[Mary] I disagree with your interpretation of Bo's interpretation. [Arlo] I can tell by this start, that we are going to be in a big disagreement. This sort of "everything is interpretation" type thinking (and no, that is not a quote of anyone) is really faulty, and I argue is very stuck in pure subjectivism.
[Mary] I think all interpretations that are well and honestly made are valid, at the very least to the person in good faith making them. [Arlo] How do you define "well" and "honestly"? You seem to suggest that not ALL interpretations are valid, so how do you parse out the ones that are not? The problem with Bo (one of them) was that "interpretative legitimacy" was all he offered. I had said many times, that his legitimate ground was in articulating why HIS ideas were BETTER than Pirsig's, NOT that his ideas WERE Pirsig's. This is the problem, the blindness, that people stuck in "everything is interpretation" can't see out of, that led him to the absurd statement that Pirsig is a weak interpreter of Pirsig, and Mark to claim that Pirsig is not an expert on Pirsig. [Mary] It is easy to make fun of that which you do not understand, and I certainly put myself in that camp too, though pertaining to different subjects. [Arlo] My contention with Bo was all about his grab towards interpretative legitimacy, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the substance of his ideas. I had asked him over and over to explain to me why his ideas were better, and he flat out ignored this, instead wanting only to harp how "his interpretation" was what Pirsig really "meant", despite Pirsig's own objections to this claim. You can claim, maybe validly, that I did not understand the value of Bo's ideas, that I do not understand what BO meant, and you may be right. I do not see any value (in fact I see a detraction from value) when one adopts Bo's views over Pirsig's. It is your right, of course, to value Bo's ideas more than Pirsig's, to think Bo's revisions improve upon Pirsig's ideas, and if you want to try to explain why to me, I'm all ears (offlist if necessary). But, again, this was never the issue with Bo's argument. He rejected talking about "his ideas" and "Pirsig's ideas" and instead demanded that the issue at hand was that "his ideas" WERE "Pirsig's ideas" (Pirsig being too dumb, I gather, to know what he himself meant). [Mary] As to Pirsig, when any author releases his work onto the world it is no longer his. It becomes the property of the planet. His chance to control the message ended with the final page. [Arlo] You're moving out of "interpretation" and into "evolution", and you'll get no argument from me that ideas evolve, as different people revise, revision, change, refine, etc. the ideas they come into contact with. But this is NOT the process of "interpretation", and this moves us back again into the notions that "intent" and "interpretation" are forever divided, and conceptually opposed. [Mary] For good or ill, ideas released into the wild are subject to evaluation and interpretation by any and all eager minds. A writer secure in his words is only pleased by the interest, not threatened. [Arlo] Again, this is evolution, not interpretation. Pirsig, and any writer, would indeed be happy to see their works expanded upon and evolved, but this is quite different from endless, and ultimately subjective, claims of changing "what Pirsig really meant". [Mary] The author does not require your vigilance at restraining the message, and it is insulting to him to attempt it. The louder the acolytes object to creativity, the more they diminish the author. [Arlo] This is just absurd, Mary, and I'm sorry but I'm calling you out on it. No one is "restraining" Pirsig, what I am doing is demanding clarity in what HIS ideas were, so that people can properly and legitimately offer changes, expansions, etc. that would help his ideas grow. I have NO problem with someone saying, "A metaphysics of Quality that says X is better than Pirsig's claim of Y, and here is why..." But it does NO good to keep saying "Despite Pirsig saying X, we know he really meant Y"... How does THAT advance his ideas? No one is "restraining" that, its absurd to make this claim. [Mary] Is his message so weak and so subject to misinterpretation that it requires you few here to marshal the message? [Arlo] I vocally disagree with Pirsig on several matters, so I am not sure what your point here is. No one is "marshalling the message", if you disagree you disagree, and articulating "why" is the way ideas evolve. I'd counter instead and say, is Bo's message so weak that it can't stand up on its own merits against Pirsig's, that he had spend all his effort in an attempt to prove his ideas were really Pirsig's? [Mary] This has become a very static place. I miss Bodvar Skutvik and I think you do to. You did, after all, bring him up. [Arlo] And again, as others have, I'll point out Ham's continued involvement, an involvement based in honest, open disagreement with Pirsig. Ham doesn't spend his time trying to demand we accept that Pirsig really meant to say what he says, he says clearly "where Pirsig and I disagree, my ideas are better, and here is why..." You can then evaluate this on your own and make your conclusion. No harm, no foul. Had Bo done this, he would still be here. So do I "miss" more people making active disagreements with Pirsig, I do find such conversations interesting, and I think it helps flesh out my own thinking. But do I miss the incessant, illegitimate claims of interpretative legitimacy, quite frankly no I do not. This is why I jumped in when Mark responded to Marsha, because this not valid, and, as I said quite a few times, stuck in the very morass Pirsig had tried to overcome. 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
