From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Nov 17 2004 - 01:02:10 GMT
msh writes:
> Also, buried subtly in your argument is the
> idea that the good arrived at in the home country is possible only BECAUSE
> of the brutality. That is, that the brutality is a necessary condition of
> the good. This, I hope you would agree, is obviously false.
Not according to Pirsig. He applies some "critical thinking" to the
beliefs of today's intellectuals, pointing out that at times brutality is
a necessary condition of the good:
"In the battle of society against biology, the new twentieth-century
intellectuals have taken biology's side. Society can handle biology alone
by means of prisons and guns and police and the military. (Lila, 24)
Not that I accuse my friend msh of being a "twentieth-century
intellectual", or even a "twenty-first century" one for that matter. :-)
Platt
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