Platt said:
Pirsig isn't exactly in love with academic intellectuals, so I guess your
indictment of us just plain folks includes him.
DMB says:
Pirsig, in fact and in deed, has spent years as a student, as a college
professor, as a technical writer, as a novelist, and as a metaphyical
philosopher. To lump him in with "just plain folks" is absurd. To try to
paint him as anti-intellectual is totally ridiculous.
Platt:
He describes the "objectivity" of intellectuals in matters of right and
wrong as "hogwash."
DMB:
His complaints are about amoral objectivity, not intellectual values in
general, which is one of the products of the enlightenment that I was
refering to. The MOQ does not trash intellecutals in favor of priests,
rather it posits than intellectual values, properly understood, are a
morality of a higher order than social codes. This is one of the main
tenants that you repeatedly fail to grasp.
Platt:
Further, your demeaning attitude to social level values reflects a typical
academic stance that encourages violence, a biological level phenomena.
DMB:
More silliness. The demeaning attitude toward social level moral codes is
precisely the failure I wish to discuss. That's the problem I'd like to
explore in greater detail. If I have any kind of negative attitude, its not
toward social level morality per se, but toward fundamentalists, fascists
and reactionaries of all stripes. Talk about violence. These forces don't
just suffer from moral paralysis, they willfully perpetrate terror and
genocide.
Pirsig made this clear throughout Chap. 24 and when he
said, "Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise
and a moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of
evolution, in its struggle to become free of the social level, has ignored
the social level's role in keeping the biological level under control."
DMB:
Again, this ignorance of the "social level's role" is the failure that I
want to discuss. That's why I started the thread in the first place.
Platt:
The whole business of political correctness, multiculturism and diversity
that academic intellectuals spout with frequent and arrogant certitude
Pirsig rightly calls "paralysis." That's why I say if intellectual values
are to be found solely in academe, God help us all.
DMB:
Um, I think you're confusing Robert Pirsig with Rush Limbaugh.
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