djh said to dmb:
...Anyway - I'll also speak to your specific charge that I seem to claim that
it's 'always wrong to skillfully manipulate abstract concepts or define any
words.' Of course I don't think it's always wrong for, as you seem to agree,
the conclusion would be that there's no point in joining an intellectual
discussion board if you think it's always wrong. But what I am claiming is
that while it's not always wrong it is always ultimately degenerate. Can you
see the difference between those two things?
dmb says:
You're still missing the point. Your statements have grown increasingly
bizarre, David, and now you've really gone off the deep end. Intellectual
discussion "is always ultimately degenerate" but "it's not always wrong"? So
sometimes degeneracy is good? This claim is so obviously wrong and foolish that
it doesn't even deserve to be disputed.
degenerateadjective |diˈjenərit|1 having lost the physical, mental, or moral
qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline : a
degenerate form of a higher civilization. See note at depraved .
noun |diˈjenərit|an immoral or corrupt person.
verb |diˈjenəˌrāt| [ intrans. ]decline or deteriorate physically, mentally, or
morally : the quality of life had degenerated | the debate degenerated into a
brawl.
My computer's thesaurus says the other adjectives for "degenerate" are
"debased, degraded, corrupt, impure, corrupt, decadent, dissolute, dissipated,
debauched, reprobate, profligate; sinful, ungodly, immoral, unprincipled,
amoral, dishonorable, disreputable, unsavory, sordid, low, ignoble" and opposes
it to the terms "pure" and "moral". As a noun, "degenerate" can be used in
place of words like "reprobate, debauchee, profligate, libertine" and as a verb
can be equated with "deteriorate, decline, slip, slide, worsen, lapse, slump,
go downhill, regress, retrogress; go to rack and ruin; informal go to pot, go
to the dogs, hit the skids, go into/down the toilet, waste (away), atrophy,
weaken" and the opposite term is simply "improve".
The point in using an ordinary dictionary, in case you're wondering, is to show
that your claim is absurd, to put it politely. You are misusing the term so
badly that your claim can be defeated by simply quoting the dictionary. But
what really kills me is the way you keep missing the point of Pirsig's
prohibition. You are very badly misconstruing Pirsig's point to mean that
intellectual discussion is "always ultimately degenerate". I've been trying to
explain why that is wrong but, apparently, you just cannot grasp this point.
It's very frustrating and my patience has been tested to it's limit.
Let me try one more time. If you STILL can't see what I'm saying, then I'm just
going to have to conclude that you're just not up to the task. (And that
talking to you is a huge waste of time.)
As I've already pointed out many times the degeneracy in question is degenerate
BECAUSE intellect is lower on the moral hierarchy than is the mystic reality.
Right there, David. That's the point you're NOT getting. It is immoral to
define DQ (the mystic reality) because definitions are static and intellectual.
The positivists also rejected metaphysics but for completely different reasons.
The MOQ is a form of philosophical mysticism, with DQ being undefinable mystic
reality. The degeneracy in question is based on the mystics' objection to
metaphysics.
"Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality
metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is
NAMES about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a
thirty-thousand page menu and no food." (LILA 63)
(That analogy is from William James, by the way. "One real pea is better food,"
James says, "than all the menus in the world.")
"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics... They
share a common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside of
language; that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of
reality is undivided." (LILA 63)
"Mystics will tell you that once you've opened the door to metaphysics you can
say good-bye to any genuine understanding of reality. Thought is not a path to
reality. It sets obstacles in that path because when you try to use thought to
approach something that is prior to thought your thinking does not carry you
toward that something. It carries you AWAY from it. To define something is to
subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual relationships. And when you do that
you destroy real understanding. The central reality of mysticism, the reality
that Phaedrus had called "Quality" is his first book, is not a metaphysical
chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without
definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of
and prior to intellectual abstractions. Quality is indivisible, undefinable and
unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics
can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and
knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics." (LILA 64)
Basically, the distinction here is between reality and words, between actual
food and the menu. The degeneracy in question depends on this distinction
between thought and reality as it's experienced directly. As Pirsig and James
will say a couple of dozen chapters later, "there must always be a discrepancy
between concept and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous
while the latter is dynamic and flowing". (LILA 365) And Pirsig repeats this
same idea again in Lila's Child.
"The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be separated from the
Dynamic Quality it talks about. Like the rest of the printed philosophic
tradition it doesn't change from day to day, although the world it talks about
does. ...The static language of the Metaphysics of Quality will never capture
the Dynamic reality of the world but some fingers point better than others and
as the world changes, old pointers and road maps tend to lose their value."
All of these quotes and comments are presented to make just one point, the
point you're NOT getting. You see it yet?The menu is not the food, the map is
not the road, and words are not reality. Unless one is an extremely stupid
person, this distinction should be quite clear by now. I mean, what kind of
idiot thinks it's good idea to eat menus? What kind of person thinks that we
can drive our cars across a map? Only a very confused person could make that
mistake, don't you think? And avoiding the degeneracy in question depends on
understanding the proper relationship between thought and reality. In the MOQ,
of course, all static patterns (including the intellectual level of static
patterns) are subordinate to DQ. Degeneracy is a failure to properly
acknowledge this hierarchical relationship. Degeneracy would be predicated on
the belief that thought CAN bring you closer to reality, that the map is just a
real as the road or that reading the menu is a good substitute for an actual
meal.
It's one thing to say that "one real pea is better food than all the menus in
the world" but quite another to say that menus are evil. The point is to
elevate reality (DQ) above thought (sq), not to trash thought as such. The
point is to subordinate intellect to DQ in the MOQ's moral hierarchy. But your
failure consists in mis using this distinction to misconstrue any intellectual
discussions of anything as always inherently degenerate.
If you want to eat real food, drive on actual roads or see the actual moon,
then philosophical discussions will not give you what you want. But who thinks
they can? Not me. I'm not even talking about the mystic reality. I'm talking
about the MOQ, which "is static and should be separated from the DQ it talks
about." It is quite alright to discuss Pirsig's thought so long as we know that
"the static language of the MOQ will never capture the Dynamic reality of the
world."
It's not degenerate to examine the menu, to compare Pirsig's map to other maps
because that is NOT a case of trying to "capture the Dynamic reality of the
world". It is just only a matter of thinking about thoughts, of talking about
words, of conceptualizing concepts! This is just a matter of intellectually
dealing with intellectual static patterns. This does NOT constitute the
subordination of anything higher than intellectual static patterns. The MOQ
itself is static and intellectual. That's what we are here to talk about, not
the mystic reality as such.
It is not immoral to talk about words and ideas or otherwise discuss Pirsig's
writings. If one thinks otherwise, one should get the hell out of here.
Seriously. Such a person should not leave because disagree with Pirsig or
disloyalty to the dogma - or whatever - but simply because of a fundamental
incompetence. Such a person has no business being anywhere near a philosophy
discussion. I suspect such a dummy would make for a very lousy mystic too.
Being a mystic and being anti-intellectual are two completely different things,
about as different as Buddha and Hitler.
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