Hey MRB, On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Michael R. Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Joseph Maurer - > >> It seems to me the purpose of rhetoric is to put perceptions into words. > > Given that ZAMM comes to a defense of the rhetorikos, what does this say > about Bob as a philosopher? I wonder if there are any post-modern takes on > ZAMM/Lila? I certainly feel a very artful (in the best sense) framing of the > MOQ in those books ... the fact that it's in a setting, and so > personally-nakedly, that we're shown with great vividness and care how the > MOQ arose, in those books - this is very significant. To paraphrase a > reviewer (and applying to a very dissimilar book), the parallels to "Atlas > Shrugged" are patent.
Mark: Now, I never thought of Rand as a post-modernist. I also do not really see Bob as a Taggart. I have never looked up what post-modernism is, and being a person who studied the scientific method for four year in the UC system, three years at the University of Arizona, three years at the University of London, and two years at the University of Hawaii, (and now make a decent living at it), English was not my favorite in school. I have come around since then, and publications that I submit within the peer reviewed communityare often very elaborate with nuances of grammar. I will have to give AR a try again, now that I am not a complete contrarian to "The Man". I think I'll start with the Architect one since I do not want to spoil the movie (heh, heh). > > But In giving us the analog, unsuspected background from/in which the MOQ > arose - are we not being given something very nourishing? Both as admirers > of the MOQ and as persons? Bob is so much more organic and whole, as a > literary artist, than the Post-Moderns or Rand. I 've been rereading > "Atlas," and while enjoying some of it very much, it’s so steely and in > places so disjointed/constructed. It's a pure emanation of the personality > of the author, in all its varied light and dark. In MOQ terms, she tries to > strictly discipline and control DQ by reducing it to inescapable, > everlasting SQ structures in the mind. Yet she really wants to inspire, at > points. Mark: I think nourishment can be found between the lines of ZaMM. Here we have Bob, who was the son of a Famous Academic Lawyer (or was it a Judge?, I can't remember) in Minnesota or Michigan. He was named after his father; he seemed to have the same level of intelligence. However Bob was not able to focus on anything and rebelled against all that he saw as rigid; the ethical law that his pop professed being one such thing. Intelligent people are at somewhat of a disadvantage since there are so many things they are capable of doing. That is there is no direction they become mindless So he floated around gathering experiences and knowledge in his own way. Finally he settled down in some remote place as a teacher with his wife, and later, child. But because of the parental pressure put on him as a child, he felt he needed to be great like his dad (his Mom is never mentioned, by the way, why?). So he pushes himself and enters into the realm of philosophy. He is not well read in this subject, but has the drive, and for some unknown reason he is admitted into the great University of Chicago (Dad pushing Son to do great things?). So he goes in, completely naive, but with a magnificent seed growing into a lethal plant in his head. Alway the antagonist of anything resembling authority, he tries to find flaws in a philosophy that has been studied by many great men, for much longer than the grain of salt he read during his semester in grad school. However, that is what it takes to break free of indoctrination. He did not have to break free since he was never indoctrinated, and could read history in any way he chose. He was, in fact, an ideal tabula raza in Aristotelian terms. He was not ready for what he created. Since he had no real foundation on which to return to if the going got tough, he simply succumbed to his inability to string together anything supportive. He became withdrawn, paranoid, and aggressive. Finally his wife, using that good ol' family pressure, convinces him that he needs to exorcise all of the demons in his head by means of electrocution. Now, if he had had a stronger foundation, he would have been immediately spiritually enlightened while in the library that day, before all this went downhill, much in the same way Zen students are enlightened. However he did recover, and this turns a complete mental breakdown into a spiritual awakening. Trouble was that most of what he realized before his treatment was Zapped out of him. So in an attempt recover some of this he spent his days as a simple writer of manuals and read a lot about Zen and other stuff. He was then able to piece together some meager memories, enough to write a book about. This is of course the final phase of any recovery. Such people are alway told to write, write, write their personal feelings. And thus we have ZaMM So that is the nourishment for ZaMM. I will leave my thoughts on Lila for another day. Just my humble opinion. I could have made all of it up, who knows? Cheers, Mark > 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 > 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
