Greetings,
>ROGER QUESTIONS WHY PEOPLE ARE REWRITING
>HISTORY. PERHAPS SOME MEMBERS ARE TAKING
>THE TITLE TO THIS POST LITERALLY AND MAKING
>UP THEIR OWN TRUTHS AS THEY GO ALONG
I've been pondering this one since I pretty much said the same thing, albeit prefaced by an apposite
observation. Perhaps an addition to the rules could be formulated making it clear that the behaviour
you highlight is not acceptable. This 'truth creation' has permeated a number of postings recently.
It is lazy and/or dishonest and really needs to stop.
Without such a rule any future transgressions directed at me will, quite rightly, receive the same
scathing riposte as the last - and I make no apology whatsoever for that.
MAGNUS:
PC (at least in England) means, 'politically correct,' as in not offending people's sensibilities -
you may have guessed that I use the term with tongue placed firmly in cheek. (I wonder if that
expression travels). And I take everything with a smile on my face. Can you not see through me?
Self-reflection? Agreed, so here we go. Unusually for this squad I don't have a set metaphysical
stance simply because I haven't found one that satisfies me. I actually have a quite radically
different world view to the one I had this time last year. Much more coherent but much less precise.
Many members of this squad have helped me understand things, in one or two case in terms of what to
accept and in other cases in knowledge of the absurd. It is often as useful to understand absurdity
as truth, though the former bears less repetition. As for morality and holism; I am of the opinion
that morality cannot reside in either a discrete subject or a discrete object, but I don't see that
Pirsig's equating Quality with morality helps. Saying that morality is everything seems to me to be
sweeping the problem under the carpet rather than illuminating it and so my quest continues on more
than one front. Holism is about amalgamating those fronts together and working out which bits are
the back and sides. The belief that Pirsig (or any one individual) has the answer to life the
universe and everything seems to me to be untenable and actually quite worrying. A forum like this
is going to attract all sorts, from the adoring faithful to the unrepentant sceptic. I suppose my
position on that continuum is quite clear and it is little surprise that friction exists between the
two extremes. In the same way that walking into a Catholic Church and declaring that Mary probably
wasn't a virgin would soon find me surrounded by irate worshippers, so questioning any part of the
MoQ raises the same commotion here. "Cultural immune system," as Pirsig says. Such is life, but
there are still a lot of damn fine Catholics around.
Reflective enough? I do it all the time, but usually (and I will in future) keep it to myself, my
fiancée and my, very much alive, cat.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@shellier.freeserve.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:50 BST