On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 3:25 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > dmb says: > > If you read or hear something that's understood effortlessly, then you're > not reading or hearing anything new. If you understand it right away, it's > trivial or you already knew it. . > Platt says: This is arrant nonsense as Pirsig's simple, direct plain English quality writing proves. The rest is just the usual elitist left-wing academic trashing of conservatives. > dmb: > The complaint is strange because of the context. I mean, why would > anti-intellectuals even show up to discuss philosophy in first place? It > doesn't make sense to complain about incomprehension or blame it on the > writer because all you have to do is ask the other guys what he means. And > so what if you have to look up a word? I look up words all the time. Only > takes a few seconds at a time and after you do that a bunch of times your > vocabulary has been expanded. Are afraid that you might learn something? Are > books, ideas and thinkers your enemies? Even though this > anti-intellectualism is as common as the rain, I think it's a bizarre > attitude. Again, it's the context. We're hear to discuss the philosophy of a > college professor, a philosophy in which intellectual values are the most > evolved, most moral of all static patterns. We're talking about a system of > thought that has the expansion of rationality itself as one of its central > aims. > > I mean, I don't think it is within the range of valid interpretations to > read the MOQ as anti-intellectual. Pirsig's critique of SOM can be selected > out and made to seem anti-intellectual. Pirsig's distinctions between static > conceptualizations and dynamic reality can be made to seem anti-intellectual > too. So it's not exactly crazy or invented out of thin air. It just doesn't > make sense in the big picture. Pirsig is against SOM because it's too > narrow. It constricts our modes of rationality and he wants to expand them. > He wants to expand empiricism in a similar and compatible way. His aim is to > improve the intellect and our way of doing philosophy, not to bad-mouth it > or trash it. He's a critic, not a hater. His criticism of the intellectual > level is constructive. Literally. He explains its origins, purposes and > limits. > > But then there is just plain old-fashioned know-nothingism. > As Wikipedia puts it, "Nativism (politics) or political nativism, a term > used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration > and nationalism. In particular, it may refer to 19th and 20th century > political movements in the United States, especially the Know Nothings in > the 1850s and the KKK in the 1920s." > > This streak in American culture is quite recognizable in today's right-wing > conservatives and it's basically a less virulent version of the > anti-intellectualism of German fascism. Pirsig describes this right-wing > fascism as anti-intellectual in every way. He describes it as a reactionary > re-assertion of social level values against the newly empowered intellectual > values. These kinds of political movements and the attitudes that give them > energy and power are very far from a constructive critique of rationality or > the limits of intellect. It's mostly just hate and fear. You know what > "arrogant" and "elitist" REALLY means? That's just what you call a guy when > he makes you feel stupid. It's a lot like junior high school, when "stuck > up" really meant "she won't go out with me". I mean, anti-intellectualism > isn't a set of ideas so much as a general attitude that takes different > shapes in different places. > > > For my own part, I think it's more than appropriate to discuss James and > other pragmatists here because the MOQ is in the mainstream of American > pragmatism. Pirsig puts it in those terms on the last page of chapter 29. > And he says that this is very good news, politically, because he doesn't > want his work to be taken as some far out, cult favorite. It's good news, > because then the MOQ can hang there in the gallery mainstream academic > thought and then it can be positioned next to similar visions, whether they > come out of pragmatism or not. One doesn't need to have a personal hotline > to Pirsig to know this stuff. It's in the book. > > > > > > > > > > > > > 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/md/archives.html
