David H said:
I think above all else Marsha values DQ. DQ is also outside of intellectual
value and logic.
Arlo replied:
I think this is generous, but wrong. For two main reasons. First, "dynamic
quality" is the source of intellectual quality. It is not an "either/or"
option, it is not "intellectual quality OR dynamic quality",... Being coherent
is not in opposition to DQ, any more than being harmonious is something
musicians should deliberately avoid just because its 'a static pattern'.
Second, there a hundreds of more "DQish" forums around the internet, from Zen
lists to lists about poetry and art... As I said, Marsha is here for social
quality, and I include under that umbrella the psycho-egotistical roleplay that
she gets out of 'being Lila'. I've already mentioned the baiting and evidence
of attention seeking in the increased frequency of "I define..." posts. Do you
think that is following Dynamic Quality? If she genuinely was pursuing "DQ"
this forum wouldn't even make its way into her awareness,.. To join a
philosophy forum to tell everyone that philosophy is pedantic is rather
arrogant and, from the MOQ's perspective, stuck in an SOM view of intellectual
quality.
dmb says:
You know what's funny about Marsha's anti-intellectualism? It's based on her
misunderstanding of the MOQ's central distinction, based on her inability to
see the difference between concepts and reality, between static quality and
Dynamic Quality. She confuses and conflates the two in various ways, with the
contradictory description of static patterns as "ever-changing" being an
often-repeated example. Because DQ cannot be defined, she incompetently
figures, definitions can't be defined either. If it's immoral to lower DQ down
to the static intellectual level, she badly reasons, then talking
intellectually about intellectual patterns must be immoral too. Each of her
anti-intellectual assertions is predicated on this same basic confusion. If you
can discern the pattern here, you can see this error proliferate like a cancer
through the whole body of the MOQ. It's a tremendously bad idea. It undermines
the MOQ in exactly the same way as Bo's equation (SOM=intellect), only more so
because of her treatment of DQ as something opposed to intellect, rather than
integrated.
What Marsha doesn't get is that "Quality is indivisible, undefinable and
unknowable," as Pirsig says, but "metaphysics must be divisible, definable and
knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics". Quality is reality but metaphysics
is just a bunch of static concepts. Marsha uses the fact that "Quality is
essentially outside definition" to assert that are static concepts are also
outside of definition, which is a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity
because definitions are concepts and concepts are really concepts unless you
can define them. Somehow Marsha thinks that a philosophical discussion about a
philosophical writings is equivalent to defining the undefinable, is the same
as talking about "the scientific nature of mystic understanding" or like trying
to define the mystic reality itself.
Since "the creation of any metaphysics is an immoral act since it's a lower
form of evolution, intellect, trying to devour a higher mystic one," she badly
reasons, it's also wrong when philosophers gather to discuss philosophy. Since
metaphysics is immoral "when it tries to devour the world intellectually," her
hair-brained reasoning goes, amateur philosophers are immoral in their attempts
to capture the intellectual quality within a set of static patterns too. In
short, she treats the prohibitions against defining Dynamic Quality (reality)
as if they applied to static quality as well. The absurd conclusion is that it
is immoral to define concepts. The ridiculous conclusion is that definitions
cannot be defined and it is degenerate to try.
Arlo said to David H:
... Compare the 'rhetoric' between Marsha and DMB. DMB attacks incoherence
(whether or not you agree with his manners), whereas Marsha attacks philosophy
itself. DMB attacks contradictions, Marsha attacks DMB for talking about James
or pragmatism or, basically, for what she miscontrues as 'philosophology'. DMB
is trying to strengthen the intellectual level, Marsha is trying to destroy the
intellectual level. When you look beyond their heated choices of words, that is
the pattern that comes out time and time again.
dmb says:
Exactly. And that rhetorical dance is directly related to Marsha's perception
of criticism as bullying or as academic elitism and my perception of her
anti-intellectualism as a bogus and irresponsible evasion tactic. Even further,
I think it's no accident that Marsha's apathy and hostility toward intellectual
values is in direct proportion to her intellectual incompetence. This stance
would be much less hypocritical and absurd, as we both keep saying, except that
Pirsig did write his metaphysics (without defining the undefinable) and she
takes this stance in a philosophical discussion group. She has joined a club
only to insult and denigrate its reason for being. Other than the quotes she
posts (but does not understand), her contributions have no intellectual merit
and almost always distract from the posts that do offer something worthy. I
think she's deeply in the red.
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