Hi Dave, Matt said: ...I've come to think that it doesn't do enough to help us amateurs conceive of our own projects. I think we can, and should, go further than that. ...Disciplinary standards have the upshot of giving one a defined sense of having discharged one's responsibilities to produce quality work. Not having a discipline can leave one in a void and lost, for there is no one they need to please. This can produce good work, but it certainly isn't an assured relationship. So what I'm thinking is that, aside from our love of doing whatever it is we are doing, is there a way of erecting a standard of excellence in amateur philosophy? ..perhaps the most important question for amateur self-definition: even if you would never make anyone else follow your own standard, what is _your relationship to others_? In a discipline, this has a clear answer. But in amateur philosophy, it might be something to continually meditate on.
DMB said: Imagine if your comments were altered so that they were all about amateur artists instead of amateur philosophers. In that scenario you'd find yourself asking if amateur poets and painters should erect a standard of excellence for themselves. Matt: Yeah, I'm not sure I see the incongruity. (Nor do I think we really disagree on the large point.) When I write for myself, I write against what I think is excellent. I try to live up to certain ideals of writing (like clarity, verve, ingenuity, saneness, etc.). If a poet, painter, or any other kind of producer _struggles_ in their process, I'm not sure why we shouldn't think of it terms of them struggling to not let themselves down. And whatever that thing is we call the "standard." Thinking in terms of "standards" is awkward when thinking about yourself, and I concede to the limitations the metaphor creates in thinking about amateur work, but I'm not sure we can think of "excellence" by itself, ahead of standards, as you suggested later in your post. That doesn't, it seems to me, describe a process we could actually go through, nor a heuristic I would commend in practical thinking about one's craft (whatever it is). Standards, like static patterns, do follow in the wake of creative breakthroughs, but thinking about standards is a way of conceptualizing what your breaking through. You don't break through everything: that would be chaos. You break through definable things, opening the gates of chaos, but by being held in place by other definable things, you invite static latching. I certainly wasn't trying to move down from a deliberate vagueness. As I answered my own question of "is there a way of erecting a standard of excellence in amateur philosophy?" no, not if one means to carve out a disciplinary space, if one means to _standardize behavior_. There would be no point to calling it "amateur" philosophy if it were standardized. However, if we begin thinking about ourselves and the standards of excellence we have for ourselves, and _what those are_, then perhaps the best question after that is what is our relationship to others. In re-reading your remarks, I was caught several times by an uncertainty as to whether you were taking issue with anything I was saying. Your third paragraph, especially, recapitulates the negotiation of the gauntlet of problems in articulating amateur excellence I tried in my earlier post's first paragraph (something like, "they have no discipline, but are not undisciplined"). So I'm not sure what the real disagreement is here, except perhaps the best practical heuristic to commend to practicing amateurs when they think about what they are doing. I'm not sure the thinking about the lack is the best foot forward. For example, the lack of a need to please others. So, conversely, amateur philosophy is minimally an attempt to please yourself. What if you are easy to please? Toughening what you allow yourself to get away with, it seems to me, is the required step for amateurs to continually evolve. And thinking in terms of standards doesn't seem to me get in the way of the amateur ethos. 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
