Hi Dave, Wow. I'm still amazed at the difficulty we have communicating.
Matt said: Your posts, particularly in the last year or so of your posting to the MD, are littered with these "see's," and I think this kind of use of them does create a rhetorical performance like the one I described, particularly when used on a peer. (That, of course, assumes that one is communicating with someone one considers a peer: if it isn't, it creates a different rhetorical performance: condescension.) DMB said: You think my use of the word "see" is a condescending rhetorical performance? Matt: (1) I think it's a Pirsigian position to consider everything a rhetorical performance, right? Meaning, everything I write is likewise part of a rhetorical performance. (2) You've just implied that you _don't_ consider me a peer. And, well, I guess that explains some things. DMB said: But "seeing" is just the way Pirsig happens to handle the topic of creative excellence in his rhetoric lessons. Matt: Oh, I never understood you as using it as part of a self-conscious metaphorical pattern. And, actually, in this case I don't believe you, because it seems neither self-conscious (as you kind of imply later anyways) nor part of any concerted strategy. This seems like a convenient non sequitor to discuss metaphors instead of what seems to me your perfectly clear idiomatic usage of "see" in the style of your writing. And that idiom has no philosophical vector that I can see. See? DMB said: I've used the word "see" for as long as I can remember and, as far as I know, nobody ever took it as condescension. Matt: See, you didn't specify, but in oral conversation, I think the locution does have a different effect and create a different atmosphere, though is much more dependent on tone and inflection. In writing, as I warn my Composition 101 students, inflection disappears and tone is entirely created by the web of one's words, you know what I'm saying? And, like I said, I didn't take it as condescension (though now I'm not sure, given that to think I did was to say that you didn't think of me as a peer, see what I mean?). Look at it this way: if I'm the first to pressure you to think more about your rhetorical style and its potential unintended consequences, then it's all to the better (please notice this part because it's important). DMB said: Actually, I decided to go with the essay style - as opposed to engaging your specific comments in a dialogue - so that you wouldn't feel pressed or hounded, so that you could respond however you like. Naturally, I hoped you'd say something about the substance rather than the style but the aim was to give you some latitude, some room to maneuver. Matt: Yeah, but I don't know what I'm maneuvering around because your posts were mainly quotes from books I like and you were offering uncontentious, undisagreeble readings of them. What was I supposed to say? That's why I asked if we were in some sort of agreement. I don't see how they cut against what I had originally said about amateur philosophy, and--given our history of poor communication--I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. DMB said: As I see it, your view is that one doesn't need to start with standards because one IS standards. That stance simply doesn't make any sense to me. When I expressed my inability to even see the relevance, you confessed that you couldn't say because you hadn't quite worked that out yet and then you said "thanks for the conversation". It seemed to me that you intended to bail out because you felt pressed to explain. Matt: Aw, now, either you misunderstood me or you're being disingenuous. It's fair that the stance doesn't make any sense to you, and I said right up front that the phrasing was weird (in the terms of using "standards," on 9/8) and that I "wasn't sure yet how best to defend this on Pirsigian grounds" (on 9/10). I did, however, try and unpack what I meant on several different spins of the dialectical circle and tried to make it look relevant. I even brought up what I took to be a legitimate Pirsigian concern about what I was saying. What I confessed was my inability to _further_ explain now either what the aphorism means, or how it was relevant...other than what I had already done. You've said here that I confessed that I couldn't tell you how it was relevant, but I did try. I thought I was honestly and responsibly "bailing out" of the conversation. I take it that we all, as interlocutors, have to be able to do that sometimes, and sometimes it is important that we do so. I'm sorry that I don't have everything worked out perfectly, as you apparently do, nor that I understand how to make everything perfectly clear to you. I'm not that good. I'm not sure how else I was supposed to conduct myself in the conversation, Dave. I was trying very hard not to "avoid" your points (as you used to accuse me of), but try to articulate explicitly how I understood them, or even if I understood them. DMB said: So I wrote a very casual essay about the ideal reader, which was just based on things I've heard through my earbuds. Your response to that was something like, "oh, that old trope." Matt: Yeah, you got me there. