Paco, Rasheed, Matt, Rog and all:
"...a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social
values is absolutely superior to one that does not." chapter 24
MATT said:
Maybe they can. The very word "conservative" seems to indicate a
predilection towards static patters of value, does it not?
ROG responded:
Yes, I would say that it would indicate a predilection toward static social
patterns of quality. Don't see that this means that they are
dumb though.
On Bush's "axis of evil" PACO said:
Clarity isn't the same as immaturity. I respect your
views on the issue, but a lot of really bright people
found this clarity to be brilliant. Others (equally
bright)didn't.
PACO also said:
I suggest he was shooting for moral clarity
in a sea of relativist moral confusion.
PACO added:
Again, a lot of Americans are relieved to find a
President with the moral clarity to use America's
power, influence and moral vision to influence the
world as opposed to follow the misguided dereliction of
the UN or of Radical environmentalists...
Gents, I think the MOQ explains why conservatives seem to posses moral
clarity and, at the same time, why they seem to be so darn stupid. Simply
put, conservatism is part of the conflict that dominated the 20th century
and continues to this day. One can see this conflict in the history books,
in today's newspaper and in these MOQ conversations. In the conflict between
social and intellectual values, conservatism sides with the former. That's
why it seems morally certain and anti-intellectual. Pirsig devotes a big
portion of Lila to this issue and re repeatedly insists on its importance.
>From chapter 21...
"...an earthquake of such enormous consequences that we are still stunned by
it, so stunned that we haven't yet fiqured out what has happened to us. The
advent of both democratic and communistic socialism and the fascist reaction
to them has been the consequence of this earthquake."
"The new culture that emerged was the first in history to believe that
patterns of society must be subordinate to patterns of the intellect. The
one dominating question of this century..."
"Victorians repressed the truth whenever it seemed socially unacceptable."
Pirsig opens chapter 22 by describing this same shift in values as a
hurricane and says, "These were days of evolutionary transformation" as
important as the death of Socrates or the day when the first "freak fish"
walked on land. In short, this issue is huge. Its one of the most important
themes in Lila and in the world's contemporary political conflicts.
But conservatism isn't exactly the same thing as Victorianism or reactionary
fascism, you say? That's true, but neither is liberalism the same as
democratic socialism or communism. The most extreme examples are useful in
helping us make more subtle distinctions, in helping us see beyond the
obvious. And since Lila is an inquiry into morals, looking at politics in
terms of the conflict between social and intellectual values is how we
achieve a more genuine moral clarity. The kind of moral clarity offered up
by Bush and other conservatives is nothing more than re-assertion of
conventional social moral codes. This isn't fascism. Fascism has been
marginalized and has only the thinest of ties to the most conservative of
conservatives, but still... from chapter 24...
"The end of the twentieth century in America seems to be an intellectual,
social and economic rust-belt, a whole society that has given up on Dynamic
improvement and is slowly trying to slip back to Victorianism."
More specifically, I think the phrase "axis of evil" harkens back to that
murderous Victorian arrogance Pirsig describes in chapter 21.
"Victorians wanted to destroy "inferior" societies because inferior
societies were a form of evil. Colonialism...became with Victorians a MORAL
course, a "white man's burden" to spread their social patterns and thus
virtue throughout the world." This, in turn, reminds me of the most extreme
example of social level movement. From chapter 22...
"This conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insame
search for power bit as am all-consuming glorification of social authority
and hatred of intellectualism."
On the same page, Pirsig offers FDR as a contrasting example. While the
German fascists were burning books and intellectuals, FDR was implimenting
the NEW DEAL, which was "a new deal for the intellectuals of America".
Today's conservative aren't likely to go goosestepping down the street or
fire up the ovens anytime soon, but they're likely to take a negative view
of FDR, intellectuals and the New Deal. "'That Man', as the old aristocrats
sometimes called Roosevelt, was turning the the whole United States of
America over to foreign radical, 'eggheads', 'commies' and the like. He was
a 'traitor to his class'."
Pirsig provides tons of examples, events, people, organizations and isms all
to help us see which level of values is at work. He also adds the notion of
Rights as a kind of moral code. (chapter 24)It serves as a principle that
applies to just about any example or hypothetical situation one can imagine.
And its no accident that conservatives tend to oppose, often quite
stidently, any organization, policy, or ism that puts an emphasis on civil
rights, human rights and such. Conservative seem to know on some instinctive
level that the universal assertion of rights is a threat to their values,
their social values.
Moral clarity? The phrase "axis of evil" is simple enough that everyone can
understand it, especially since the nations on that axis have been demonized
for many years. On a conventional level, in a John Wayne sort of way, on a
social level it sits well. As a foreign policy statement, however, it is
hopelessly stupid. Its irrational. (That fact that the terrorists see us as
the Great Satan is an irony lost on these hawks.) But it hardly matters and
the policy makers know that. Talk of war stirs the blood in some ancient and
mysterious way. Ratioinality and clarity doesn't have anything to do with
it. Neither do morals.
DMB
PS A speech writer created the "axis of evil" phrase. Bush wanted it to be
"the axle of naughtiness", but Rumsfeld talked him out of it.
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