Steve: I'm still not seeing what you see as a problem. Maybe it would help me understand your point if you explained what an SOMist is to you.
Andre: Good question Steve and let me say first of all that we are in full agreement about most things concerning the MoQ. I am also reluctant to call anything above the Intellectual level a 'level' in the same way that Pirsig suggested the term 'code' of which he first says it isn't code and then goes on to use the term 'code of Art' (p167) and repeats this on p 307 (Dynamic-static code). To be honest I was even toying with the idea that the MoQ is not a metaphysics at all (!) but I'd rather leave that to the experts. First of all, I do not regard SOM as evil. Absolutely not. This rational, scientific approach has guided mankind to do many great things and prevented us from many a disaster. (mind you, it has caused some as well). Anyway, within the context of the MoQ I see SOM (Intell. PoV) as a potential threat for a number of reasons: It has pervaded intellectual patterns to such an extent that it has assumed total ownership of our capacity to intellectualise.Both inductively and deductively. That is, not only how to, but also what's in it. All other influences upon our 'intellectualising' (just to be clear because this word also has connotations, I mean just thinking, our mental capacity [whatever that means..arrrgg]), tend to be reduced to subjective (in the negative of objective/scientific) frills. I am talking about intuition etc. It doesn' t recognise quality. It doesn't recognise morals.These sort of dangle at the edges somewhere. Perhaps an example is better: Suppose I have written a great song or poem...and suppose my teacher was a pure SOM'ist (I realise they do not come in that way but for the sake of the example) this person can shoot the song or poem down on the basis of not following the grammar rules properly or (ab)using meaning of different words I have put together in a different way. It reminds me of the film Dead Poet's Society with Robin Williams and the scene where the boys are told to tear the pages from their books defining good poetry, how to analyse good poetry and guidelines on how to write good poetry. He has the pages thrown into the rubbish bin. He then has them go outside and through various physical/mental (experiential) activities has each individual student 'find' himself, to find his own idea of what is good or what is not good. One can liken this process to Phaedrus' teaching methods. Pirsig has created a wonderful MoQ, for me it is a 'Code of Art'. And I don't want to see it shot down. In an earlier post I have reasserted the quality of SOM. It can continue to assist us, it can keep us on the straight and narrow. It's just that the MoQ has redefined this straight and shown that this narrow can be as broad as you like. I hope I have clarified it a bit Steve. I am not anti SOM, I just want to restrain its potential influence a bit over this MoQ. I hope I have done this for some of you, and know I have done this at least for myself. Kind regards Andre 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/
