John insists that Pirsig isn't accounting for something in his explanation?
John said to Ron:
... In a word "society". In Pirsig's metaphysics, intellect is on top of
society and distinct from it. I think this was the way Pirsig himself
experienced life, but that's not the general experience. Metaphysics deals in
universals, much more, generals. I think the MoQ is a slice out of a man's
life. ...
dmb says:
It's not that Pirsig fails to account for society but rather you don't like his
account because "intellect is on top". It seems that this disapproval is
another symptom of John's anti-intellectualism.
And what reason does John give for rejecting this account? It's just Pirsig's
experience, he says, not the general experience. There are so many problems
with this argument that it's hard to know where to begin. John has once again
exhibited an anti-intellectual attitude, humorously defined as "the belief that
my ignorant opinion is just as good as your expert knowledge". And, more
concretely and more importantly, by characterizing Pirsig's account of
"society" as mere personal opinion John has misconstrued the levels as
something other than a description of an evolving universe and as a series of
historical conflicts. That is to say, Pirsig's account is based on our common
history and the current mythos and not mere opinion. His account includes a
very large number of examples, any one of which can be found in a common
encyclopedia.
And this is John's standard operating procedure. He distorts and misconstrues
Pirsig's ideas and then criticizes Pirsig for his own distorted constructions.
When he's not doing that, he's offering improvements to the MOQ that are
already contained in the MOQ. Of course Pirsig's original version has the
advantage of being intelligible.
It's just an ordinary logical necessity. One MUST understand a thing before
one CAN criticize that thing. That's why John can't criticize the MOQ. He may
and he might someday but only if he understands it first. And he refuses to
believe that anyone could know better than he. That's why John's criticisms are
never worth addressing and why they probably never will be. Bet you ten bucks
he won't even deal with this logical necessity honestly or fairly. He'll likely
dismiss it as mere insult or mere opinion or otherwise evade the issue.
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