Erin, Wim, Roger and you all:
I can't speak for Wim on this matter, but I'd like to butt in with a thought
or two on the issue. Erin asked Wim about his brand of progress...
I was just curious as to why Quakers can't gamble? Also I was wondering if
you could expand on how your notion of progress is different from Rogers.
Specifically what is different about a religion/Meaning based view of
progress
then a science/knowledge based veiw of progress?
So if you could expand on why is religion necessary for health I would be
interested.
DMB says...
Quakers can't gamble because the dice and cards always fall from their
shivering hands. That's why they call them quakers. OK, its a pretty lame
joke. But seriously,...
I think religion will be an important element in any genuine progress. It
needs to be re-integrated into our intellectual descriptions and
comprehension of reality. SOM's dismissal of this human heritage has only
resulted in an amoral scientific objectivity and is also at the root of
reactionary fundamentalist movements. On page 309 the author says...
"What the MOQ concludes is that the old Puritan and Victorian social codes
should not be followed blindly, but should not be attacked blindly either.
They should be dusted off and re-examined, fairly and impartially, to see
what they were trying to accomplish and what they actually DID accomplish
toward buildng a stronger society. We must understand that when a society
undermines intellectual freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely
morally bad, but when it represses biological freedom for its own purposes
it is absolutely morally good."
Add this idea to Pirsig's insistence that all intellectual descriptions must
be culturally derived and you can see what has to be done. We have to dust
off the old social values to see what they are really about and then
construct a social science based on and derived from them. Gambling, for
example, isn't wrong in and of itself. If you want to amuse yourself and
have a little fun playing poker with dimes and quarters that's fine. But if
you go to Vegas and mortgage the house, well now you're going to destroy a
family's home. Pirsig talks about sex and booze in the same kind of way. Its
not relativism. Its dusting things off the see what they're aimed at
protecting.
DMB
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