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, but you were saying it to me, so it seemed like I was expected to say something. I'm still not sure what you were expecting me to think. DMB said: Then I wrote something a little more formal, an essay with quotes from ZAMM that I selected in order to expand the context a bit and otherwise show how that upper left had brick fits into Pirsig's overall theme. Your response to that is to file a complaint about use of the word "see" and all condescension that implies. Matt: Aw, let's not be disingenuous about rhetorical timing. I asked first what your intended point was, because I was missing it. It's then that I filed, not a complaint, but a rhetorical analysis (a bit grandiose to call it, but that's what it was) of your recent post to highlight what might be obscuring your point, or at least what this rhetorical reader is reading. You say, "see?" and I say, "see what?" DMB said: Remember, you had said that the brick was static and I replied by saying that the lesson is not really about bricks, it's about seeing freshly? Matt: And remember when I rephrased it in my idiom as: "the full picture I wish to give is more like the girl, with DQ and SQ interpentrating, which is what allows her to begin: the static brick is in front of her, but she's seeing it freshly." I was even using your phrasings to try and bridge our communicative gap. DMB said: As I understand it, you're asking what it means, as a practical matter, to be a good amateur. Matt: Sure, I was asking rhetorically in order to advance what I thought was a good suggestion. I was not asking you, personally, to explain to me what makes a good amateur. It's not that I'm against hearing everyone's opinion (like Dan's contribution), nor taking up a conversation about it in terms of Pirsig's philosophy. But you took it up in disagreement, and I eventually came to the conclusion, and marked it at every step of the conversation that this was becoming more and more apparent to me, that we didn't really disagree on anything substantive about amateur philosophy. And, you do know you act like a teacher about Pirsig, right? I've never quite understood that as a general rhetorical style in the MD. There are times when we might write exposition of Pirsig's philosophy, but none of us (writing in currently, at least) are novices. It's always seemed a gross misunderstanding of one's audience (there always being a few exceptions, of course). Not that you need to care. I agree with Dan that an amateur doesn't need to care, though it's not always pandering when one does (which was your point to Dan). Perhaps nobody has ever pointed this out before, and it surprises you. And perhaps this isn't a generally held perception. Funny thing about rhetoric is that every audience member kind of gets a vote, though every rhetorician gets to decide how seriously to treat each vote (unlike in a democracy). But, that's just what your tone and style seems to me most of the time (not all of the time). Much of your half of the conversation was repetition of Pirsigian points that I didn't know I was violating, with the "see?s" that imply that if I _don't_ see that I was clearly violating them, then there's something wrong with my intelligence. To recur to the metaphor I used a moment ago, it felt like I was trying to do calculus and you kept saying I was getting the algebra wrong, and trying to give me an algebra lesson, see? And I was trying to convince you that I wasn't getting the algebra wrong. But at a certain point, what _are_ we supposed to do? In a class, a teacher can always say, "Why don't we talk about this more later," so in case the teacher really is messing up the algebra, they can be corrected, but in a class the lesson has to move on. However, this isn't a class and there are no teachers. We're all generally students of life and Pirsig, and this creates an odd spectacle sometimes, surely, but what do we do when we just don't get what the point is of our interlocutor? So eventually I say things like, "Yeah, my favorite is Ellison's little man behind the stove at Chehaw station." And yes, sometimes I do just monologue something obliquely relevant. But I don't try and teach. (Or do I? Do people think my rhetorical performances are infected by a persistent feel of me trying to teach everyone? I do think about that, and wish they wouldn't have that quality. I say things knowingly, sometimes, maybe often, but is that the same as teaching? How does one present something they think they know while avoiding acting like a teacher? I think it's possible, but I worry about unsuccessfully pulling it off.) So: where does our conversation go from here? I have no idea, because I thought we'd decided that we were talking past each other the whole time about amateur philosophy. But, if you think that I just don't understand Pirsig on amateur philosophy, or the girl and the bricks, then our conversation is probably over because I'm not sure what else I can do at this moment to display my credentials. I take very seriously the activity of presenting a good argument and interpretation, and I don't have that kind of time to spend these days if you want something better than I've already done. 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