From: Steve Peterson (speterson@fast.net)
Date: Mon Dec 23 2002 - 15:35:05 GMT
Matt and DMB,
DMB reacts to Matt's claim that money rather than philosophy will cure
society' sills:
> Society's ills? If only we had more money and love? Don't think SOM is the
> problem? What I'm trying to get at by going back to the Sophists is to show
> what was lost so long ago. SOM represents the culmination of a long trend, a
> trend that was increasingly "godless and materialistic" as the
> fundamenatlists might put it. Yes, we're talking about a defect in the way
> intellect searches for "Truth", but more than that we're talking about the
> mystical reality that SOM denies almost entirely. We're talking about the
> death of God, the de-sanctification of nature, that terrible secret
> loneliness of the twentieth century, we're talking about a spirtual vacuum
> that has left Western man trapped alone in his own subjective reality in a
> meaningless and hostile universe. We're talking about the human soul and its
> alienation from God. The examination of this issue certainly benifits from
> doing some intellectual history, but the heart of the issue of a spiritual
> crisis. The further back we go, the more apparent this becomes.
Matt responded:
> This is exactly what I deny is causing our society's ills. Thank you for
> supplying the laundry list. I think money and war are much more
> explanatory than intellectual history as to what the problems of society
> are. I follow Marx in thinking that the primary motor of history is
> economic.
>
> What I'm opposed to is thinking that the road to solving all our problems
> is best served by simply changing our minds, becoming more spiritual, "by
> individuals making Quality decisions and that's all." (Ch 29) This is
> definitely where Pirsig and I part ways.
Steve: If you and Pirsig part ways at this point, then I can't see how you
have any common ground at all.
>Until people have enough money, I
> don't think there is any chance for them to simply change their minds.
Steve: People never have enough money.
> Until people don't have to worry about putting food on the table for their
> kids, I don't think they have a chance to be spiritual.
Steve: Everyone is spiritual whether they know it or not if the universe is
based on value not material.
>Until people have
> the time and luxury to spend on reading and relaxing, I don't think a
> person in the ghetto has the energy to make Quality decisions. The people
> who do have this time and energy is the bourgeoisie, the upper and middle
> classes. And the fact that they spend most of their time watching TV or
> trying to figure out how to make more money _is_ a problem and might be
> attributable to a "spiritual crisis". But to think that the poor have time
> to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to even find out that the
> world is going into the shitter is putting the cart before the horse. The
> poor don't need to be told that the world is going to hell in a handbasket
> because their lives are already hell on earth.
Steve: I don't have statistics to back up my claim, but I think you are
wrong. If you are taking economics to be the "primary motor of history"
then the world is getting better and better, not to hell. People are more
wealthy now than ever. The fact that we all know that the world is not
really getting better contradicts using economics as a measure.
>The poor are already
> struggling too hard to put food in the mouths of their childern and trying
> to educate themselves and their children so that they might have better
> lives to worry about mysticism or Quality. I think the way to correct this
> problem is good old-fashioned liberal reformist politics, slowly bringing
> into fruition the ideal of a classless, cruelty-free society. As soon as
> this project starts to speed up, people will have more time to think about
> philosophy, self-perfection, and Quality.
Steve:
When you say that what we need is more money, I wonder what you mean. Money
is just a symbol. What do we really need?
Who are these poor people that you are talking about? If you mean North
Americans and Europeans, then I think you are way off. What percent of
people on these continents would answer the question, "what would you do
with an extra $100?" with "put food on the table for my kids"? I think it
would be quite small. The people are hungry, but not for food. They are
poor in spirit. And if everyone were issued a Big Mac, a new pair of
high-tops and a larger screen TV it will not improve society in any way.
Our problems are primarily spiritual though we have been misled by the label
"materialism" to think that our problem is that we want material things
instead of the spiritual blessings that TV commercials have subconsciously
convinced us that these things represent. Watch some commercials and try to
see what they are actually selling. Advertisers discovered long ago that
you don't sell widgets by explaining how well they work or what they do but
rather through creating associations with what can't be bought, e.g. beauty,
love, happiness.
If the vast majority of us who could be making more quality decisions would
do so, we would make it better for the few who can't. The problem is,
because our problem has been misdiagnosed as "materialism" we have no hope
of curing it. ZAMM is a new diagnosis that sets us on the path to healing.
Steve
"It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world." Stuart
Smalley, SNL
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