From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Sep 12 2004 - 22:52:20 BST
DMB says:
> Exactly. Platt has repeatedly used Pirsig's criticisms of SOM to indict the
> fourth level as a whole. In the case of his defense of the so-called "free
> market", he even uses it to assert the superiority of social level values
> over intellectual values, which is not just erroneous, but also immoral.
> I've tried to make this point many times, but I suspect Platt would prefer
> to misread or even to alter the MOQ rather than change his beleifs about
> capitalism. And it more than just an affection for a certain economic
> system. This conflation comes in quite handy whenever Platt's
> anti-intellectual instincts flare up.
When Pirsig says SOM intellect has created "social catastrophe," that
sounds right to me considering the current state of the world. By saying
I'm anti-SOM intellectual, you place me in good company.
> dmb says:
> Exactly. Living beings can respond to DQ and are the source of new ideas,
> but individuality and our modern ideas about the self are NOT what
> responds.
Oh? Then what responds? Ghosts?
> Rather, they are a product of that response. Platt wishes to
> replace the intellectual level with the individual level because of the
> intellect's flaws, but, ironically, his concept of the individual is one of
> the nightmares created by SOM and the MOQ considers it a ridiculous
> fiction.
If individuals are ridiculous fictions why do you sign your name to these
posts? And, while you're at it, why don't you tear up your birth
certificate?.
> dmb says:
> Right, the devil is in the details, but I think its safe to say that the
> MOQ would support an intellectually guided political economy that DOESN'T
> inadvertantly close the door on the dynamic.
There is no such thing now nor in the foreseeable future. Nor can you even
describe how such an "intellectual guided political economy" would
function.
> I'd point out that neither the
> capitalists nor the socialists ever figured out what that was all about.
> But I'd also point out that Platt is simply incorrect in asserting that
> free markets are more moral than intellectually guided economies. That's
> the exact opposite of what Pirsig says. He says they are less moral and
> points out a different kind of superiority. The dynamic quality that makes
> free markets superior AS MARKETS, does not negate the moral codes or
> constitute an exception to the MOQ's hierarchy. SOM's blindness to this
> factor cannot rightly be used against one side and not the other. And this
> are just some of the confusions that occur in Platt's conflation of SOM
> with intellect itself.
By Pirsig's own hierarchy of morality, Dynamic markets are more moral than
markets that are not. As for conflation of SOM with intellect, I've seen
no evidence to show that SOM doesn't dominate the intellectual level
nearly 100 percent.
> dmb adds:
> Most universities are dominated by SOM and its immoral to support SOM
> thinking? I'm horrified by the implications of Platt's assertions and I'm
> impressed that Ant can respond to them so calmly. As I see it, Platt is
> using SOM's flaws to suggest we ought to defund our institutions of higher
> learning. Its hard to imagine what could be more anti-intellectual or more
> destructive of the possibility of outgrowing SOM, as Ant points out. As I
> see it, this is an example of that handy conflation once again being used
> to undermine the intellect.
Oh horrors. I wonder how private universities got along without government
funding for so many years, educating such people as, say, the Founding
Fathers?
> dmb says:
> Not only that, but despite postmodernism's flaws, it actually represents
> the demise of SOM. It is the beginning of the end of SOM. In fact, in that
> respect at least, the MOQ is part of the postmodern movement, as are most
> serious thinkers of the last several generations. It may be true that a
> great many of them are only continuing or even exaggerating the problems
> identified by Pirsig, postmodernism is still a positive development AWAY
> from SOM, which is essentially the Modern worldview.
Here's what DMB's hero, Ken Wilber, has to say about postmodernism:
"The postmodern poststructualists go from saying, 'there is no final
perspective' (or, 'perspectives are boundless') to saying 'therefore there
is no advantage of any perspective over another.' This leveling of
perspectives . . . is itself merely one particular and covertly privileged
perspective (and thus ends up, as we have seen, being perfectly self-
contradictory: there is no advantaged perspective except mine, which
maintains that all other perspectives are not so privileged.)" (From "Sex,
Ecology and Spirituality, p. 188) If DMB wants to hitch his wagon to that
sort of cockeyed intellectualism, he's welcome to it.
> dmb says:
> When the government controls business we call it Communism and when
> business controls the government we call it Fascism.
When government controls business we call it Socialism and when business
controls government we call it corrupt politicians.
> That's the problem you
> never seem to grasp. Money is an index of social value and when money runs
> the government, you get one guided and dominated by social level values and
> that is more or less hostile to intellectual level values.
Since your anti-money and feel it's hostile to intellectual values, why
are you begging for the government and business for more of it?
> And more to
> Platt's ham-handed point, commercial interests ARE backed by guns to the
> extent that our national defense is aimed at protecting those commercial
> interests.
And your interests are not? Give me a break.
> Historically, it is an indisputable fact that the U.S. military
> has often used force to support business interests and the present war is
> certainly aimed at protecting the flow of oil, among other things.
On which you depend for your current lifestyle.
> And when
> education is forced to adapt to the rules of the marketplace, it'll be
> dominated by social level values too. Then we won't have education or
> intellectual freedom at all, although I'm sure it would be marketed as
> such. Instead we'll get job training and indoctrination.
Considering the tripe that's being indoctrinated to unsuspecting students
in the liberal arts these days, maybe a return to the basics might be just
what is needed.
> And think about the LIE DETECTOR thread, where people are confessing that
> they'll piss in a cup or allow their persperation rates in order to get or
> keep a job. Think about the confessions of self-imposed inauthenticity, of
> hiding most facets of ourselves from co-workers. And this kind of
> outrageous coersion is multiplied in a million tiny ways everyday.
> Commercial interests are not just profit makers, they are employers and in
> a world where money is a necessity for life, that means they are very
> powerful. It is the only domain from which we can get money to support
> basic biological needs and one's occupation is vital socially too. Most
> people hang their identity and self-worth upon to some at least some
> extent. When you've got that kind of thing hanging over people's heads, you
> don't need a gun.
If you can't tell the difference between quitting your job and getting
shot in the head, I give up.
Platt
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