[MD] [LS:9743] The social level.

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Mary]
If I may be permitted one comment, the degree of smugness demonstrated by Arlo, DMB, and Ant is unbecoming.  There is no place for this attitude in the high country of the mind.

[Arlo]
No one has been more smug than Bo, Mary. I mean, he is the one whose ego couldn't resist sending me unwanted emails simply to masturbate his ego. If he read or understood my posts to MD and wanted genuine dialogue, this would be one thing, but his posts attempting ridicule evidenced that this was not the case. Whether he couldn't be bothered to read, or simply didn't understand, he still felt so threatened that he needed to sound off his typically mocking but sophomoric derision. He is the classic Ignatius Reilly.

So let's be clear. Have I, Mary, gone out of MY way to contact and harass members of the LS offlist? Were the posts Bo was 'responding' to in any way associated with his "SOL" idea? No. So ask yourself, Mary, why this man needs to "cc" people on emails when all he is attempting to do is ridicule them? And you call ME smug?! Maybe I am NOW. I tell you what, if you can convince Bo to stop emailing me, to stop cc'ing me on his posts, then you'll never have to deal with MY smugness again. Fair? And all I ask in return is that when a post comes through the LS with lines like "... the 'mastermind' Arlo...", that you reject them and scold Bo for being smug. How's that? Deal? 

I mean, don't you all have the grand task of developing the SOL? Isn't that more important than monitoring MD traffic simply to find a mechanism to try to ridicule people here? If, as Bo implies, all of us here are lessers, why are any of you even connected or concerned with this place at all. Until yesterday I hadn't even looked at LS. I don't monitor it. I don't read it. And I don't seek your members out to ridicule them. Why do you think Bo is unable to do the same? 

[Bo]
I think both Arlo and DMB would be a bit surprised to know how much Paul Turner and I agree on and how far he has come from DMB's. Turner has a high standing with everyone and corresponds with Pirsig. The fun thing is that as long as we all are committed to the MOQ, Arlo cannot use it to condemn me he knows that he will make himself a fool if he tries.  

[Arlo]
Paul Turner is no more messiah than you, Bo. I have little trouble disagreeing with people. Even in introducing Tomasello I have been honest and unconcerned that this presents disagreement with Pirsig. Unlike you, I don't need to pretend I am the MOQ's saviour. I am more interested in high-quality ideas than who says them. An ecology of ideas that includes many voices, not a myopic "one true idea" system where "everyone is wrong but X". 

As I said to you long ago, if you took the honest road of putting the "SOL" out there as your own MOQ, or even as a revision of Pirsig, you'd be on more solid ground. Its you seem unable to think apart from celebrity, needing to 'coopt' Pirsig and paint his name onto your ideas. And now here it is again with "Paul Turner". What you seem to constantly misunderstand is that your ideas are low-quality due to their content, not who is saying it. I mean, even in Pirsig stood up and supported the "SOL interpretation", I would simply say "no thanks" and bow out of the discussion entirely. Too many high-quality ideas out there, too much good stuff to read and think about, than ridiculously sophomoric ideas like the SOL just because X said it. 

Horse, I apologize for dragging all this stupid into the MD. I'll do my part to let it hopefully start to disappear.