dmb said to Harding:
Since the archives are loaded with posts wherein Marsha fails to distinguish
the cure from the disease, David, getting you to agree that she's making this
mistake isn't exactly a grand victory. But it's a good start.
Harding replied:
A start?!? How many times do I have to say something to you till you notice
that I'm actually agreeing with you? I've been saying much the same thing
since April..
dmb says:
Right. You've been saying so for a while. I didn't mean to say that it was your
first time but rather that saying so is just the starting point. I meant to
suggest that you're not quite seeing what this mistake means, not seeing the
consequences and implications. So I tried to show how that one mistake
(intellect=SOM) appears in all her other mistakes. Put another way, all of her
mistakes are just various permutations of that bogus equation. As Arlo pointed
out, one variation of this mistake barely alters the bogus equation:
intellect=reification. You can go through the whole litany of errors like that.
dmb said previously:
I don't know if we can ever get to the "root cause" but I also don't see why we
need to. Even further, your way of framing the issue gives her way too much
credit and let's her off the hook, as if her mistake isn't really a mistake but
just a difference in values.
Harding replied:
My goodness. *ANY* disagreement is going to be about values. Point to me
something that isn't a value! Because everything is about values what Marsha
values isn't some unimportant uninteresting thing. It's the whole thing! You
say so much that I agree with dmb and then you make a statement like this which
just boggles.
dmb says:
Any disagreement will be about values because everything is about values. Well,
I'm glad you put it that way because that's one of the main reasons why I think
your framing is so unhelpful. Yes, according to the MOQ, reality is composed of
nothing but values. But we are talking about something specific. We're not just
talking about static intellectual values in particular but even more
specifically about the specific ideas about thought and rationality - as
they're found in Pirsig's books. We're not here to second guess the motives for
anyone professed beliefs but to talk about ideas, to give reasons and evidence
for reaching conclusions. Other kinds of values are among those reasons, of
course, but the only honest and reasonable way to deal with disagreements is to
exchange reasons and evidence in some intelligible manner. As every Monty
Python fan knows, argument and mere contradiction are two different things.
Similarly, understanding and mere parroting of the words are tw
o different things.
AND, David, your framing also sort of buys into her mistake. She misconstrues
the relations between the static and the Dynamic as an opposition, as almost
mutually exclusive, so that one can "value" one over the other. No, that's just
another way her key mistake shows up. In the MOQ, properly understood,
intellect is already within and subordinate to DQ and DQ is the value-force
that selects clarity and precision over incoherent drivel. They are supposed to
be partners in the MOQ's cured intellect. That's what Marsha cannot discern and
your framing suggest that you can't either. To "value" DQ all by itself, to the
exclusion of static values, is to cling to chaos. That's what she "values",
David: chaos. She confuses it with freedom. At least the hippies knew how to
have fun with their chaos.
Harding said to dmb:
...It's as if she has Dynamic Quality viewing glasses on and refuses to take
them off even when faced with nothing but static quality. For a start that's
why she insists that static quality patterns are 'ever-changing'....
dmb says:
That's the kind of comment that makes me think you're giving her too much
credit and letting her off the hook.
Firstly, glasses like ones in Pirsig's analogy are always static. Always. As
far as the analogy goes, DQ is what you'd get if you took the glasses off.
There is no such thing as DQ glasses. The concept is contradictory and quite
impossible.
Even further, this little bit of nonsense is supposed to explain Marsha's
description of static patterns as ever-changing. That just let's her believe
that contradictory nonsense is somehow an expression of value differences. Why
is it so difficult to accept the idea that somebody can just be wrong or that
somebody can just misunderstand something? Happens billions of times every day.
If somebody says 2 + 2 = 5, why can we just say they're wrong? Why try to
psychoanalyze the situation? Human error is as common as the rain. Par for the
course. But tenacious incorrigibility is a kind of affliction. It ain't good.
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