On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:14 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Platt said to dmb: > Another explanation of the relationship between the narrator and Phaedrus > was given by Pirsig in an interview with Tim Adams of the Observer in 2006. > Pirsig told Adams: > "One thing people don't know is that the book was completed and ready to > send in when I thought there were too many 'I's in the book. I need another > character. So: Phaedrus. He did not appear until the book was written. ...It > is horrible in Zen to use 'I'. There is no 'I' in enlightened Zen. And when > you see someone using 'I,I,I' in their work you think: Oh, dear . . . As a > rule when I write I try to find a way around it. > > > dmb says:Are you suggesting that this explanation somehow contradicts the > one we find in the introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of ZAMM? Are > you saying this has an impact on this "much more serious" error, the one > that "has obscured the fundamental meaning of the book"? Platt: Well, what do you know? Maybe you get it. Especially since the interview occurred after publication of the 25th anniversary edition. DMB: > It's interesting that Phaedrus was invented to avoid the over use of a > pronoun, but how is that relevant? How does that even count as "another > explanation of the relationship between the narrator and Phaedrus"? It > certainly doesn't alter the idea that "the narrator is a sell out, a coward, > who has abandoned truth for popularity and social acceptance" or that > "Phaedrus was dominated by intellectual values". That WAS the point, after > all. Like I said to Krimel, the author says this point has an important > impact on "the fundamental meaning of the book". Obviously, my concern here > is with misinterpreting the book because of this serious error. > Platt: Apparently the "serious error" is yours. DMB: > One example that springs to mind is the narrator's comments about big > government programs and the individual. Just a few lines later, Pirsig tells > us that Phaedrus went a different way, that he saw the solution in a new > spiritual rationality, not cliched ideas about self-reliance. I've pointed > this out to you before, but apparently you just don't care what Pirsig says > about it or what he really means. Platt: For someone who claims to "know how to locate textual evidence for the assertions I make" it's more than passing strange that you include in your "evidence" the phrase, "not cliched ideas about self-reliance" which is nowhere to be found in the cited "few lines later." On second thought, not strange that you would edit what Pirsig wrote to support your own misguided theories. DMB: > It's not just me. You've been accused of distorting the MOQ through reading > selectively, to put it politely, more than a few times. I think that charge > has a lot of merit. I think you've highjacked the MOQ for your own purposes > and use it to support views that are not compatible with the MOQ. As usual, > these distortions involve prior commitments political and religious > attitudes. Platt: Examples? I know you and your fellow lefties will always be upset because the MOQ supports free markets over socialism. And Krimel, of course, finds Pirsig's explanation of evolution ridiculous. So I wonder who really cherry picks the Great Author's writings to back their biased views? At least I quote the man verbatim instead of adding in my own little phrase (see above) to distort the text." 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/
