[MD] Rhetoric

[mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net]

dmb,

wow, considering all the crap that has been posted here lately, this  
one really stands out. This one actually qualifies as an opinion.  
Something I'm willing to discuss.


Lainaus david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:

> Hello, MOQers:
>
> I suppose everyone knows that people are suspicious of the emotional  
>  language in "rhetoric" and consider "sophistry" to be a form of   
> manipulative deception. The conventional meaning isn't likely to   
> change anytime soon and that's fine because there is empty speech   
> and there are plenty of manipulative deceivers that deserve the   
> name. In telling the story of philosophy Pirsig turns those meanings  
>  upside down.
>
>
> "Plato's hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger   
> struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the   
> Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the   
> dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind   
> of man." -- Robert Pirsig
>
>
> As the story is usually told, rhetoric is too emotional to be   
> considered serious about the truth. Our feelings have no bearing on   
> the truth, this story goes, and clear thinking is about cool logic   
> and putting one's passions aside. But, Pirsig says, this story   
> doesn't make as much sense as it used to.
>
>
> "It's been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the  
>  passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an   
> understanding of nature's order which was as yet unknown. Now it's   
> time to further an understanding of nature's order by reassimilating  
>  those passions which were originally fled from. The passions, the   
> emotions, the affective domain of man's consciousness, are a part of  
>  nature's order too. The central part." -- Robert Pirsig
>


Tuukka:

If you're calling me unnatural, I agree. I trek and am familiar with  
nature, I feel it. But there are degrees of separation from nature.  
Consider the guy who designs the electronics inside your cell phone.  
He's pretty far detached from nature. But then again, consider an  
African with a cell phone. He possibly owns very few electronic  
devices. But many Africans do have a cell phone. I think the African  
with the cell phone is less detached from nature than the guys (and  
girls) who designed the electronics and coded the software inside.

So, these nerds (Hell if Adrie doesn't accuse me of being a nerd. I  
could call him a flibbertigibbet but that would go nowhere.) change  
nature. They could some day create nature on different planet. I know,  
that doesn't interest anyone here, clearly. But they could still do it.

The point is, technology can help us express our nature. And if  
technology gets good enough we will have more time to cultivate the  
delightful aspects of what does it mean to be a biological organism.  
Which is what you want. But you don't want to be part of the process  
if that requires you to change your thinking. You only want the  
result. And do you know why that makes me feel bad?

It makes me feel bad because I have to do this because of who I am. I  
don't have enough social skills. If I try to do that "emotional  
intelligence" thing people do at my posts, which apparently means  
throwing poop at them like monkeys or staring at them like ducks, I  
end up doing something else than maximizing my potential.

But the paradox in me maximizing my potential is in me doing things  
that don't make me happy. That don't mean living a full life. So, I'm  
always balancing between "you're going to break yourself that way" and  
"now you're just trying to drown the pain you feel all the time".

The break myself part means that I don't eat, I don't have a social  
life, I get so serious and competitive I start feeling intimidated by  
people with good social skills... because I'm so serious I don't feel  
like I'm going to enlighten people like some guy in a robe. I feel  
like I'm going to KILL the ignorance in them like some guy driving a  
tank. So, obviously my natural instinct becomes to suspect that the  
emotionally intelligent people share this mindset even though they're  
just getting good vibes from helping people. I feel like they're  
punishing me for who I am because I can't behave up to their standards.

But sometimes I get so sick of that. I'm really not inhumane enough.  
Because that serious and competitive attitude does make me sick. So  
then I try to feel. Live a life of feelings. And it's difficult  
because usually I really don't care. If I love someone, then I care.  
Otherwise I really don't care. I'm not sure what "universal love"  
means or whether it's attainable for me. Sometimes temporarily it may  
be.

And you think I live this way because I think it's a good way to live  
a life. No, I don't think anybody should live like this unless they're  
good at what they do. If you do this but you're never going to be good  
at it, well, unless somebody pays you to do it anyway, or unless you  
do it just for fun, stop doing it. That's my advice to anyone.

You don't need to teach me I'm hurting myself by living this kind of a  
life. I know it already. I'm not imposing a lifestyle on you! I'm only  
imposing the results of my pain-in-the-ass research on you. I could do  
something else. A lot of people would want me to draw cartoons. But  
nobody has ever told me a coherent acount of why I couldn't be  
extremely good at this. I think I'm better at this than anyone I know.  
Yup, another proof that I have no social skills. A suave person might  
have thought that of himself but wouldn't have said it.


>
> At certain points in the re-telling and inversion of this old   
> slanderous story Pirsig is downright angry about it. He finally   
> realizes that the Platonic demand for passionless dialectic has the   
> effect of excluding Quality, which is the whole thing for Pirsig.
>


Tuukka:
It did before Gödel's incompeleteness theories. But after them it  
became baloney that the Platonic demand for passionless dialectic  
would necessarily exclude Quality. The theorems, although dialectical  
by nature, had the rhetorical side-effect of proving the existence of  
Quality. The formal systems with the most Quality are more widely used  
(except by people like me who develop alternative analytic systems  
they suppose to have Quality in the future).


