Hello Arlo, Pretty late for me on a 'school' night, but your excellent post deserves a response - quickly.
[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 now] Of course it is stuck in subjectivism. Absolutely! Remember, I am one who thinks the Intellectual Level is SOM all the way, for all of us, all the time. I happen to think that anyone unwilling to admit that is kidding themselves - and I see you, DMB, Andre, and Dan kidding yourselves daily. Given that, you can see that I believe none of us can help it. Before I digress into the true conversation, let me say that the beauty of the MoQ for me is the realization that this SOM Universe we all live in is imposed by the highest static level. We had no choice until Mr. Pirsig came along and hinted that, hey, we might all indeed be stuck in SOM for our lifetimes, but there is hope. He gave us the recognition that there IS something better, deeper, wiser out there than SOM, it's just that our feeble brains can't handle it. AND, if you really want to get mad at me, I will go ahead and just say that the Quality framework cannot be properly expressed or understood inside the Intellectual Level SOM. It represents an entirely different set of Static Patterns of Value than SOM. It is opposed to SOM, so if you ascribe to Pirsig's MoQ, then you ascribe to a 5th level. Shoot me now, I guess. That's all it's ever been for me. I'm not trying to perfect my way into a Zen Mind (mainly because I'm too lazy), I'm just satisfied knowing that underneath all the subjects and objects there is a foundation of Quality. There is something greater than my EGO for me or yours for you. This is a relief, and when I READ IT IN PIRSIG'S BOOKS, I felt the ground shift under my feet. Whether this is my interpretation or his makes really no difference to me. But I will tell you this, I don't believe I'm smart enough to have thought this Quality, ego-negating stuff up on my own. I am willing to give Pirsig credit for it. YOU, on the other hand, seem ready to take that credit away from him. You want to say he never said it. But Quality makes life happier and more meaningful for me. This, I believe, Pirsig was telling us all, though I am obviously in a distinct minority here with this view. Anyway... [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? [Mary Now] Given my soliloquy above that should be obvious to you. If your interpretations are motivated toward bolstering your own ego (where I use 'your' not to mean you personally, but anyone), then your interpretations are suspect. Your motives are impure. I don't know what your politics are, but FOX News provides an example for me. [Arlo] 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 now] I accept what you are saying, but reject the motivations you are assigning by default to Bo. I do not believe Bo is in it for self-aggrandizement. >From conversing with him, my gut feeling is that he experienced the same profound world-view shift that I did, was happy to attribute it to Pirsig's insights, but then later felt betrayed by Pirsig's own denial of his own insight! I am honestly telling you that from my (and Bo's) perspective, Pirsig seems to have sold out to the DMBs of the world in a bid for American Academic Legitimacy at the expense of the real, true, mystical nature of the original message he had in ZEN. So shoot me. I am not trying to betray Pirsig, I believe Pirsig showed me something and then reneged on his own insight and betrayed ME. Frankly, I'm a little bit pissed and disappointed at Pirsig. However, this does not diminish the Quality of his original message. [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). [Mary now] I'm pretty sure I understand what Bo was always saying. I'm equally sure he DID make many efforts to explain it to you. The thing is, what Bo understood cannot be correctly explained with language. That is a natural shortcoming of the SOM Intellectual Level. You really have to just experience this. I cannot explain it to you, I guess, though I must say I perfectly understood what Bo meant when I read his posts. I wonder why you and I are different? No matter, it does not make me or you a bad person. [Arlo] 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 now] Yeah, I know you mistrusted Bo's motives. You thought it was Bo's ego talking, because that's what we are all used to (FOX News again). When we don't understand something it is common to question the person's motives. I get that. [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 now] All Intellectual Level pursuits are founded on a point of view. There is no other way to think in SOM. I do it. You do it. You have a different perspective than I do. You have not seen the value in a '5th level' as I have, and that is OK, but it's not OK to cast about you with a stick and insult the motives or intelligence of those you disagree with (well, unless it is FOX News). A JOKE. As I think I already said, I DO believe Pirsig said X in ZEN, then changed that to Y in Lila (somewhat) and apparently Lila's Child, or Turner papers, etc. later on. That's OK, but his first works are still out there. Here's another way to look at it. You see, DMB does the exact same thing with James. He wants desperately to equate almost everything Pirsig and James ever said. You really can't do that without ignoring about half of what James ever said. Now, maybe you should? I don't know, but I think DMB's quest is futile, and reduces the MOQ to just another footnote in American Philosophy. Yuck. If you do cartwheels to merge Pirsig and James, all you've done in the end is diminish Pirsig. Am I the only person who sees this? Can't be! It's late. I'm tired. I hope I've made some of where I'm coming from a little bit clear. I am not an ogre out to destroy Pirsig. Best, Mary 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
