[Mark] DMB has completely objectified what MoQ teaches. [Arlo] You mean what Pirsig teaches? The MOQ is Pirsig's teachings. If anything, I suppose, you could condemn Pirsig for 'objectifying' Quality into authoring his metaphysics, but he himself responds to that charge in LILA.
What we are here to do is to gain precision and clarity, to better understand what it is that Pirsig had said. At that point, you can agree, or you can disagree, but this is not 'objectification' (unless you're also stuck in the SOLAQI rut). [Mark] He has classified everything in Aristotelian fashion. This is exactly what MoQ is against. [Arlo] The Buddha rests just as comfortably in intellectual patterns as it does in social, biological and inorganic patterns. What DMB is pursuing, and I commend him for his patience, is excellence in this intellectual endeavor. He is pursuing what someone here referred to as 'spirationality' (spirirationality?). Pirsig is hardly against clarity and precision in thought, and I could not imagine him agreeing that his ideas are someone against 'intellect' (in fact, he does not). And, to be accurate, it is Pirsig who has proposed the particular 'classification' schema we are here to discuss (DQ/SQ[IBSI]). [Mark] However, the Western academic approach is exactly what Phaedrus was fighting against. [Arlo] Pirsig has called for a root expansion of what 'reason' entails. Certainly, he condemned not just the 'Western academic approach', but the entire Western culture (which includes social, economic, political and scientific practices). You are (small wonder) using his condemnation of an SOM-infected Western culture to single out and attack academia. But the idea, of course, is to expand our understanding of and within these practices, to reform them to be sure, but not hold them in perpetual villainy. To do so is to miss the problem entirely. In fact, Pirsig's endeavors have included the efforts to 'get into' the Academy. Obviously, he himself values those efforts. He has worked with both Ant and DMB to bring clarity and elaboration to his writings and ideas. Of course, no one, let alone Pirsig, has argued that the intellectual efforts of the academy are all there is. Pirsig sails. I'm sure Ant and DMB both also pursue Quality in 'non-intellecutal', 'non-academic' endeavors. I (try to) play guitar (much more before the accident). [Mark] This is a metaphysics OF Quality, not a metaphysics of SQ. ... What happened to DQ? [Arlo] This is problematic rhetoric. It would make sense to say this is a "SQ of DQ", that's what a metaphysics is, SQ. DQ, analogously, brings the excellence and value to constructing these intellectual patterns as elegantly, clearly, precisely and artfully as possible. [Mark] Lila was not meant to be a treatise on politics or society. [Arlo] On the contrary, that is precisely what is was meant to be, and IS. "Quality" is not some abstract entity 'out there', it IS politics and society and economics and science and entertainment and religion and culture and customs, it is ALL these things. What LILA does is place these things in a hierarchical level, so that some patterns have a moral superiority to others, and that endeavor absolutely informs society and economics and politics and entertainment and religion and culture and customs. You simply cannot separate the metaphysics from the lived, actual experience and practices of a people. It applies to them, and that is exactly what Pirsig was doing, even if his assessment annoys your right-wing proclivities. I mean, its a bit absurd (but no surprise) that just above you use LILA as a treatise on 'the academy'. You use it to condemn the 'Western academic approach' but someone think the 'Western political approach' is not part of the same metaphysical umbrella. It is. [Mark] Best regards and I look forward to a coherent argument. [Arlo] I doubt it. But here's hope you prove me wrong. [Mark] Mark, another wolf. [Arlo] Maybe a hyena. 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
