John the Platt fan said: I thought the narrator's point was that he agreed in the main with "political reactionaries" and "cliched" carries a negative connotation that impugns the narrator's point beyond what I read in the text.
dmb says: You must have missed the posts where I quote Pirsig himself impugning the narrator's point of view. As I already said several times to Krimel and Platt, Pirsig is using a literary device known as the unreliable narrator. In Pirsig's explanation (in the intro to the 1999 edition) he says that the narrator says only what will make you like him, that he's a bullshitter and a sell-out. In short, his values are social while Phaedrus is the intellectual. He's saying this because failure to read it that way, Pirsig says, "has obscured the fundamental meaning of the book". "In the intended ending it is not the narrator who triumphs over a villainous Phaedrus. It is an honorable Phaedrus who triumphs over the narrator that has been maligning him all the time". It's a very part of the drama and the meaning of the book. "These two minds have different values as to what is important in life. The narrator is primarily a person dominated by social values". John said:Pirsig sure came across as reactionary to me- pissed off dude with an axe to grind in a world that went the wrong way and refuses to listen. You don't call that "reactionary" then I don't know what you mean by the word. dmb says: Really? Reactionary means right-wing, ultraconservative, old-fashioned, unprogressive, redneck and the like. Fundamentalism and fascism are probably the most powerful and well-know examples of reactionary movements. The John Birchers who put Pirsig on their watch list were reactionaries. Phaedrus is a contrarian, not a reactionary. In Lila Pirsig refers to himself as a liberal intellectual. I think that's true enough. In fact, he sees the election of Obama as a triumph of intellectual over social values. But if you think you can make a case to the contrary, knock yourself out. John said:... mark my words Dave, pickin' on Platt ain't the way to go. dmb says: We agree there, but for different reasons. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage. http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009 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/
