[Marsha] The act of reading a text is like playing music and listening to it at the same time, and the reader becomes his own interpreter.
[Mark] That is, that he had no control over the protagonist once the book was released. In fact, he was no longer an expert on the subject, we all were. [Arlo] Its funny to me that those who diverge the most from what an author has repeatedly said, are those that argue loudest that what the author said is irrelevant, but what they want to think he said is all that matters. That meaning is negotiated, that texts are deconstructed and reconstructed historically, that dialogue is an interplay of intent and interpretation, is really not much of a serious contention any longer. Derrida instigated and subsequent postmodernists have been developing and refining theories of "interpretation" is some form or another for decades. The problem is, the form of "interpretation" being pushed here is simply good old fashion subjectivism (by denying and dismissing "intent", which would constitute a dialogue), whatever I think someone meant is all that's important. And when the protagonist argues his intent was different, he can be summarily dismissed as not an "expert" on his own ideas. This is precisely the sort of inane nonsense that had Bo claiming Pirsig was a "weak interpreter" of Pirsig's ideas. And at this point we should dust off Ron's "interpretation" that Pirsig's MOQ supports rape and torture. Hey, why not, if that's how he "interprets" it, that's all that matters. And this is all part of the stuckness on "interpretative legitimacy", that the validity of what one says can't be questioned because any and all "interpretations" are just as valid. It gives two choices, the same problem of SOM, one between "soliloquy" and "interpretation", the same problem that confounded initial deconstructionists of everything being either (1) objective words from on high (what they were rebelling against) or (2) subjective thoughts about whatever "meaning" you want to give something (their solution). Sound familiar? It should. Its about as S/O mired as you can get. Luckily, other postmodern thinkers, like Bahktin, Bourdieu, Giddens, and many others, instead place "interpretation" inside a dialogue alongside "intent", and "meaning" becomes more than "my interpretation" but an ongoing dialogue where interlocutors intend-interpret meaning as they clarify and expand their ideas. In Marsha's and Mark's world, Ron's "interpretation" that Pirsig supports rape and torture is just as valid as any others, and should Pirsig protest he can be dismissed as not being an expert on his own ideas. In a better world, "meaning" is negotiated and refined as intent and interpretation play off each other over time. In this world, Pirsig's protestations about his intent WOULD matter, and certain "interpretations" would be seen as disagreements and divergences from "intent". We cannot, in other words, remove one utterance from the flow of a dialogue and claim that it exists in an intent-free vacuum, one has to consider instead the dialogue, which includes both intent AND interpretation, back and forth and back and forth, refining and evolving.... 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
