[MD] Contradiction and incoherence.

[david buchanan]

Here is a fairly clean and simple example of Marsha's inability (or unwillingness) to comprehend the MOQ's basic structure.

Andre said Marsha:So there are four arguments here that you (continually) use and which are CONTRARY to Pirsig's MOQ:1) the intellectual level = SOM  2) DQ=sq  3) sq is 'everchanging...'  4) The MOQ=Experience.

dmb says:
Marsha responded to Andre's four objections by simply dismissing them, by pretending that they aren't real. I'm quite sure that all four of them fairly represent her positions but I'd like to focus on #3. I think just about everybody has seen that claim many times. I've even objected to the proposition as an abuse of the english language. (According to all the dictionaries "static" and "ever-changing" have opposite meanings so that they could never rightly be equated.)

What makes this even stranger, is that she will post textual evidence that's clearly against her own position on this and claim to agree with this counter-evidence. She will not or cannot see how this quote, for example, works against her claims.

"That’s the whole thing: to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously. If you don’t have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon you’re back with the cave man. But if you don’t have the freedom to change those patterns you’re blocked from any further growth." (LILA, Chapter 17)


Where Marsha says static quality is not other than Dynamic Quality, Pirsig says the whole thing is to obtain BOTH. Where Marsha says static quality is ever-changing, Pirsig says we need a stable base of scientific knowledge to build upon. This quote is evidence against claim #2 and #3. Sadly, Marsha is apparently oblivious and completely unmoved by this kind of evidence. It never has any effect. 

Her ideas clash with the text like a big, noisy train wreck but she doesn't hear a sound. It's very weird.