Hi Angus and Weepy,
ANGUS WROTE:
>There is no Quality in the crashing of
> the towers. I challenge, as an open one, anyone to
> show me how it is quality. The only quality there is
> is the ability of the brain to make it quality.
WEEPY RESPONDED:
Angus, I would argue that almost noone in this group, and very few people in
the world would argue that what happened on Sept 11th had quality. Well,
more specifically, I would say that those events had very low or even
negative quality. One of the things that Pirsig works at in Lila is the idea
that "Quality" always exists, good or bad.
ROG:
The quality in the act (which I of course abhored) was most likely the
destruction caused to a virulent and relentless cultural pattern that goes
against everything that the terrorists believe in. I have surmised that
they see globalization and democracy and free enterprise and individualism as
the antithesis to their values. They see their culture as being attacked, not
with guns and armed forces, but by the relentless victory of free enterprise
and the grab-bag of uninspiring values that go with it. They see their
beliefs and way of life as threatened. They see America as the
personification of this evil. And they know that, as the world is today,
they cannot defend themselves from a set of cultural beliefs that are sooo
appealing to their 'weaker' brethren and sooo much more successful in sooo
many ways (but not all ways) than their own cherished beliefs.
Their only rational response, considering their views, is to destroy
individualistic, open, free market, democratic globalization. And
ironically, they are using the very tools of this culture to attack it.
Airplanes, collapsing skyscrapers, the internet, Western schools and flight
simulators, biological science, nuclear science, etc.
There is no message in this tragedy other than showing how easy and rewarding
it is to destroy their perceived evil. The desired outcome is to do whatever
is possible to undermine the culture that they abhor. Their wish is that the
event and chain of reactions that follows will propel more people to join in
the battle and to align themselves against the cultural disease of Western
Liberalism.
The quality of their actions is the same quality and morality that Platt and
I espouse against them -- namely that an organism, organization or culture
has a right to defend itself. They are defending themselves and their
cultural values from a much stronger set of cultural values.
Rog
PS -- The MORE MORAL course, imo, would be for them to find ways to protect
and preserve their culture while absorbing the better elements of western
culture and while spreading the better elements of their culture to others.
By resorting to violence and destruction, they have only managed to lower
Quality in the Universe.
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