[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Steve,

Pirsig:
Whenever one talks about Dynamic Quality someone else can take 
whatever is said and make a static pattern out of it and then 
dialectically oppose that pattern. The best answer to the question, 
“What is Dynamic Quality?” is the ancient Vedic one—“Not this, not 
that.”

Steve said:
Given this RMP statement (and all that talk about Quality being 
undefined), dmb's objections are just the sort of objections we can 
_always_ make to what _anyone_ says about DQ. The only way to 
avoid such objections is to shut the hell up about DQ, but then of 
course dmb objects to not talking about DQ as well. But it is just 
absurd from the start for dmb to claim that he has properly grasped 
something in the name of DQ that you and I have missed given that 
"DQ" is (among other Pirsigian usages of the term) a placeholder for 
what is lost as soon as you think you have grasped it.

Matt:
Weeeelllll, yeah, but.  (That's the beginning and end of my official 
response.  The rest is dialectical wheedling.)  Pirsig's answer, too, is 
a static construction, and when you look at it as such (as anything 
that a pronoun can attach itself to is), then it serves exactly the 
purpose your expressing: when people become too dialectically 
uncompromising about DQ, one needs to remind them that 
technically, it is "not this, not that."  On all sides.

I'm not sure Dave is making the kind of objection that can always be 
made, but it looks implicitly that way, from my end, because I'm 
unclear on what the objection specifically is.  In the last exchange, 
for example, he sees "blank page" and sees something pernicious; I 
see "blank page" and see something Eastern (which doesn't often 
happen to me, I might add).  This as the objection is dialectically 
uncompromising, in the sense I used above, because it is unclear 
why Dave didn't interpret it the congenial way I did.  And without that 
clarity, it becomes difficult to determine just what the objection is 
that clears the way for his reformulation.  So in that sense, the Vedic 
response seems apropos and your explanation of why makes sense.  
We can always point to how a metaphor is going to self-destruct in 
your hands.  The trick in handling a metaphor is knowing where not 
to grab it.

However, in Dave's reformulation of DQ/creativity he brings up what 
he knows is a sore spot for me.  This is why I interpret his objection 
as "How do you include the hot stove analogy?"  And _this_ question 
is precisely not about DQ, but about Pirsig's philosophy which has a 
precisely defined set of coordinates for gaining evidence and 
illumination about.

Also however, even if we move to the side the weird dialectical 
interactions between precisely defined things like Pirsig's philosophy 
and precisely undefined things like Dynamic Quality, there's _still_ a 
sense in which we must, I think, be careful about the Vedic response.  
I think it is only appropriate in _some_ situations, like what I called 
situations where some particular person is being "dialectically 
uncompromising."  However, a situation where it does not seem 
appropriate is in the elaboration of one's philosophy that is precise in 
trying to include imprecision.  This is why the analogical method of 
definition is so important to Pirsig's philosophy, particularly around 
the topic of DQ.  We need to elaborate these analogies and 
metaphors, but we cannot become too stuck by them.  I don't know 
how we know when we've become "too stuck," however, in a 
general sense, but I'm guessing our interactions with other 
philosophies is going to be the clue.  (And this is an old saw from 
Hegel.)

Matt