RE: MD Progress and Pain

hey platt et al,

firstly DQ is *strictly* synonymous with nothing

second DQ is also described as 'fun' in Lila: "He may have personal motives such as 'pure fun', that is, the Dynamic Quality of his work" (p178 of Corgi edition 1992). i would guess that DQ is described as many other things aswell in Lila.

You are right of course - freedom is tightly wound up in the concept of DQ (and it is a concept - we can't escape the fact that talking about it reifies it). but freedom without order - DQ without sq - is chaotic and admits degeneracy just as much as valuable change.

another related point i want to talk about is 'free markets'. free markets are a good idea, but contrary to what Bush snr once famously said, they have little to do with other freedoms. many countries with free markets enjoy very little other freedoms.

if we elevate the market to a pivotal role in the running of global affairs (and we do), then we should have a look at what that does to the *individual*. neo-liberal economics reduces the 'citizen' to a 'consumer'. there is a big difference. just listen to any evening news or current affairs programme and see which word - citizen or consumer - pops up most.

so what is a consumer? a consumer is someone who consumes, obviously. but, more than that, a consumer is someone who is *defined* by the act of consumption. their individuality becomes chiefly an expression of what they consume.

consumption is a *dualistic* phenomenon. there is a consumer and the consumed. this reinforces the individual's *separation* from what he consumes - which is nearly everything. the ideology of consumption is near universal - it is the mode of provision for nearly all services and goods.  the individual is *alienated* from the services and products he buys and also, to some degree, the people that he pays for those services and products. Buying and selling are essentially anti-social ideas (because buyer and seller are *competing* against one another).

this alienation is a 'hole', a lack, a feeling of loneliness - of not belonging. the consumer is encouraged to consume *more* to fill this hole - more stuff, more sex, more drugs (quantity over quality). and this is an autocatalytic downward spiral.

it seems - to use a dramatic visual analogy - that the alienated consumers of the first world are trying to reconnect with the world the only way they know how - by 'eating' it.

so what is a 'citizen'? well john ralston saul has a pretty good definition i think:

"The individual is essentially a citizen. This is a reality inherited from Athens. We have little choice but to accept it because democracy cannot function in any other way.....If the individual is not first a citizen then the obligations and privileges that go with that status are effectively lost and the person ceases, for all intents and purposes, to be an *individual* (p62 The Doubters Companion Penguin edition 1995)

so if we have consumers instead of citizens (and i think we do ) then we effectively stunt or deny the development of the individual - of *intellectual value*. in other words it is immoral that we are consumers first and citizens second.  it is simply anti-democratic, dare i say it - unamerican ;-)

gav