From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 02 2004 - 15:22:54 BST
Hi Wim,
> A certain amount of equality is necessary to maintain social stability. The
> whole of humanity is part of one society (even if people also belong to
> different sub-societies), so on a global scale a certain amount of equality
> is also necessary.
First, you've arbitrarily created a new definition of society--the whole
world. Most people understand the word to mean as the dictionary defines
it: "a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common
traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests."
Second, your proposition that a "certain amount of equality" is required
to maintain stability leaves it totally up in the air about how much is a
"certain amount."
> A certain amount of equivalence of societies and of
> members of societies should be recognized to maintain consistency of
> systems of ideas that deal with the rights and duties of societies and
> their members.
Again, "a certain amount" is too vague to be meaningful.
> E.g. a system of ideas that contains the idea that everyone
> is born with equal, unalienable rights cannot allow too much difference in
> rights between those who belong and don't belong to a specific society.
To judge the validity of that proposition we should know how you define
"rights." Should everyone in a given society have rights to benefits involuntarily
paid for by others, or should everyone have the right to private property and
full control over how his income is spent?
> Both systems of ideas and societies can be judged as to how far they are
> advanced in intellectual resp. social evolution: by their stability,
> versatility and harmony with higher level patterns of value and openness to
> DQ. Judging individuals is difficult, because the social and intellectual
> patterns of value they identify with (and can be identified with) shift.
What does "resp." mean?
My interpretation of what you are saying is that a society that guarantees
freedom of religion, of the press, trial by jury, etc., etc. as set forth
in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution is morally superior to,
say, Iran or China. I think Pirsig would agree.
> To the extent that my own ideas are clear and their consistency is not
> challenged, I don't really care whether (and if yes, why) Pirsig's ideas
> are inconsistent regarding equality.
On that we agree. But this is, after all, a site devoted to discussing
Pirsig's ideas. So, comparing your ideas to his is not out of order.
It's all well and good to champion "equality" in a general sense. But the
going gets rough when you get down to specifics and the question becomes
the proper balance between the needs of society and the freedom of the
individual from social coercion.
Best,
Platt
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