Dear Johns, (Beasley and Marder)
I only have a little time today, but will respond breifly. Hopefully, I
can give a more proper answer tomorrow. Until then I want to submit a
couple of thoughts on the world war two issue. More specifically, I have
to disagree with Jonathan's assertion that I (mystic Dave) have been
"behaving like a priest in the Church of Reason".
I've been trying to debate this issue from a MOQ standpoint. It's my
assertion that there was no valid intellect involved in the decision to
bomb the Japanese cities. IMO the act was based on social level values
in spite of the fact that the weapon used was highly scientific and
intellectual. And that the immorality of it stems form that omission. It
was a violation of the fourth moral code.
Page 265 of Lila "Herbert Hoover and Douglas MacArthur were
biologically outside the Victorian period most of their lives. But they
were Victorians, nevertheless, because their social values were
Victorian."
Page 266 "They called it morals, but really it was just a social code.
As a code it was just like their ornamental cast-iron furniture:
expensive looking, cheaply made, brittle, cold and uncomfortable."
Page 268 "The statement, 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian' was a
Victorian statement. The idea of extermination of all Indians was not
common before the nineteenth century. Victorians wanted to destroy
'inferior' societies because inferior societies were a form of evil."
And on page 274, where Pirsig is explaining the 20th century as a
"hurricane" of conflict between the new intellectuals and the old
Victorians, he says "The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which
have overwhelmed this century, is explained by a conflict of levels of
evolution. This conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as
an insane search for power but as an all-consuming glorification of
social authority and hatred of intellectualism"
To oversimplify for the sake of brevity and clarity, it is my view that
the atomic bombing of Japan was based on Victorian fascist social
values, ignored the new intellecual values, and was, therefore, immoral.
To defend such acts in a forum dedicated to the intellectual exploration
of a morality based metaphysic is just plain bizzare. This is not the
view of an MOQer, its just the view of American patriots
Page 273 "The test of what is was good, of what had Quality, was no
longer 'Does it meet societies approval?' but 'Does it meet the approval
of our intellect."
More later, David B.
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