Arlosaid to Marsha: Comments like this just make you look like an idiot.
Marsha replied: And it is like this comment of yours, Arlo, that reflects YOU
as an idiot.
dmb quotes Crawford:
"Pirsig's mechanic is, in the original sense of the term, an idiot. Indee, he
exemplifies the truth about idiocy, which is that it is at once an ethical and
a cognitive failure. The Greek idios mean 'private', and an idiotes mean a
private person, as opposed to aperson in theior public role - for example, that
of a motorcycle mechanic. Pirsig's mechanic is idiotic because he fails to
grasp his public role, which entail, or shold, a relation of active concern to
others, and to the machine. He is not involved. It is not his problem. Because
he is an idiot.
This still comes across in the related English words 'idiomatic' and
'idiosyncratic', which similarly suggests self enclosure. For example, when a
foreigner asks him for directions, the idiot will reply idiomatically, rather
than refer to a shared coordinate system. H ealso lacks the attnetive oopeness
that seeks thing out in the shared world, as when Pirsig's mechanic 'barely
listened to the piston slap before saying, 'Oh yeah. Tappets'. At bottom, the
idiot is a solipsist." (Matthew Crawford, "Shop Class as Soulcraft", page 98.)
dmb says:
Rather than refer to a shared coordinate system - for example the english
language - the idiot will respond with idoisnycratic meanings and defintions of
her own. She might, for example, define 'patterns" as "amorphous" or use
"static" to mean "ever-changing". This is a cognitive failure as well as
ethical failure. Plus it's really annoying and it's likely to draw unflattering
comments from anyone who sees this idiocy.
Sorry, but that's how it is. If you talk like an idiot, then that's just what
people will say about you.
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