Hi Dave,
Dave said:
Months ago someone started a thread asking, Why RMP's philosophy
was not catching on, more popular? I thought it was an interesting
question but the responses were few and the thread died quickly.
Boiled down any answer to this question must lie in two areas: The
quality of Pirsig's work and the quality of those attracted to it. Of
Darwin, Thomas Huxley said, "I am his bulldog." Based on the quotes
above (and years of similar ones) it appears Pirsig attracted a
confusion of weasels. And the source of this confusion? Why the
work of course!
Matt:
I'm not sure "Why is Pirsig's philosophy not catching on?" is an
interesting question, or at least--it shouldn't be the first question for
the Pirsigian. If it has priority, posing a question that way to yourself
leads too easily to bad rationalizations. "Why aren't I more popular?
Well, it must be because people aren't as cool as I am!" And there's
already a little bit too much of this going around.
A better, analogous question is: "Should I spend so much of my time
on Pirsig?" That's a decent question every self-conscious person
should ask of themselves from time to time about every activity they
do. Not all of the time: occasionally. If that personal question is
given priority, and you arm yourself with answers internal to Pirsig's
philosophy ("It helps me sort out such-and-such problem by doing
such-and-such"), then when you turn to the other question--Why
isn't Pirsig more popular?--you are more likely to treat it like a
rhetorical/communication problem. You are more likely to seriously
try and translate Pirsig into terms other people who aren't as excited
by Pirsig as you can understand, rather than treating them as "just
not getting it." If you take care of yourself first, you can at least
avoid being a snob.
I think it's a mistake to see Pirsig as the source of weasel-like
behavior. To take your metaphor seriously (perhaps more than you
meant it), we can indeed pose two areas of answer: quality of Pirsig;
quality of disciples. But I doubt Darwin made Huxley a bulldog:
Huxley was likely already largely in possession of good intellectual
ability before he found good positions to use it to defend. Likewise,
the notion of a "confusion of weasels" is nicely bifurcated to suggest
that it's possible that even if Pirsig is confused, he also--and
separately--happened to attract weasels. And they learned how to
be weasels long before they met Pirsig.
Is Pirsig confused? Maybe, but trying to figure out what Hegel meant
has taken a long time. And the bulldogs think it was worth it, and
indeed especially important that they were around, not just to keep
the wolves at bay, but the weasels, too. The weasels won the day
in England in the 19th century, which is how analytic philosophy
established itself with such a moral imperative: Bertrand Russell
and G. E. Moore knew that, whatever the hell philosophy was, it
sure as hell wasn't going to be Hegelianism.
Is Pirsig confused? Maybe, but if you take care of yourself first, you'll
take care of Pirsig first. And if you take care of Pirsig first, you'll
more likely figure out for yourself whether he's really confused or
not. And if you continue to take care of yourself first, you'll more
likely leave the weasel-like behavior to others, for or against his
confusion.
Matt
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