Hi dmb,

Like you, I would very much like to see Pirsig as someone who dropped
the appearance-reality business and never looked back. That may very
well  be the case, but you aren't engaging with this quote as it is
actually written:

"If someone sees things through a somewhat different set of glasses
or, God help him, takes his glasses off, the natural tendency of those
who still have their glasses on is to regard his statements as
somewhat weird, if not actually crazy. But he isn't."


> Steve replied:
> ...The people with the glasses on are hearing what the person without glasses 
> on is saying, and they think he sounds crazy.  ...I am perfectly fine with 
> taking that fragment about seemingly but not actually crazy things said by 
> someone with the glasses off as an offhand remark that shouldn't be taken too 
> seriously.
>
>
>
> dmb says:
> You are repeating the same nonsense.


Steve:
What I keep repeating to you are Pirsig's words because you still
aren't engaging with them as written.


dmb:
Saying things and having the glasses off are two different things. You
keep asking about the "crazy things said by someone with the glasses
off" and I keep telling you that saying things means you don't have
the glasses off anymore. As soon as you start talking you've got the
glasses on.

Steve:
I would like to agree. Pirsig shoulod have been careful to make that
distinction, but unfortunately that is not what Pirsig says. Pirsig
says that when the people who "still have their glasses on" hear the
statements of the one who has taken off his glasses, the ones who
"still" have their glasses on "regard his statements as somewhat
weird."

Our disagreement is not at all about what we wish he had said. It is
about the consequences of what he _did_ say. I see him as having
slipped up here. You, it would seem, would prefer to look the other
way. Fine. Whatever. What is important is that we agree on what he
should have said if we are to read him as having dropped the
appearance-reality problem.

Best,
Steve
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