[MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited

david dmbuchanan at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 6 09:28:46 PDT 2014


Ian said:

So, we're about where we were when Bo left us. There's something wrong with intellect as she is currently "construed" - but we can't quite put our finger on it. Despite that we're all trying very hard to solve the problem, because we all sincerely "believe" intellect scores over (mere) "feeling". Carry on girls.



dmb says:
If "we" refers to John and yourself, then yes. You're still stuck where Bo left off, which is equating SOM with intellect. This, for the tenth time at least, is a matter of being stuck in the "problem space". It's funny that you should mention Bo because he sent a private message telling me that John, despite his shortcomings, is right to equate intellect with SOM. He'll likely deny it and then contradict his own denial a few sentences later. And you'll deny it to, I bet. Probably by simply dismissing this criticism as a personal attack. But it's not. It's based on what you said above. It's simply not true that we can't put our finger on it and those of us who are not stuck in the problem space are not trying very hard to solve the problem. What we're trying very hard to do is show you that this problem has already been solved by Pirsig and an increasing number of other philosophers.  How many times have I posted quotes from other philosophers who also reject SOM? Too many to count; dozens or maybe even hundreds!

What really kills me about this epic case of incorrigibility is that one can only remain stuck on the problem by ignoring MOST of Pirsig's work. I could fill twenty pages with quotes showing that Pirsig has already put his finger on the problem and the point of his work is to offer a solution to this problem. That's what the anti-intellectual gang invariably does around here. Cogent explanations and textual evidence never seems to have any effect on the people in this gang.

"What has become an urgent necessity is a way of looking at the world that does violence to neither of these two kinds of understanding and unites them into one. Such an understanding will not reject sand-sorting or contemplation of unsorted sand for its own sake. Such an understanding will instead seek to direct attention to the endless landscape from which the sand is taken. This is what Phaedrus, the poor surgeon, was trying to do.To understand what he was trying to do it's necessary to see that PART of the landscape, INSEPARABLE from it, which MUST be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely....About the Buddha that exists independently of any analytic thought much has been said - some would say TOO much, and would question any attempt to add to it. But about the Buddha that exists WITHIN analytic thought, and GIVES THAT ANALYTIC THOUGHT ITS DIRECTION, virtually nothing has been said, and there are historic reasons for this. But history keeps happening, and it seems no harm and maybe some positive good to add to our historical heritage with some talk in this area of discourse." (ZMM, p83)


As Arlo already showed, Pirsig's self-stated goal was to show that using "this knife creatively and effectively can result in solutions to the classic and romantic split." (ZMM) And, "Phædrus' resolution of the entire problem of classic and romantic understanding occurred at first in this high country of the mind..." (ZMM)
"And so in recent times we have seen a huge split develop between a classic culture and a romantic counterculture...two worlds growingly alienated and hateful toward each other with everyone wondering if it will always be this way, a house divided against itself." (ZMM)
"The answer is Phædrus' contention that classic understanding should not be overlaid with romantic prettiness; classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level." (ZMM)
"I think that the referent of a term that can split a world into hip and square, classic and romantic, technological and humanistic, is an entity that can unite a world already split along these lines into one." (ZMM)
"Actually a root word of technology, techne, originally meant "art." The ancient Greeks never separated art from manufacture in their minds, and so never developed separate words for them." (ZMM)
"So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn't that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of coming up with a solution." (ZMM)
"The answer is Phædrus' contention that classic understanding should not be overlaid with romantic prettiness; classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level." (ZMM)
"In each case there's a beautiful way of doing it and an ugly way of doing it, and in arriving at the high-quality, beautiful way of doing it, both an ability to see what "looks good" and an ability to understand the underlying methods to arrive at that "good" are needed. Both classic and romantic understandings of Quality must be combined." (ZMM)




 		 	   		  


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