Matt said to dmb:
This has always been my inmost agony: I want you to be better than you are.
That you wish the same of me is obvious from your catty exhortations that take
the form of "it's obvious you a smart guy, so why you actin' so sputid?" So
what do we do? Chalk it up to different wavelengths? Is there any common
terrain on which we can have a productive and interesting conversation where we
both enjoy and take seriously the exchange of opinions?
dmb says:
I'd like to suggest that my "catty exhortations" ought not be dismissed as
merely "catty". If memory serves I used the word "incorrigible" as part of a
more sustained and substantial explanation of the problem and I was
specifically saying that the problem was NOT with your intelligence. For some
other reason, I was saying, you are incapable of learning anything on that
particular issue. (Pure experience and the baggage hanging) I was trying to
explain that baggage in terms of a bad lens.
This is the point that I really hope you won't dismiss: I think that bad lens
is what keeps you from understanding pure experience as Pirsig means it. His
central term become a form of Platonism in your Rortarian imagination. I don't
think that's a trivial mistake. I think I see how you got there. I think it's
fixable. I'm not covert when it comes to insults and that's really not what I'm
doing. In fact, your thinking is not alien to me in the least and I think I see
what you're doing. My desire to correct you is not based on ill-will nor do I
want to improve you. Would you believe that I really just want you to
understand something at the very center of the MOQ? Really. It just seems like
such a senseless tragedy that smart Pirsig fan who works in the academic world
could misconstrue Quality the way you have. When I think of all the students
you'll ever teach and all the writings you'll ever write... Seriously. I'm just
sick about it. Steve too. And there's no good reason fo
r it. That's what kills me. It's just a mix up.
Addressing this concern IS a form of criticism, but it's not meant as a
personal insult. It's the good kind of criticism, where have better ideas
afterward. And you're never going to understand what I'm saying if you take it
as mere insult. The criticism is going to be a bit unpleasant no matter how I
put it, especially if the criticism is valid. If I'm right, it would mean that
you really have made a conceptual error. But we all have to be open to that
possibility. That's just common decency, right? You would just feel
condescended to if I treated you with kid gloves anyway, would you? I mean,
dismissing the sore points effectively removes little pieces of the argument.
The substance and merit of a point does not depend on how much it does or does
not sting. In fact, sometimes a point stings precisely because it has substance
and merit.
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