You shouldn't apologize Marsha. In a way, I just trapped you (though I actually wasn't really thinking about it). What I said took advantage of certain instincts that we can find in Pirsig's philosophy, instincts that lead to some heavy conflict, both in one's "philosophical positions" (if one is inclined to have such things) and in one's practical dealings with people.
The case is laid out in a paper I wrote, "Pirsig Institutionalized," in the Forum, but it's pretty simple: Pirsig says "trust only yourself," but the whole idea behind philosophical conversation is that one shouldn't trust _only_ themselves. This sums up what I just saw happen (earlier in the paper I had argued that the MD displayed the earmarks of a "profession," and so here I'm referring to the phenomena as "antiprofessionalism"): "The consequence of antiprofessionalism is not only a bad attitude towards the others in your field, but because you are also in the field, a bad image of yourself: it breeds self-flagellation and bad self-esteem. Antiprofessionalism 'urges impossible goals (the breaking free or bypassing of the professional network) and therefore has the consequence of making people ashamed of what they are doing.' In the MD, this causes a curious event in which people are engaged in a conversation of exploration, but seem forced to add (implicitly and invisibly or explicitly as salutation or closing) the addenda 'but that's just my opinion' which conveys the sentiment that participants don't really even want to be having the conversation. Of course they are your opinions, whose else would they be? The conversation is there to explore those opinions, to weed out the bad ones. But in stating 'that's just my opinion,' you've excluded exploration because you’ve basically just asserted them as the bald truth of you and exited the room: 'Hey, here’s my opinion, see you later.' The reason this half-foot-in-half-foot-out approach exists is because participants feel bad about saying anything at all because they feel they are intruding into an area where they have no jurisdiction. This is the feeling of shame that emerges from Pirsig’s impossible antiprofessionalism. No one has authority over anyone else, so you should feel bad for making an assertion of truth over someone else’s." You said that you hope I meditate because you'd "hate to think" that I'm "missing the really good stuff." My confession is that one of my pet peeves are, what I see as, blithe suggestions that my life is missing something. It's not suggestions: its the ones that invoke "my life"--as if I had a huge hole in my life that I didn't even know about. While that could always be true of anyone, and I don't mind suggestions at all, I just react to that particular way of formulating the suggestion. I reacted as I often do in such circumstances when confronted by MDer's with views/arguments/whatever that I don't like: I respond with Pirsig saying/doing/arguing/viewing the opposite. I don't even need to explain why I do this, because the very nature of the MD, the fact that people are here in the first place, while not itself explaining the strategy, implies the instinctive understanding we all have: we take very seriously indeed what Pirsig says. But what does it mean when the guy we all take seriously says that we shouldn't take seriously what he says? It could mean all sorts of things, and only a weak understanding of life and philosophy would allow someone to get away with thinking that such an obvious contradiction itself justifies a dismissal. And we here don't dismiss Pirsig. But such things do need confrontation. Even if you were sarcastically replying with your apology, as in, "I'm sorry Your Majesty, all due apologies. My mistake for intruding my lowly opinion upon your busy ears, for we all know that you have everything figured out, Your All-Knowingness." I know what I sound like, and I'm certainly ripe for such picking. But what I balk at is the notion that there is a "right way" to, in your words, "discover it firsthand." This is part and parcel with the "huge hole in your life" rhetoric that I've never been partial to, but this one strays beyond a formulation of a suggestion to an actual philosophical position, one that I find at the bottom of both Pirsig's distinction between philosophy and philosophology (which has been the focus of most of my criticisms) and at the bottom of Platonism (which I think is fundamentally antithetical to Pirsig). At the root of my distaste is this: what is secondhand about my experience of life if I never meditate? Are not all experiences direct? My experience of a book, for instance? Sure, I'm not experiencing a motorcycle journey by reading ZMM. But the deployment of the distinction between direct and indirect seems to grabbing at much more than the simple, easily understood distinction between watching Rattle and Hum and seeing a U2 concert firsthand. What if a person honestly and sincerely doesn't enjoy live concerts because they are a little claustrophobic, sensitive to loud sound, and not that in to handing over $200 to see Bono's fat head on a Jumbotron? Are we really going to press the general claim that typically is pressed on others here, that, in this case, Rattle and Hum is a second-rate experience compared to a live show? What if this person disagrees? What then? Have they misunderstood reality? This last rhetorical question seems to follow from the direct/indirect deployment--but then it runs afoul of Pirsig's Phaedrusian injuction: every person has a keen enough grasp of reality themselves. I like suggestions, though I have to confess I've never felt the urge to meditate. And I agree, seeing one's own nature is valuable. But your suggestion wasn't the easy platitude, it was that I may have a very mistaken notion indeed, but I doubt one can ever have _radical_ doubts about their own self-image unless they are already in the throes of a radical make-over. And those are randomly produced--DQ can appear anywhere, when we least expect it. But to confront you one last time with Pirsig: you said, "To watch your thoughts without judgement, to see your (human) nature is valuable." Wasn't the idea behind Pirsig's Quality that it is value, i.e. judgments, all the way down to the very core of reality? Matt >>See, that's what I never understood: if I >>meditated, then I _would_ miss the good >>stuff--I'd be meditating, and not out and about >>doing what I do when I'm not reading and writing. >> >>Besides, I'm a big believer in Pirsig's epigram from Plato's Phaedrus: >> >>And what is good, Phædrus, >>And what is not good... >>Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? > > Greetings Matt, > > Of course, and I'm nobody special to be giving > good advice. Yet I still want to say > something. It's one thing to have philosophers, > scientists, psychologists, holymen, and even > great authors explain to you about self and > reality, and it's quite another to discover it > firsthand. To watch your thoughts without > judgement, to see your (human) nature is valuable. > > I apologize for the advice. > > Marsha _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
