Hi Marco:
> It's funny that you think I'm defending something like a European Socialism.
> Maybe you have not seen that we are on another thread, right now. ICBW, but I
> thought I was defending the MOQ. You quote against me the 24th chapter, and you
> say that I'm talking about a "soup of sentiments"... not at all, I was having
> in my mind just that chapter. I don't need to quote something else. I was having
> in my mind the same human rights RMP talks about.... the human rights he puts
> clearly in the Intellect/Society struggle. I was simply adherent to the subject
> of this thread: intellect over society is a thread about human rights.
>
> I'm trying to understand what's wrong. We both are using the same words each
> against the other...
What I see as the basis for our disagreement is our differeing interpretations
of what Pirsig means by human rights. You seem to interpret his view
of human rights to include the right to a free lunch. I interpret his view of
human rights to free association, freedom of expression, freedom of
speech, etc. In the quotation from Lila that we're both using, I see no
mention of a right for one person to claim a portion of the productive
work of another. Do you?
> Eureka! You seem to say that the market is not a social pattern! You say it is
> immoral for a government to control an intellectual expression. I say that ALSO
> for the market it is immoral. But you even don't see the market. You seem to
> hold the idea that the market is freedom itself. That every rule about the
> market is immoral. Is it so?
You agree that it is immoral for government to control the market?
Eureka! At last we're on the same page. The only rule that holds in a
free market, whether a market of goods or of ideas, is freedom from
government interference. That's the definition of "free market."
> Everything gets more clear. That's why you take money as the only parameter.
> Actually, I say "equal opportunities" and you read "equal salary"; I say
> "colonialism" and you read that I suggest that the natives should appropriate
> the property of another. I say it is a sort of MOQ blasphemy to state that
> money can measure art, and you don't answer.
When we're speaking of markets--the buying and selling of goods and
services--I know of no other medium of exhange besides money that
preserves dynamic freedom. What's the alternative? A government
bureaucrat determining that the food I've worked hard to put on my
table belongs to somebody else? I don't know where in the MOQ you
find the basis for distributing the products of intellect and labor by
government edict. As I've asked before, how to you propose to provide
"equal opportunity" by means other than force? Do you think it's
possible to persuade the masses to become Christian monks and
nuns?
As for the value of art, I value a crayon painting by my grandchild as
priceless. But you wouldn't give me a Europenny for it. So the market
value of that particular piece of art is zero. Money measures the market
value of an artwork, not its value to you or me personally. If you ask me
what's the value of painting by Jasper Johns, I would say two cents
whereas in the market his paintings are worth millions. But by what
right do I have to impose my art valuations on others through some tax-
supported government art council? None that I can find in the MOQ.
Do you think the MOQ decrees that government should support the
work of some artists and not others?
>
> And that's why you go on blaming me of communism, when I spend my words for the
> defense of the individual from the strong market influence. You don't see the
> need of any defense. Religious fervor.... Siberia, European socialism: you go
> on putting into my mouth things I've never mentioned.
>
> Is it so, Platt? Isn't market a social pattern in your MOQ? Is the market
> freedom itself? Is any weak criticism to the market a terrific sign of
> Stalinism?
Yes, the market is a social pattern, dynamically influenced as Pirsig
says by "fame and fortune." And yes, any interference by the state in a
free market presents a potential danger to freedom and dynamism.
Every government incursion into the private sector is done in the name
of the "public good" including Hitlerism and Stalinism. We should
never forgot in this discussion of intellect over society that the Nazis
and the Marxists were intelligent. Pirisg's whole point is that intellect
based on a subject-object metaphysics where values are considered
irrational and subjective is ill-equipped to control society. I agree.
> Tombola!
Sounds great. But, what's the English translation? Would it be OK to
say, "Tombola to you, too?"
Platt
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