Ant McWatt "commented" on Mark's thoughtful opinion: > > That's all sort of Ok in it's usual phoney kind of way especially as it shows > (unwittingly) that GOOD rhetoric probably always needs SOME substance to it. > You've got to remember that writers such as Hemingway - or Pirsig for that > matter - really believed in Artistic truth. Moreover, there's very little, > or any, unnecessary ornamentation in their writing. This is analogous to > Taoist art where only enough line is given on the page to suggest a tree or a > rock (or whatever it may be). Keep in mind if you're writing rhetoric for > other reasons (usually egotistical) emulation is unlikely to convince; > certainly not to a careful reader anyway! > > Practice (as long as you can count to four) makes perfect as they say, > > Ant > > > P.s. In other words, short version, what Marks says on this Discussion Board > (as regards the MOQ at least) is, of course, usually a load of bull but one > day, he might get round to writing a half decent poem! > > Mark comments to those of rational mind:
As usual Ant resorts to nihilistic rhetoric without providing any "substance" to his allegations. At least he does not degenerate into politics this time, so there may be some improvement (one can only hope). Interesting that he points to substance since I have yet to see something of substance coming from his pen. In fact, this post, presented with the aim of character assassination, appears rather infantile, and I consider it to be just be another one of his attempts at "ownership" of MoQ. What arrogance, I say. Perhaps there was a time when Ant tried to build on the MoQ that Pirsig began, but usually all I see is a rehashing of the words that Pirsig uses. This is fine for somebody writing an essay in secondary school, but is certainly not appropriate for an academic philosopher. Perhaps he will surprise me one day with something creative that actually breaks some ground in the MoQ stucture. Again, one can only hope that his education will bear some fruit at some point, but this nonsense that he posts is about as far from Quality as one can get. He is quite correct in presenting "artistic truth", however he does not seem to understand what such truth encompasses. Such truth is one of Quality, pure and simple (something lacking from his trivial posts lately). If he can actually grasp what this means, he may be able to start contributing to MoQ in a significant way. As it is, all writing is ornamentation, since it is descriptive. If Ant believes that "bare bones" writing is somehow above rhetoric, then he has fallen into the typical Western trap of Truth. Once he realizes that plausibility trumps truth any day, he can get down to the task of trying to convince us of something. I am sure he knows that Taoist Art is suggestive, and that there are many translations of the Tao te Ching and indeed there is a body of Taoist writings mainly from the Golden years of Ch'an which was an application of Tao to Buddhism which later became Zen. This happened towards the end of the first millennia. Perhaps he is not up to speed on Taoism. He may not know that Lao Tzu was very suspicious of the written word, and rightly so since there will always be those like Ant who will create dogma out of words. He may find it interesting that Buddha, Socrates, Christ, and many others did not write anything down. Pirsig's writing is also suggestive, and was never meant to be dogmatic. This is easy to apprehend from the tone of his "inquiry". Ant appears to have taken the writings of Pirsig to a new level, one in which he is king. If indeed, Ant is the disciple of Pirsig, he is on his way to do as much harm to MoQ as the Church did to what Christ tried to start. Fortunately he is not eloquent enough to be such a disciple, and other more adept at the task will move MoQ along. Do you know how many students have written thesis on Hegel (for example). Only a few of these are good, but they get better as more write about him. MoQ moves towards better expression since that is the standard by which it operates. Ant's fame is short-lived, mainly because he does not have the aptitude to listen and evolve. If Ant is not egotistical, then I really do not know the meaning of the word. All I hear from him is how wrong everybody else is, and how right he is. (Please, Ant, this is getting old.) How about a philosophical discussion, rather than some tutorial on your MoQ? I really do not believe he knows what Quality is, and why there is a metaphysics created around it. Rather than discuss what others are presenting, he pretends to speak from a lectern on the "True MoQ", yet he never says anything. The post referenced above being one example. I am not sure who he thinks he is speaking to in his posts, but it seems that he has an applause going on in his head and that he is a leader of some kind. This is pure egotistic delusion. Perhaps he will someday present a novel manner in which to present Quality, but first he must become aware of Quality. Once cannot discuss Quality as if it some interesting idea, just like one cannot speak of beauty as if it were an interesting idea. Ant, I suggest you immerse yourself in Quality before you talk about it. At least then you can speak from your own mind and not keep hiding under the skirt of Pirsig. Think you can take a break and do that? Of course, if you have some specific topic of mine which you wish rebut, I will welcome that. I can always learn. Cheers, Mark. Administrator of Quality. > > > > > > > > > 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
