a lot of (what I think of as) bad notions.

dmb says:
I really don't know what you mean. What is "the rhetoric of purity"? I simply don't know what you mean by that. Why is the notion of "purity" a bad notion and who are these other people who are writing sentences in which it's used badly? Why can't this conversation be about what I say to you and what you say to me? Wouldn't that be a lot simpler? And how do you figure that the "implications" carry more weight than all the explicit claims and assertions to the contrary? That also seems wildly unfair.

Matt said:
This "criticism," if that's what you want to call it (I wouldn't), of the concept of "pure experience" is not terribly concrete: it's based, largely, on what people _can_ do with it, rather than something stronger like what the concept _must_ be.  But I don't have anything stronger up my sleeve (partly because I think it is rhetorical usage all the way down, as Pirsig does).  I've tried to explain to you how I understand Pirsig's concept, but you still think I'm missing something. I can't make out what that thing is: to me your explanations are either perfectly non-Platonic, or just more Platonic-baiting, more pieces of rhetoric that I think are risky when held by lesser hands.

dmb says:
Again, that is completely unfair. I have no power over what other people CAN do with Pirsig's concepts or any other concepts for that matter.
And why are you calling these concepts "pieces of rhetoric"? Again, I really don't know what you mean by that. As Pirsig uses the term, it means "excellence in thought and speech" but you seem to be using it to mean the use of a certain kind of style or a particular subset of the total vocabulary. What does it mean to you and why are you using it the way you are?  



Matt said:
One question that I've never understood is why I _need_ to describe one kind of experience as being "pure."  I've never understood why this certain slate of distinctions between one kind of experience and another is demanded as a necessary part of my philosophical equippage.  That's the question I've never received answers that I've found very satisfactory (from anybody).


dmb says:

"Pure experience" is just what William James calls this kind of experience and there are lots of other names for the same thing. It's not so important that you NEED to describe it with that particular term. We have a whole range of terms that describe the same category of experience and it is important because those terms are other names for Pirsig's central idea. If you're interested in properly understanding the MOQ, then you certainly need to grasp the meaning of these terms. I mean, it's not about your philosophical equipment. It's much more specific than that. It's just about understanding the books that serve as the focus of this forum. If you prefer to reference this idea with other terms, there is no shortage of options. We could call it the immediate flux of life, direct everyday experience, the cutting edge of experience, the first moment of awareness, the primary empirical reality, the pre-intellectual reality, pre-verbal experience, pre-conceptual experience, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, Dynamic Quality or simply Quality, the present moment or simply now. Here is how William James explains the meaning of his term:

"Only new-born babes, or men in semi-coma from sleep, drugs, illnesses or blows, may be assumed to have an experience pure in the literal sense of a that which is not yet any definite what, tho ready to be all sorts of whats; full both of oneness and of manyness, but in respects that don't appear; changing throughout, yet so confusedly that its phases interpenetrate and no points, either of distinction or of identity, can be caught. Pure experience in this state is simply but another name for feeling or sensation."

If this answer is not satisfactory then it would be your turn to ask me what I mean. And I'd welcome that kind of exchange. That's just how it works. But your questions and objections really should be about what I'm saying to you and it's unfair to load up my assertions and explanations with a bunch of baggage that has nothing to do with my actual position or my intended meaning. It makes things way too difficult and only serves as a diversion away from the concept as it's meant by guys like Pirsig, James, Dewey, Northrop or anybody else who makes reference to this mode of experience. 

dmb said:
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. ...


Matt said:
Seriously?  You think Steve will be a bad math teacher and I'll teach composition poorly because we don't really understand why we need to describe one kind of experience as "direct" or "pure" or "pre-intellectual"? See--that is either a cheap rhetorical point, or a "Yikes.  Pirsig would've never have thought that."


dmb says:
Yes, seriously. How about if you do me a favor and pretend - just for while - that my concerns are sincere. Just to see what might happen, how about if you stop dismissing everything I say as a malicious cheap trick. Man, that is so insulting. Did you catch that quote wherein Pirsig says Ant and I are "the two foremost philosophers today on the MOQ and it's implications for the guidance of humanity"? Did you see the movie in which he calls me his bodyguard? Why in the world is it so hard for you to take my concerns seriously? I just don't get that. You're not obliged to believe everything i say, of course, but you automatically assume the worst and refuse to believe anything I say like I'm some sort of Platt or something. Don't you realize how hurtful that is? Not to mention that it's wildly inaccurate. When are you going to give me some credit for all the hard work? When are you going to stop assuming the worst about everything I say?