From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 03:39:07 BST
Matt,
I have now gone through your “Pirsig Institutionalized, Part II” post and
made various comments. As with my previous post, I highly doubt anything
I’ve written will surprise you but maybe one or two comments will be of use.
Matt Kundert stated March 17th 2005:
>To concretize what I’ve been talking about I’d like to focus on the nature,
>function, and evolution of the discussion group. This, of course, receives
>special notice in our scrutiny of antiprofessionalism in Pirsig because the
>MD and its participants are the heir apparents of Pirsig’s philosophy. It
>is my contention that whenever a discussion moves from a lax conversation
>to a motivated inquiry into a problem that a “profession” develops. By
>“profession” I mean simply a group of people who achieve authority over a
>problem based on their extended critical attention to a problem.
However, “profession” also has strong overtones of formalism. Though most
posts on MOQ Discuss tend to be thoughtfully considered, there is still the
throwaway, the spontaneous, the personal and the humorous. Though these are
often intellectually superficial the discussions would be that much dryer
and boring without them.
>The MD, in its first incarnation as the Lila Squad, was never a
>lackadaisical, Oprah-style book discussion group. It was a group of people
>motivated by the inquiry into philosophy and its problems, specifically
>Pirsig’s philosophy and his problems. As _soon_ as the Lila Squad began in
>1997, Pirsig’s philosophy began to be institutionalized and
>professionalized because as soon as a discussion about Pirsig’s books moves
>from a simple conversation _about_ some object to an _inquiry into_ that
>object, the marks of a profession emerge, specifically that of authority
>(naturally there is range here)…
>The difficulty in the MD, though, is that, because of Pirsig’s
>antiprofessionalism, _nobody is supposed to have any authority_.
Firstly, I don’t think there is anything wrong in authority as long as it
corresponds to intellectual quality.
Secondly, I don’t accept Pirsig is simply being “anti-professional”.
Rather, as mentioned in my last post concerning Pirsig Institutionalized
(Part I), his central concern is “to encourage people to produce their own
literature, philosophy or art by Dynamically involving themselves in
creative acts rather than being reactive spectators of other people’s
literature, philosophy and art.”
>And Pirsig’s dutiful heirs have absorbed that sentiment (if not explicitly
>that doctrine). Pirsig’s own professional class has been emerging for the
>last eight years, yet rarely is it acknowledged.
The colour of grass is rarely mentioned for a similar reason.
>There is one particular instance of this antiprofessionalism in the MD that
>I would like to highlight: the problem of “jargon.” Jargon words are
>specialized words used by a profession to help in their inquiry. It has
>often been remarked that there is too much jargonizing, that the spirit of
>Pirsig requires us to be “clear and plain spoken.” It is unclear, however,
>how we can be free of jargon when we are doing philosophy. Most people
>don’t do philosophy and so have no idea what is meant by the words
>“metaphysics” or “epistemology” or “empiricism,” let alone words specific
>to Pirsig, terms that have their own very, very special meaning like
>“Quality,” “Dynamic Quality,” or “pre-intellectual cutting edge of
>reality.”
This is where Matt’s post really starts begging belief. As he will be well
aware there is a requirement for any contributor to MOQ Discuss to have read
ZMM and LILA. Once these texts are assimilated the average contributor will
have some grasp of the specific terminology found in Pirsig’s work as well
as some idea of the more traditional terms (such as “metaphysics”,
“epistemology” and “empiricism”) found in Western philosophy.
Terminology only becomes a difficulty on MOQ Discuss when a participant (and
Matt is one of the largest offenders in this regard) introduces
non-Pirsigian terminology without first properly explaining it and/or
putting it in context. It comes of little surprise, therefore, that Marsha
posted the following on April 2nd:
------------------------------------------------
“Mr. Pirsig explained [the] MOQ to me. He didn't write his understandings,
discoveries and philosophy to the few ‘professional’ philosopher in the
upper levels of the ‘academic institution’. He wrote for human beings. Matt
seems lost in his own rhetoric. I appreciate you, David, for trying to
untangle the language.”
“My apology to Matt because, while I've had a number of philosophy classes,
I'm not a philosopher. I don't really understand most of Matt's postings.
But when he says he want to make [the] MOQ better, I have a good laugh.”
------------------------------------------------
I must admit that Matt’s posts just remind me of much of the jargonised 20th
century philosophy (such as Rorty) I have come across over the last ten
years in a traditional philosophy department. Possibly he is sincere in his
sentiment to “make the MOQ better” but unfortunately his Rortyan project
will transform it into the “Philosophy of Of” i.e. no metaphysics and no
Quality!
>The problem of jargon is simply one of unfamiliarity. Jargon in a
>profession helps create a special language for the profession to help its
>inquiry into its special problems.
Jargon can also be used by a profession to maintain power over other groups.
>Ideally, one would be able to identify somebody as a participant in a
>profession if they understood the jargon being thrown around. But as a
>profession is growing and changing (as a profession always should be) its
>jargon grows and changes. And the way into new jargon is simply becoming
>familiar with it. To resist new jargon is to resist new tools for inquiry
>and it is not always apparent if something new is useless or not until it
>is used.
The more jargon a profession uses the more difficult it becomes for
outsiders to understand what’s being discussed. Unless the purpose is
simply to retain social power (which goes against the grain of an
intellectual concern such as philosophy), I think new jargon should be
introduced as selectively as possible.
>To simply dismiss a new word out of hand as “jargonistic” is a reactionary
>move without much justification because the only way to accrue
>justification is to become familiar with the new jargon, which means being
>able to understand it and use it.
If Matt understands all this then why does he keep introducing philosophical
jargon and terminology (largely derived from Rorty) without explanation? It
might make him look “academic” but ultimately it just undermines the overall
understanding on a discussion group devoted to Robert Pirsig and where
academic philosophers are in a distinct minority. This is why I appreciate
posts by contributors such as David Buchanan or Paul Turner which are
simultaneously insightful AND good examples of clarity. Over the years I
have read and kept many of their posts and have learnt a lot from them. As
David noted to Matt on April 2nd:
“More than one member has told me that they can see what you are saying ONLY
because of my questions and objections. So maybe you think it is all quite
pointless, but as far as I can tell you are about the only one who sees it
that way. For my own part, it seems like the conversation comes to a
screeching halt whenever these objection and questions cut too close.”
I wasn’t one of those members but I can certainly understand why David’s
posts concerning Matt’s post-modernist verbiage have proved so useful.
Finally, it’s also difficult to understand why Matt hasn’t taken his own
advice that writing an essay is a better vehicle than a Discuss post to
develop philosophical debate. An example of the latter is Matt’s “Pirsig
Institutionalized, Part I” post which is basically just a shorter version of
his “Philosophology” paper. The question then arises: “Why the
contradiction between the preaching and the practice?”
Best wishes,
Anthony.
www.anthonymcwatt.co.uk
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