> FOCUSERS:
>
> SOM that seems to attract so much blame is also described as, 'a straw
> man, a position held by no-one'. Who exactly does hold a purely SOM
> position? Who completely denies the existence of Quality? If nobody, or
> very few people, who or what are we criticising?
>
> DMB ANSWERS
> SOM is not a specific "ism" advocated by a particular individual, its
> much
> deeper and broader than. Pirsig uses the phrase SOM to describe the flaw
> '
> common to many different kinds of dualism. I think his point is that all
> these differing forms of dualism suffer from the same mistaken
> assumption.
> That single mistake has taken many shapes and has been described in lots
> of ways. By calling it SOM Pirsig is pointing to the distinction between
> subjects and objects as the root cause of mistaken dualism of any shape.
> SOM is the basis of our modern scientific world view, it is the basis of
> our rational industrial culture. Ken Wilber, puts it this way on pages 58
> and 59 of "A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING"....
>
> "...the old paradigm that everybody doesn't want is the enlightenment
> paradigm, which is also called the modern paradigm. It has dozens of
> names, ... the Newtonian, the Cartesian, the mechanistic, the mirror of
> nature, the reflection paradigm. ... And the fundamental Elightenment
> paradigm is known as the representational paradigm. This is the idea that
> you have the sef or the subject on the one hand, and the empirical or
> sensory world, on the other, and all valid knowledge consists in making
> maps of this empirical world, the single and simple "pregiven" world. And
> if the map is accurate, if it correctly represents, or corresponds with,
> the empirical world, then that is truth."
>
> The MOQ is supposed to be post-modern, where SOM is the modern view. Lots
> if folks are thinking about a better paradigm, Pirsig is hardly unique in
> recognizing the limits of modern objective rationality.
>
> SOM isn't an "ism", it is the larger framework within which all those
> "isms" exist.
>
> Thanks for your time, DMB
>
>
>
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