[Ian]
The real question seems to be: is this discussion group a culture of its own?
[Arlo]
"Cultures" (in this sense) are the normative, shared expectations that provide
cohesion and structure, while allowing growth ("chaos" is not fertile soil).
Like all activity systems, this (and all) discussion forums (I'd say "discourse
community") are shaped by 'rules', 'media/tools', and 'division of
labor/expertise', and of course into this people bring their own "culture of
use", histories and goals. I'd add that all although these activity systems can
be bounded, like any other analysis (think the various ways of dividing the
motorcycle in ZMM) its more descriptive than prescriptive.
[Ian]
But the core culture is of course schizophernic / split-personality between ZMM
and Lila. (And Paul gave us a "two views" perspective on this.)
[Arlo]
This is entirely NOT what Paul gave us. His "two views" (epistemologic and
ontologic) are not meant to endorse any "schizophrenic/split personality"
between ZMM and LILA. Indeed, I read it as quite the opposite. Paul concludes
his paper saying "It is my view that, with the two contexts combined as phases
within its overall development, the MOQ enacts a major expansion and evolution
of the modern Western mythos." (Turner) If you think his "two views" supports a
"core culture" being "of course schizophrenic", I think you're way off target.
[Ian]
Those on the philosophical academe agenda, the Lila half, clearly seem intent
on subsuming whatever qualities MoQ has (had) into some objective
subject-object dialectic.
[Arlo]
Pairing "philosophical academe" (as an "agenda") with "objective subject-object
dialectic" is demonstrating a gross misunderstanding of not just Pirsig's
expanded intellectual level, and of philosophy in general (and "objective
subject-object dialectic" is a ridiculously meaningless lexical string). On the
contrary, I think scholars like Ant, DMB, Dan, David Granger, etc. far from
"subsuming whatever qualities [Pirsig's] MoQ has", are creating an expansive,
intellectual platform that enriches not just the Academy, but all interested in
Pirsig's ideas. And, I'd add it is those who seem to suggest that Pirsig's
ideas are nothing but destructive (aggressively destructive, even) to intellect
and reason that are not only 'subsuming' but trapping his ideas (I'm picturing
Dante's frozen lake of Cocytus here) in a perpetual anti-intellectual 'agenda'.
Intellectual quality is not writing posts in broken sentences, randomly
combining words, and raging against artificial boogeymen (such as the dreaded
university). And while intellectual quality is not the end all of human
endeavor, we should approach it the same way we approach painting, or fixing a
motorcycle. I see this in everything the above scholars write.
[Ian]
What I can't accept is this agenda subsuming the whole art & rhetroic of zen
and the art of MD, which only flourishes without the overly objective shackles.
[Arlo]
Well, as I've said before, this forum is one of many expressive/creative "zen"
outlets for our activity. No one, I suspect, gets their entire dose of "art &
rhetoric" from this forum alone. All activity systems have shared/negotiated
structures (to call them "objective shackles" only reveals a serious
misunderstanding of community), and these structures are as much enabling as
they are necessarily constraining. Indeed, as Archer, Giddens, Bourdieu and
others have argued, 'structure' (or habitus) enables BY constraining, these are
inseparablely symbiotic. And while, of course, structure is always in a state
of negotiation, it is not just foolish but a great blunder to think that it is
nothing more than 'shackles'.
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