>
>
> "Phædrus' mind races on and on and then on further, seeing now at  
> last a kind of evil thing, an evil deeply entrenched in himself,  
> which pretends to try and understand love and beauty and truth and  
> wisdom but whose real purpose is never to understand them, whose  
> real purpose is always to usurp them and enthrone itself. Dialectic  
> - the usurper. That is what he sees. The parvenu, muscling in on all  
> that is Good and seeking to contain it and control it."
>


Tuukka:

What'cha gonna do if you don't got the emotional intelligence for  
being one of the cool guys? Of course the cool guys know Quality. Most  
of them knew all about it after they became rock stars. And the nerds  
will be forever bitter for not becoming one of the rock stars.

Of course it goes both ways. Finnish reporter Seppo Heikinheimo  
committed suicide after sending his memoirs to a publisher. They were  
titled "The Memoirs of a 'Mätämuna'". It's hard to translate  
"Mätämuna". Literally, it means a rotten egg, but since the Finnish  
word "muna" can mean both "egg" and "testicle", also darker  
interpretations are possible. In any case Heikinheimo used this word  
of himself because he didn't understand mathematics. My high school  
maths teacher told this story. He'd read all about it from the  
memoirs. He always spoke of Heikinheimo in an appreciating tone.

And why would someone want to control something? Generally? Well,  
because if he doesn't control it it could hurt him! Who wouldn't like  
to know more people they can trust...


>
> And he's feeling triumphant about this discovery because it turns   
> out that the Sophists weren't demagogues, hucksters, or confidence   
> men. They were teaching Quality and they were teaching it the same   
> way he had been teaching it to his student in Montana.
>
>
> "Lightning hits! Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists  
> were teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine 'virtue.' But  
> areté. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before  
> substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic  
> itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of the  
> Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen  
> was that of rhetoric."
>


Tuukka:
Yeah, I've occasionally been one of the cool guys, too. Still am. But  
I don't know much about what to do with that. It looks like I probably  
should be one of the guys who makes things for people who actually  
need them because they have a life. If you were one of those laborers,  
would you never feel envious? Maybe, if you wouldn't know how good the  
living feel. But they can feel really good. And once you know that,  
you realize you're on a space mission because even though you can  
understand what these emotionally intelligent people have accomplished  
in life, you realize that's not what your life is gonna be. And you  
search and search for a way to change that, but you can't find any.  
And if you just keep searching too long you start feeling like: "Now  
I'm not going to even achieve that nerdy shit I could've made work had  
I just given up about life soon enough!"


>
> And this re-telling of ancient history is part of the book's central  
>  project, which is a root expansion of rationality. The criticisms  
> of  rationality that he offers almost always involve the problem of   
> objective truth. Value-free science has got to go, he says.   
> Attitudes of objectivity make our thinking stiff and narrow and   
> entail a denigration of subjectivity so that Quality is JUST what   
> you like, is JUST your opinion or assessment of some thing or other.  
>  But this is part of that same old slander against the Sophists and   
> rhetoricians, Pirsig says, and our form of rationality would   
> actually be vastly improved by putting Quality at the cutting edge   
> of all experience and all thought. Quality is right there at the   
> very roots of our thinking and by including Quality our thinking is   
> broadened and deepened and enriched by the inclusion of the   
> emotional and aesthetic quality that pervades our thought regardless  
>  of whether we acknowledge it or not. You gotta have a feel for the   
> work, he says, and that's not just about fixing motorcycles. It's   
> about everything. All the time.
>


Tuukka:
Yeah, well, where did I get all these ideas? Quality. I actually  
followed Pirsig's advice. I've never completed a course in the  
University although I passed the entrance exam. Anonymous  
professionals and experts trained me for free. The rest I made on my  
own. And I chose what to do according to whether it's a Quality choice.


>
> For Pirsig, "rhetoric" simply means excellence in thought and   
> speech. Rhetoric is truer than objective truth because it includes   
> the heart as well the head, so to speak. To talk truthfully will   
> mean that the claim is supported by evidence and its expression   
> logically sound, just as before, but that's no longer good enough.   
> Speaking truthfully also means that you care about the truth, have   
> feelings about that truth and maybe your expression shows the power   
> or the beauty of that truth. To move or persuade another is not a   
> sinister manipulation or a deception. It's a good thing and we   
> should love it somebody does it right.
>


Tuukka:
Rhetoric truth and objective truth - I wouldn't compare their  
truthfulness. There are hucksters and cheaters. They got the rhetoric  
but they don't give the objective truth. Rhetorical truth isn't  
categorically better or worse than objective truth.


Thanks for saving my day anyway,
Tuk