This is mainly out of the context of my dialogues with Arlo. I claimed there that I haven't a problem with the academic approach to the MoQ as A method. I just don't agree with it as THE method or the Best method. To be fair, I thought I'd share some of the problems I see with it.
Arlo himself gave me some keen insight into the issue of academic pursuit of truth in an earlier post where he pointed out the conflation of capitalism with the academy which has turned philosophy into a thing to be owned. Intellectual ideas as capitalistic things don't seem so bad, at first glance. But a deeper dig shows us some very big problems. For instance, suppose you spent ten years pursuing and studying a certain line of thought, supported by specific scholars and you were almost ready to submit your work for doctoral consideration. But just as you finish your thesis, a new line of thought arises that hadn't occured to you during the years you'd spent studying along your pre-chosen lines. Suppose you become convinced that this new insight completely obviates all the work you've done for ten years. All the sacrifices you've made, all the efforts you've poured into your thesis, completely useless. In such a case, the temptation to ignore truth in the service of self-interest would be so strong, that you probably wouldn't even be able to conceptualize such intrusive insights. You'd fight against them with all your being for the static weight of your current line of philosophical endeavor would so weigh down your mind you would even be able give any other a fair chance. Your intellect would be chained to static formulation, regardless of the quality of your position. And for an MoQists, more than any other moral imperative is this one, INTELLECT MUST BE FREE FROM SOCIAL CONSTRAINT. That's the problem with Quality in an academic matrix, and it's not a problem with Quality, it's a problem with the academic matrix. 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
