On Saturday, April 17, 2010, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote:
> [DMB]
> I strongly suspect that Platt wants to equate intellect with SOM so that he
> can
> then take all of Pirsig's reasons for wanting to expand rationality and use
> them to destroy rationality instead.
>
> [Arlo]
> Exactly. And to do so he has to ignore half of Pirsig and distort those who do
> not. As I said to John, no one is talking about turning "Quality" into an
> academic bon-bon, but the MOQ is a "metaphysics", an academic, intellectual,
> philosophical framework built around this pre-intellectual concept.
>
> As you correctly point out, where the goal should be to expand rationality as
> Pirsig intended, the goal for Platt is only to demonize academics, perfessery
> types and intellect as a whole. Why so ma days choose to champion
> ignorance is beyond me, but it is an unmistakable trend.
>
> Again, the irony in all this is that it was this same anti-intellectual, damn
> the perfessers attitude that nearly cost Pirsig his job in Montana, where the
> right-wing anti-intellectuals branded him a "radical professor". I suspect
> that
> if Pirsig were teaching these days, he would be in the same "crosshairs".
>
> [Horse]
> ... the way to think about what he says is to ask yourself the question "What
> would a typical Victorian think"!
>
> [Arlo]
> Precisely. Pirsig noted this when he called the modern era a slow drift back
> to
> Victorianism. Where Pirsig would want to replace the "SOM intellectuals" with
> "MOQ intellectuals" (expanded rationality), Platt seeks only to demonize
> intellect as a whole, and drift back to the dominance of the Victorians.
>
> [Horse]
> Now we can sit back and wait for Platt to accuse us of of ad hominem attacks
> and/or being lefty commie pinko interleckchuals.
>
> [Arlo]
> Yeah. Its just the same substance-free vitriol one hears on the talk-radio
> airwaves. I still laugh at the fact that when Platt can't "easily understand"
> a
> book, it must be because the author is an arrogant elitist. I suppose its
> "Dick
> and Jane Visit the Pyramids" for all!
>
> [Horse]
> Why is it that when Pirsig states quite categorically that both you and Bo are
> wrong about SOL - even going so far as to say that your conclusions undermine
> the MoQ - you ignore everything he says.
>
> [Arlo]
> This is just part and parcel of the "bumper-sticker mentality". Why bother
> with
> the body of substance when a few acontextual quotes serve much better?
>
> [DMB]
> Platt is essentially anti-intellectual and he reads Pirsig to serve that
> purpose. For Platt, what Pirsig thinks is beside the point. He doesn't care
> about that. He just thinks he found a little ammo depot in his war against
> liberals, intellectuals, atheists or basically anybody that doesn't fit his
> idea of a decent American.
>
> [Arlo]
> Spot on.
>
>
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