Hey John, Matt said: For example, I think the heart of Pirsig's philosophy might be more massively augmented by taking the "care passages" of ZMM more seriously, in the direction that Steve has marked out as the liberal viewpoint of extending circles of concern, and for which he is currently concerned that Pirsig may not approach enough. I am less concerned, and think Pirsig would fair well in an extrapolation. But the one thing I would not be is as blithe as John is in asserting that Pirsig is all about love and empathy. Steve seems to be right when he suggests that we should think through the fact that "care" is left behind somewhat, and "love" doesn't seem to come up at all. It's not exactly that John is wrong, but he seems to be lacking in that self-consciousness.
John said: Do you mean the person of Pirsig or the words of Pirsig? ... Personally, I'm a pretty empathetic and loving guy. So perhaps I'm reading things into the work that others don't see, but from my perspective, Pirsig works out an intellectual justification for the fundamentaltude (I'm liking that word lately) of love and caring and that's just the way I see it. Which is why I'm befuddled by Steve's assertion that Pirsig doesn't address love and empathy. Matt: Actually, I hadn't thought about distinguishing between the person and words of Pirsig (which is an interesting distinction to make, and probably should play a bigger role in coming to terms with him). That being said, I think you've missed some of the emphasis in my "intervention." The above extracts the full preface to the remark, about your (by me) supposed blitheness "in asserting that Pirsig is all about love and empathy" to which you responded, and of which continues on in the vein of "all [John] would've had to say is..." and supplies an account of care and love in Pirsig that I think would open the way to saying _both_ of the things you and Steve have been saying. Like I said, I don't think you're wrong exactly, it's that it doesn't seem very precise to me _about Pirsig_ because Pirsig wasn't a hippie. It seems to violate the mood of Pirsig, which you do seem conscious of in your remarks (elliptically eliminated above) about Pirsig's person and the "intellectual justification" he does offer instead. The "self-consciousness" that my last few posts have been mainly about is the aim of precision in composition: it's intimating in the short compass of one's writing _as few_ false impressions as possible. When we do aim at such a thing (which we don't always need to do: like when we are making a joke that banks on ambiguities), it will produce a continual evolution in our habits of formulation as we learn what audiences tend to pick up from our first attempts at formulation. Is Pirsig all about love and empathy? Well, yeah, I guess, as long as one says it with a knowing grin about the slight irony in saying so. We might say that the irony isn't in terms of what Quality fully means, it is in terms of sensitivity to the personality of ZMM in particular, the personality that ironically forwarded a philosophy that he seemed to practically fall short of in the narrative. And coming to terms with that irony in ZMM, which is continued in subtle ways in Lila, is always a healthy activity. So perhaps we should provocatively keep peddling the idea that Pirsig was all about love and empathy. Matt 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
