[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
ELEPHANT:
Isn't that one of the 'paradoxes' MOQ is supposed to clear up? Science
isn't searching for Absolute truth: it's just searching for a higher
quality
beleifs (truth as a variety of the good). It's a branch of technology -
just like motorcycle maintanence except bigger. Leave searching for
absolutes to the union of philosophers sages luminaries etc (the UPSLETC).
Hi Elephant and Platt,
Well, perhaps Pirsig's goal when creating the MOQ was to clear up everything
about everything with the exception of defining Quality. It's up to the
reader of LILA to understand it the way he intended it to be understood, and
he went to great lengths to make it understandable. Pirsig, as he indicates
in the afterward of the 10th anniversary edition of ZMM, isn't a purposely
ambiguous writer. He doesn't try to artfully hide his ideas in manicured
semantic hedge mazes. In fact, it's semantic shrubbery that Pirsig strives to
hack away in order to give us an unobstructed view of his ideas about
reality. Those dreaded "oceans of words" which drove him to the brink of
insanity.
IMO Pirsig uses writing (words) to put one hand on our shoulder and his other
hand to point. Whether or not you can see what he's pointing at depends on
the expansiveness or narrowness of your world-view. But he doesn't want you
to focus on that pointing finger (the words), he wants you to focus on the
view. To lift a quote from Elephant, "the cloudy beyond."
Just don't focus on the finger. There's nothing profound hidden beneath the
skin, and Pirsig has hidden nothing in his writing. Like the finger, you can
dissect it all you want, but you'll just end up covered in blood and ink.
You'll tear it apart and find no answers, like Struan found none. But the
answer wasn't in the finger, or in the words, but the *view* the finger was
pointing at (reality is all about the view--if you doubt me just think of
young Chris gazing over Phaedrus's shoulders at the beautiful conclusion of
ZMM). As master Bruce Lee said to his student in his final film: "Don't focus
on the finger or you'll miss all that heavenly glory!"
Science may not be the search for absolute truth, but many individual
scientists and the media sure give the average man on the street (the people
totally uninterested by philosophy) the impression that if there *is*
absolute truth, Science has got a better chance of finding it than anything
else.
But here's where the cold Objectivism I've harped on so many times comes into
play. Glenn and I have had many debates on this issues, and we always end up
going in circles. Glenn openly admires Objectivism, but he has also been
disillusioned by some of the beliefs held by the most prominent proponents of
the Objectivist movement (such as the advocacy of Marxism). Note: Glenn, if
I'm misrepresenting you here, speak up.
Let's face it. The average American isn't interested in philosophy. I think
this group may be proof of that. This is the only substantial site on the
Internet devoted to the works of Robert Pirsig (although Doug Renselles site
has unique and valuable Pirsig resources, there is no message board there).
Pirsig is the author of, to quote the intro to the 25th anniversary edition
of ZMM: "the most widely read philosophy book, ever." While that is probably
an exaggerated claim, there is no doubting that ZMM was a monumental
bestseller and has continued selling steadily, unabated since its initial
publication in 1974.
But spend a day grabbing the arm of average citizens on the street in any
major American City and ask them who wrote the most successful philosophy
book of the last 25 years, and I bet you'll end up holding a clipboard full
of questions marks. Now, take this poll into a popular bookselling chain,
such as Barnes and Nobel. Ask the same question. You'll still get a
discouraging number of question marks, but now you'll see some names written
down in the answer section as well. And my guess is, the name you'd see
listed the most would not be Robert Pirsig, but Ayn Rand. The other names
listed, depending on the state you happen to live in, would likely be L. Ron
Hubbard or the name of that guy who wrote that HUGE bestseller "The Celestine
Prophecy" a few years ago. I don't know if I'm right about these results, but
let's say they are accurate. Would this be disturbing, or just plain funny?
Platt openly dislikes the "postmodern" movement, but I don't think he's got
anything to worry about because the movement will never gain any kind of
widespread popularity. Most people don't even know what it means (those folks
I keep mentioning who have no interest whatsoever in philosophy---in other
words, most people). You walk up to the average joe on the assembly line in
Flint, Michigan and say "there's no such thing as Absolute Truth" and you'll
most likely receive a blank stare, or a bewildered "Huh..?"
And the term "postmodern" has been so overused that most people who know what
it means are just tired of seeing or hearing the word. I've never read a book
on or about the subject and I never intend to. The people Platt mentioned
I've never heard of before. They (the hard-core postmodernists) have no power
or influence. They are pissants at best, tiny crawling specks. As a young boy
squats down to stare at an antbed, occasional young intellectuals squat down
to see the crawling specks which represent the postmodern movement. The young
intellectual may squint, briefly fascinated by the strange movement of the
crawling specks, but as the young boy gets tired of staring at the antbed and
moves on, the young intellectual soon tires of the pissants of the postmodern
movement and moves on.
Cold Objectivism and Ayn Rand is another matter. Her books *do* influence
people, unlike the postmodern movement. Her most famous books, to my
knowledge, have never gone out of print. Books like "The Fountainhead" and
"Atlas Shrugged." Written back in the 30's and still in print. Still popular.
Check out the number of reviews for these books at Amazon.com. It's not the
drama or her storytelling ability that is the main power of her books, but
her ideas. Her philosophy. That's what grips the mind, and has kept these
books in print and popular for so long. And the disturbing thing is that the
philosophy she advocates is Objectivism. Cold hearted stuff. Look out for
number one. The sad thing is, she's a sophist, and it's people like her who
have given sophistry a bad name. She uses emotion as Plato did, to twist and
tangle the semantics in such a way as to trap one into agreeing with her. She
believes that it is Truth, not Good, which is the bedrock of reality. We all
know what Socrates and Plato and Aristotle accomplished. To quote Pirsig in
the closing chapters of ZMM, "Truth won. Good lost."
It still seems to be losing. Objectivists should be the sworn enemy of the
admirers of Robert Pirsig, or so it would seem to me. Why don't more people
speak up to bash Ayn Rand? Don't tell me it would be off-topic, because her
philosophy is directly relevant to the MOQ. She is representative of the
Object branch of SOM, which Pirsig has written about extensively. Who likes
her here, and who dislikes her? I'm legitimately curious, because as supposed
admirers of a man who has written so negatively of SOM, it seems like you
would all find Ayn Rand as cold hearted as I do. Am I the only one who feels
this way?
Platt, you have seen from previous recent posts that I agree with you about
the dangers of embracing irrationality, and I'm not a "postmodernist." You
and I both note the growing proliferation of immorality in our popular
culture and we're both (I assume) slightly disturbed by it. You seem to think
the leaders of the postmodern movement are the cause. I think the
cold-hearted Objectivism advocated by the works of Ayn Rand has had more of
an impact than all of the postmodernists put together. Can we find some
common ground?
BTW let me close by saying that I'd rather live in a nation full of apathetic
zombies content to drink beer and watch TV all day rather than wanting to die
in the name of some damn ideology. We I talk about "enemies" I'm talking
figuratively, not literally. I may reject Absolute Truth but I value
rationality, especially in debating or arguing about ideas. I love
rationality. I love Quality more.
Jon
