[MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited

[Andre Broersen]

John to Andre:
oh piffle, Andre.  How is this contributing to either clarifying my so-called confusion, or advancing Pirsig's MoQ?

Andre:
Your confusion John has been pointed out and clarified at least a dozen times by the posters I mentioned…but you take no heed. I see no point in repeating a similar exercise which these posters have so patiently, clearly and skillfully presented you with. You just keep on gibbering and jabbering like a twittering headless chook. 

John:
So I take it that you believe Pirsig never made a single mistake?

Andre:
Tell me, referencing ZMM or LILA where Pirsig makes a ¨mistake” .

John:
It also seems rather school boy to reflect the exact ideas of the teacher, without thought or understanding.  this has been you and dmb’s style for as long as I've observed.

Andre:
Now this is another one of those silly retorts John. How can one reflect the ideas of the teacher without thought or understanding when making a point in response to another person’s post. There may be individual differences in rhetoric and/or presentation but the bottom line is that we are discussing Pirsig’s ideas here as they reflect our, hopefully, common understanding. It is not only starting at the baseline. It is meeting the teacher where he/she is coming from and in that exchange the distinction between teacher and student dissolves. 
I think it is schoolboy behavior  to try to advance the MoQ by re-introducing Rorty (for example) or suggesting that Pirsig is wrong because your experience is different. Again and again (as I have told Marsha often) you do not seem to understand that there is experience first and then the interpretation. I am not quibbling over your experience I am making remarks on your interpretation of that experience as they relate to your understanding of the MoQ.

In the same thread you say to Ron:
Described intellectual patterns, must always be outmoded. therefore, for the MOQ to survive, it must be dynamic, not static.

Andre:
The MoQ is a static intellectual pattern of value. These are Pirsig’  words John. It ¨should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about…it doesn’t change from day to day, although the world it talks about does”  ( MoQ summary by Robert Pirsig). Your concern about the MoQ’s survival is rather odd because you are displaying tendencies here, from day to day, (anti-intellectual rhetoric and trumping social patterns) that, if and when unchecked and not corrected, would lead to a very, very premature demise of that which you claim to defend and understand so well..
This kind of rhetoric smacks of Bodvar who wants to include Dynamic Quality inside the MoQ.

John:
Now who will free us from the stuckness of the present?

Andre:
Here we go again. The present is all we have John. It is as dynamic as it comes.The full-blown DQ/sq. The past is gone and the future is yet to come. If you feel you are stuck in this moment then something is really amiss. 

Ron had asked John about Pirsig not accounting for something in his explanation:
Man, that's a big question, Ron.  In a word "society".  In Pirsig’s metaphysics, intellect is on top of society and distinct from it.  I think this was the way Pirsig himself experienced life, but that's not the general experience. 

Andre:
So Pirsig is not accounting for ¨society” ? I could be pedantic and ask you for your definition of ¨society`”  but Pirsig deals with this concept widely. But I think you mean ¨culture” (since your reference includes your concern about ¨ intellect”) . A culture contains social and intellectual values (Annot 28) . A social pattern which would be unaware of the next higher level ( i.e. intellectual values) would be found among prehistoric people and the higher primates when they exhibit social learning that is not genetically hard-wired but yet is not symbolic.” (Annot.52).

So what is your gripe over John. What did Pirsig not do? 

John:
The MoQ was turned over to a community, and that community-process has reveal the weakness of denigrating
social patterns.

Andre:
And again. Nobody is ¨denigrating social patterns”  John, least of all the MoQ community (whatever that means). Perhaps you need to be a little more specific with regards to exactly which social patterns you mean.