tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post7541867545197364277..comments2023-07-04T03:53:40.171-07:00Comments on Matt Kundert's Friday Experiment: Work and Idleness in the American RomanticsMatt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05304261355315746372noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-24415783522243011962013-07-08T22:40:28.974-07:002013-07-08T22:40:28.974-07:00Pirsig's "high country" does have a ...Pirsig's "high country" does have a Platonic taste to it, which is what I think you sense. The idea of spiritual ascent is an elitism codified in intellectual terms in Plato's divided line, which also divided the "classes" (bronze, silver, gold) in Plato's republic. However, I think thinking of the high country as a "different dimension" risks the Platonism as well, for the question might be, "well, how do you access this completely different dimension?" That's why Plato had an answer ready: "dialectic." And you remember what Pirsig called Plato's dialectic--the usurper, the parvenu.<br /><br />I think what Pirsig has in mind is something more practically oriented in applying the idea of ascent in that metaphor. If philosophy is at root about <i>living</i>, then what philosophers do with abstract concepts is not radically different than what we do everyday. But it is different. So, on the metaphor, the more abstract we get, the more ground of life we might be able to survey, but you can't live up there--the air is thin and it's hard to breathe. Life becomes emaciated. There are those who wish to dissever themselves from life, alienated hermits. Sometimes its from misanthropy, but the impulse I think is at root ascetic. And for Pirsig, though he understood the impulse to isolation intimately, he wanted to promote the idea that the only reason to ascend the mountain was to bring wisdom back down the mountain. Matt Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05304261355315746372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-91047570566144603622013-07-03T21:08:25.744-07:002013-07-03T21:08:25.744-07:00I've pretty much "traded in tomorrow for ...I've pretty much "traded in tomorrow for today". KK<br />I think those preconditions of leisure are obvious enough, but I am thinking it's more like Pirsig's fishing analogy. If one doesn't take the time to decompress and do a little coasting I think they miss opportunities for new energies to enter... I've got another amateurish question about one of Pirsig's ideas. He refers to philosophic thought as being the "high country". I like the idea, but wonder if that structural hierarchy doesn't some how conflict with his overall seemingly disdain for duality. (if I even understand what that means). For me, I see philosophical thought as a different dimension of consciousness. That's getting pretty picky on my part, but it was one of those thoughts that popped in while my mind was on idle. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-82516270651589461242013-06-26T12:02:37.293-07:002013-06-26T12:02:37.293-07:00That's nice: "don't just do something...That's nice: "don't just do something, sit there." I have trouble with that. I don't like to be idle. I never got meditation. Part of what interests me about Robert Pirsig is his ability to get a form of spiritual exercise that I have no capacity for (that I know of). One of the things I didn't discuss a lot in the above is the preconditions of leisure. Emerson had his stipend; Thoreau, as I understand it, had his sister or aunt bring him meals on Walden Lake; Hawthorne had cushy jobs provided by well-placed friends (first and foremost, President Peirce); Emerson, Hawthorne, and Melville all had wives. I myself feel anxious when I'm not doing something, usually reading, because of professional pressure--it's hard work to try and be an academic. I like to think that the idea is that if I kill myself now, I'll get bigger bonuses of leisure later. But, who knows? Many a romantic has disparaged the very idea of deferral, "seize the day!" and all that. Matt Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05304261355315746372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-32912059666608984722013-06-23T10:57:07.577-07:002013-06-23T10:57:07.577-07:00After reading your piece, I emailed a friend of mi...After reading your piece, I emailed a friend of mine stating... "As I idly rambled down to the lake it occurred to me that all I really wanted was to have (graceful thoughts)" He is a poet and our local Thoreau. He responded with a Zen saying..."Don't just do something, sit there."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com