Gerhard:
> I was pretty certain that Pirsig criticised the flower generation because
> they tried to perform a revolution against both society and intellectuality,
> ending up with only dynamic qualities and biological values, and not with
> the intellectual ideas they had (or which they in fact did not have at all).
> Also, if I remember correctly, Pirsig mentioned that Anarchism, and not
> Marxism, was the most popular politic with the hippies. I'm too young to
> know myself, but so say the words ....
Yes, you have correctly reflected what Pirsig wrote. I gave a wrong
account of his views. At the time I was thinking of the passage in Chap.
24 where we said:
"Phaedrus remembered parties in the fifties and sixties full of liberal
intellectuals like himself who actually admired the criminal types who
showed up. 'Here we are,' they seemed to believe, 'drug pushers,
flower children, anarchists, civil rights workers, college professors--
we're all just comrades-in-arms against the cruel and corrupt social
system that is really the enemy of us all."
Pirsig overlooked the appeal to the hippies of the New Left as
espoused by Students for a Democratic Society led by Tom Hayden
who orchestrated the "demonstrations" at the 1968 Democratic
Convention. Pirsig did mention Hubert Humphrey's frustration, but
didn't put the blame where it belonged--on radical Marxists.
Thanks for correcting me and the record.
Platt
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