Hi 3wd:
You wrote:
Would suggest you read (or re-read) Wilbur's chapter "The Great
PostModern Revolution" in a "Brief History of Everything" for the single,
yet most profound, insight that both Pirsig and the Post Modernists
have in common. In fact I'll wager that history will judge Pirsig's two
"novels" as some of the greatest postmodernist literature ever. I'm
equally sure that even though Platt, for instance, may not like or buy this
interpretation he'll not see fit to call me or Pirsig an ignorant liar or
plagarist because he does not agree with, or understand, this PoV.
Excuse me. When did I call anyone a liar or plagiarist? Didn’t you mean
to say Kevin instead of Platt? Furthermore, lest anyone get the idea that
Wilber and I don’t agree, check out the following verbatim text from “A
Brief History of Everything” in which Wilber makes no bones about his
problem with extreme postmodernists who comprise, as I’ve said, a
“major movement in American Universities.”
>From Chapter 4, “A Brief History of Everything” by Ken Wilber,
Shambhala Publications, 1996 (CAPS ADDED in several places for
emphasis.):
“Faced with the discovery of ‘not pregiven,’ a theorist can then take one
of two routes through this new and confusing postmodern landscape
where nothing is foundational.
“The first, and PROBABLY MOST COMMON. is to go the route of
extreme constructivism—which is the strong version of ‘not pregiven.’
That is, because worldviews are not pregiven, you can claim that they
are all arbitrary. They are simply ‘constructed’ by cultures based on
nothing much more substantial than shifting tastes.
“So we have all these books with titles like the social construction of
sex, the social construction of food, the social construction of labor, the
social construction of clothing, and so on. I keep expecting to see
something like the social construction of the large intestine.
“Everything is ‘socially constructed’—this is the mantra of the extremist
wing of postmodernism. They think that different cultural worldviews
are entirely arbitrary, anchored in nothing but power or prejudice or
some ‘ism’ or another—sexism, racism, speciesism, phallocentrism,
capitalism, logocentrism, or my favorite, phallologocentrism. Wow.
Does that puppy come with batteries or what?
(portion omitted)
“Question: Isn’t Foucault often associated with this extreme
constructivism.
“Ken W: Yes, he started down this road, only to find that it is a dead end.
“Question: In what way?
“Ken W: If the constructivist stance is taken too far, it defeats itself. It
says all worldviews are arbitrary, all truth is relative and merely culture-
bound, THERE ARE NO UNIVERSAL TRUTHS. But that stance itself
claims to be universally true. It is claiming everybody’s truth is relative
except mine, because mine is absolutely and universally true. I alone
have the universal truth and all you poor schmucks are relative and
culture-bound.
“This is the massive contradiction hidden in all extreme multicultural
postmodern movements. And their absolute truth ends up being very
ideological, very power-hungry, very elitist in the worst sense.
“This extreme constructivism is really just a postmodern form of
nihilism; there is no truth in the Kosmos, only those notions that men
force on others. This nihilism looks into the face of the Kosmos and
sees and unending hall of mirrors, which finally show it nothing but its
own egoic narcissism: Truth is ignored and replaced with the ego of
the theorist. THIS IS A MAJOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN
UNIVESITIES. (End of quote)
That we are evolving to higher, more encompassing, more
transcendental worldviews as Wilber predicts and Pirsig implies I have
no doubt. If that be postmodernism, fine. Under that definition, Pirsig’s
books are indeed postmodernist literature as you claim. I also believe
as you do that history will judge his writings to be great. But the
postmodernism that is a “major movement” as described above is the
one I find absurd and potentially dangerous because it morally
disarms those who don’t see the idiocy that Wilber and others rightfully
expose.
Platt
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