From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 19 2003 - 03:36:18 GMT
Paul, Bo,
Paul said:
Lila's Child is a rarity in that it has given Pirsig the opportunity to respond to the way his work has been understood and interpreted. For me it's great because, as I said, I'm interested in what Pirsig intended. For Bo, it's terrible because it is made clear that Bo got it wrong. But rather than continue to develop "Bo's MOQ" as a valid but distinct alternative, we find Bo trying to convince us that SOLAQI is what Pirsig really meant to write and that half of Lila and everything that follows (SODV, LC, correspondence) is some kind of watered down version produced as a response to criticism or lack of acceptance.
Matt:
I completely agree that if Bo is suggesting that his interpretation is what Pirsig "really meant to write," he's trying to stand on water. What I was suggesting is that Bo should drop the pretensions of excavating Pirsig, and start talking about excavating himself. Like me, it allows him still to say, "This is what Pirsig _should_ have written," just as Rorty says the same thing about Dewey and Derrida.
Bo said:
Maybe you intend it as some support, but I much prefer accusations of having distorted Pirsig's MOQ, these I may refute, while the Rortyan approach is completely sterile. I still uphold that there is a conclusion from the original Phaedrus' ideas that the author of ZMM did not care/dare draw/invoke.
Matt:
See, this is Bo showing pretensions and being careful about what he is claiming. Bo first says he is not distorting the MoQ, but I'm not sure what MoQ he is not distorting. The only MoQ I know of is Pirsig's. The only way for Bo to claim he isn't distorting the MoQ, without having to say he can read Pirsig's mind better than Pirsig, is that there is a MoQ sitting "out there" that he is reading and elaborating better than Pirsig. This is his (SOMic) pretension. However, Bo also is basically saying that his extrapolations of ZMM are what Pirsig _should_ be thinking, as when he says, "there is a conclusion from the original Phaedrus' ideas that the author of ZMM did not care/dare draw/invoke." Oddly enough, against his wishes Bo's basically taken my advice from my original post, though the residual pretension is why I said "Bo, however, is close but still not at this point because he still retains the notion of a TRUE MoQ."
So, the skeptic question for Bo is, How do you KNOW your MoQ is the TRUE MoQ?
Paul, Wim, Sam, and I don't have to answer the skeptic because we don't care about any TRUE MoQ outside of the MoQ between Pirsig's pages.
Bo said:
Thanks Matt, but no thanks.
Matt:
Friends like these, eh Bo?
Matt
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