From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Mar 22 2003 - 21:17:23 GMT
Kevin and all post-postsitters:
Kevin said:
I think Pirsig's "fence straddling" between post-modern and
post-post-modern or modern (depending on which direction you see it) is
entirely centered on this problem of personal justification vs. public
justification.
DMB says:
Is there a place between postmodernism and post-postmodernism? Would that be
called pre-post-postmodern? I don't think so. Does Pirsig even mention the
personal vs. public justifications? I don't think so. Certainly not
specifically, eh? Please clue me in to any relevant passages.
Kevin said:
Pirsig has a strong mystic voice when he talks about personal beliefs
and judgments. Many here find this part of his message most compelling.
Knowing the things that no one can tell you, and other such acts of
intuition/revelation. I think it's safe to say that it's the mystics who
got most turned on by ZMM.
DMB says:
Well, Pirsig does include mystical experience as a valid experience in his
epistemology, but let us not confuse the two. The MOQ's expanded empiricism
is intellectual, not mystical. There are some who place great emphasis on
the idea that no body needs to be told what is good and what is not good and
construe it to mean that we can dispense with thinking and just run our
lives on some inherent instinct for beauty and quality. Sometimes I wish it
were true, but I think that view is gravely mistaken. No, I'm afraid this
mistake is just the noble savage in disguise. "What the MOQ indicates is
that the twentieth century intellectual faith in man's basic goodness as
spontaneous and natural is disastrously naive."
Kevin said:
But Pirsig can't stand the idea of being stuck not being able to justify
those personal belief/judgments to anyone else. He's worried that he'll
be stuck with "nothing to say" when the Gestapo comes. Justifiable to be
sure. Most people react to mysticism and post-modernism with a twinge of
defensiveness. What can you expect when the rug has been pulled out from
under them? Pirsig clearly wants to overcome this perception and leave
us with something concrete. Something to stop the Gestapo other than,
"can't we discuss this and come to some kind of arrangement?". Pirsig wants
to say to the Gestapo, "It's obvious you're wrong and here is why."
DMB says:
Gestapo? I think he's worried about what to say when guys like Rigel come
knocking. The basic outline of the MOQ is designed to answer the social
conservatives who complain about moral relativism. They mistake the idea
that "Quality is what you like" with "if it feels good, do it" and react
negatively. And he's saying, "You have a good point about Lila. Destroying a
family is bad and the social codes that protect families are valuable, BUT
morality is a much bigger and more complex thing than you ever imagined."
Kevin said:
Without accepting his redescriptions of Reality, his system of Patterns,
his feelings about ineffable Dynamic Quality, there is nothing to say to
the Gestapo. I happen to think this is why many of us who read Pirsig
and find it so compelling are immediately drawn to the idea of
"converting others" or "making a real difference". It's sprung up here
in the forum several times in the last few months. Why? Because if we
can get everyone to think like we do (provided we can finally settle on
one interpretation of the difference between Social and Intellectual:=),
we can finally justify ourselves to everyone else in a formal,
systematic, foundational, air-tight way. That would help us solve real
problems. But it's not the metaphysics that are solving the problems,
it's people. And getting people to all think along similar lines will
obviously make moral problems easier to solve.
DMB says:
Justify ourselves in a formal, systematic, foundational, air-tight way!? Are
we talking about Pirsig's book? Are you talking about the MOQ? I don't see
how you could be? Please clue me in to any relevant passages. Its hard to
imagaine a metaphysician that says the self is an illusion, a forest of
evolving patterns, would make very much of justifying himself. I just don't
see how your complaints apply to the MOQ, only to the more zealous posters.
Kevin said:
No philosophy is armor against tyranny. This is not a short-coming of
pragmatism or post-modernism or anything else. Historically, no
philosophy has stopped tyranny. In fact, most philosophical movements
have been used as justification for some form of tyranny or another
(even Buddhism). The same Knock-down argument that is supposed to stop
the Gestapo, is just as often the argument used to kick down your door.
DMB says:
No philosophy has stopped tyranny?! Are you kidding? Don't you think the
heart and soul of the Enlightenment project was the development of political
philosophies aimed at liberty and the overthrow of tranny? I do. Its not
accident that the age of revolutions followed immediately on the heels of
it. And its no accident that the MOQ portrays freedom as among the highest
moral values, specifically intellectual freedom. The fact that ideas cannot
be used as force or as a weapon doesn't mean anything. Its no way to measure
ideas. Its like saying your car is more valuable than your children because
it weighs more. Weight is just no way to measure the value of your kids
anymore than personal security is any way to measure a metaphysical system.
Its power does not lie in the realm of physical violence, but it has changed
the world nevertheless.
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