J.B., By all means, take your time. No rush at all. You seem like you have some very interesting points to discuss and I'm looking forward to debating them.
Pirsig's Moq can be understood by tracing philosophical and theological > thought since Kant, and before of course. He embodies our current paradigm > that is rooted in eastern thought. "Eastern thought" as a monolithic whole seems to me as tricky to conceptualize as "western thought" from where I'm standing on this round planet, as I pointed out yesterday. It might help to narrow the focus. You could even call Christianity an "eastern thought", and I have found much to appreciate and defend in Buddhism, but nothing I've really cared for in Hinduism. And there are differing schools of Buddhism with Zen being such a particular and hyper-pure offshoot that it's way seems long way from the Middle Way. Thus, you'll have to pin down the concepts you're attacking. Eventually. > Have you read Schopenhauer and the way he > explains Kant and the history of philosophy. > > No, I haven't read Schopenhauer. I only know he's the philosopher that begins with "S". (monty python allusion) And I've read what Josiah Royce thought of him (enthusiasm). Have you ever heard of Josiah Royce? He's my main classical interest and I pretty much joined the list (or technically "rejoined") because I wanted to discuss him with the many W. James followers found in the MoQ. Which didn't work out quite the way I planned, but it's been an engrossing engagement nevertheless. > Schopenhauer introduced the Eastern texts to the West. And it is from the > wake of Kant, Schop, and Hegel and the German Idealists, thru Niet. and > Heidegger that we get the same message of Pirsig. And this is the same > message written up in a recent Newsweek article-we are all Hindus now! > Royce has a quote regarding being regarded as an "Hegelian" which I think is apropos of Pirsig as well, which is the only true Hegelians were Hegel and his immediate followers. Like "eastern thought" I find it a term too broad of interpretation to be truly helpful. Hinduism just never clicked with me. I'm with Guatama on that one. This is our current paradigm, and this is the wave Pirsig was riding and why > he hit such a nerve. But its traceable back to this great turn in > philosophy > in the West, and you can even trace it back to the beginning of the 12th > century and the rise of the Sensate age, to use Sorokin's terminology. > > What we see in the 20th and 21st centuries is a breakdown of the sensate > era > and a shift to and idealistic age, again from Sorokin. The Moq is totally > understandable in this light and is just one more example of this great > turn > in the history of the West, which I believe is a turn in the wrong, and in > a > tragic, direction. > > I guess my question for you then is the same as I have for the mullah who blames earthquakes on seductively dressed women. Why does this go only one way? If biblical teachings produced all the individual freedoms and human rights that we enjoy today, then why didn't those same teachings produce a satisfactory modern paradigm? You can say, "because mankind chose to abandon them", but if they formed our society, how do you know it wasn't God's will to produce a society that eventually abandons biblical teachings? > Anyway, it will take a while for me to make this case as I would like. > > Of that, I'm sure! Good luck with the book. I'll be here. J.C. 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
