From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Sun May 15 2005 - 23:48:30 BST
Platt had stated May 9th:
[I] have found plenty in Pirsig's philosophy to support right-wing ideas,
the most notable being the MOQ's view that freedom is the highest value of
all.
Ant McWatt replied May 10th 2005:
The important difference is – and this keeps going over your head just like
a dog continually shown a card trick - is that the MOQ view of freedom is
different from the capitalist view of freedom… For instance, Bush Junior
would say that the best society is one where individuals (rational
autonomous end choosers) have the best possible scope to exercise their own
interests and choices. However, the MOQ being a universal system and a
development of Zen Buddhism would suggest that the overall welfare of
everyone (i.e. the world’s population) must be maximised (or, efforts to
reach this ideal must be made as far as it’s practical). In other words,
there’s a move in the MOQ from being concerned with just one’s own selfish
interests (as in capitalism) towards the universal interests of everyone.
The greatest overall freedom is provided by the latter though it will
occasionally mean that individual freedoms (such as the freedom to extremely
pollute the global environment) will be restricted. The MOQ view of freedom
is not only more moral and responsible but more rational because we live on
a planet with finite resources and, unfortunately, a rapidly growing
population.
Ant McWatt comments:
Platt, Arlo, DMB,
Thanks for your posts about “the MOQ view of freedom and the capitalist view
of freedom.” The main thinking behind my last couple of posts about this
difference was a recent lecture at Liverpool University given by Professor
Mark Siderits from Illinois State University. Siderits is interested in
Buddhist and classical Indian philosophy. His research explores the
possibility that Western analytic philosophy might have something to learn
from the East Asian philosophical tradition. For instance, his most recent
book “Empty Persons” is meant to show how Buddhist philosophical tools shed
light on the current debate over the nature of diachronic personal identity,
i.e., what makes someone one and the same person over time. As he noted, in
his lecture, the self is not ultimately real – that at best - it is only a
useful convention that other selves exist and that there exists only
changing streams of psych-physical elements. All very MOQ sentiments, of
course.
Now, in his lecture, Siderits also thought that the Buddhist/MOQ view of
freedom and the capitalist view of freedom are different. That’s how
Siderits expressed it though it also sounds correct to me that this is
largely down to a more expansive view of freedom in the MOQ than the
capitalist view and I note that you have both said this in different ways.
Arlo, more directly in his (very useful) post of May 11th, and Platt in his
(also useful) post of May 2nd where he states that the following are
essential elements that an intellectually guided MOQ government would expect
to promote and uphold. These are namely:
democracy
trial by jury
habeas corpus
freedom of speech
freedom of the press
freedom of assembly
freedom of travel
free markets
As Platt reminds us, any threat to these guarantees coming from any source,
liberal or conservative, should be strongly resisted by anyone who believes
in the values of the MOQ.
DMB added May 14th:
Right. I think we can all agree that so-called capitalist economies exhibit
a certain dynamism, but let's not forget that money and the marketplace is a
social level convention. The freedom it allows is a social level freedom,
the freedom to go shopping and to sell things. And I think that liberals
object to this idea Not because we're opposed to selling and buying freely,
because many of us would like to score a big bag of kind buds, but rather on
the grounds that free-market freedom is a very small notion of freedom, one
that tends to cheapen the human spirit by commodifying our every dream and
wish. Free-marketism in the actual world amounts to a gleeful endorsement of
consumer culture and all the various forms of exploitation that it
represents. To the extent that free-market arguments only justify what has
always been the case, the rich using the poor, then it is an intellectual
rationalization of tradition rather than a genuinely intellectual system. It
can get tricky when social level values get all dressed up in intellectual
clothes, but the naked reality can be exposed with a little effort.
Ant McWatt comments:
It is also clear from Platt’s list (and Arlo’s post) that “free markets” are
only one aspect of the “freedoms” supported by the MOQ. Platt is therefore
contradicting himself in his post of May 11th when he conflates “freedom”
with “free markets” (he does this by quoting a section of Chapter 17 of LILA
where Pirsig is discussing the Dynamic element of free markets rather than
freedom per se). To be consistent, I therefore hope the MOQ Platt (who
often has high quality thoughts about beauty etc) will be strongly resisting
his darker, conservative side (who occasionally tries to undermine MOQ
values by conflating “freedom” just with “free markets”).
Platt stated May 11th:
>The MOQ view of freedom is THE SAME AS the capitalist view of freedom, as
>Pirsig explains:
>
>“A free market is a
> Dynamic institution. What people buy and what people sell, in other
>words
> what people value, can never be contained by any intellectual formula.
>What
> makes the marketplace work is Dynamic Quality. The market is always
> changing and the direction of that change can never be predetermined.
>The
> Metaphysics of Quality says the free market makes everybody richer by
> preventing static economic patterns from setting in and stagnating
>economic
> growth. That is the reason the major capitalist economies of the world
> have done so much better since World War II than the major socialist
> economies. It is not that Victorian social economic patterns are more
> moral than socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite.
> They are less moral as static patterns go.”
Ant McWatt comments:
The other issue to keep in mind with the above quote is that Pirsig is
discussing actual historical economies which were only nominally
“capitalist” or “socialist”. As I have noted to Platt before, Northrop
emphasises that we must keep the ideal notions of capitalist and socialist
societies distinct from the actual economies that have these labels i.e.
“The scientific method for determining factual social theory is well known.
It is the application of the empirical and formal methods of natural science
to social facts. This method prescribes that no theory treated by it can be
correct unless it is completely in accord with all the facts in the
situation to which it refers. A factual social theory for a given society
may be defined, therefore, as a body of propositions designating a state of
affairs which is completely in accord at every point with what actually
exists. A normative social theory, on the other hand, is one designating a
possible state of affairs for a given society which differs in whole or in
part from what a correct factual social theory for that society would
designate. The Declaration of Independence, the Communist Manifesto, and
Hitler's “Mein Kampf” are examples. They do not purport to designate
correctly the existing factual situation in any society. Instead, they
define a norm for the social order toward which men may aim as an ideal
quite different, in part at least, from any social situation actually
existing.” (Northrop, 1947, p.278-79)
Platt stated May 9th:
Few conservatives have time to contribute regularly to this site because
they are fully engaged in doing and have little time left over for talking.
Ant McWatt commented May 10th:
Christ, this made me laugh. You do know that lies make Baby Jesus cry,
don’t you Platt? The truth about the matter is that serious left-wing
people tend to be better quality thinkers, more tolerant, more caring, more
liberal, more generous with their time.
DMB added May 14th:
In a million cases, we can see that liberals come down on the wider
perspective, the global perspective while the conservatives tend to be
defending a particular nation, a
particular race or religion, a particular culture or worldview over all
others. And it’s no accident that conservatives are protecting their own
culture, nation and religion. It’s a view that doesn't or simply won't walk
in the other guy’s shoes. And if I may remind you, this idea fits quite
nicely in with the idea that Fascism is nationalism on steroids. The danger
of this narrow vision is that it tends to disrespect everyone else, everyone
outside the particular culture or religion. Liberalism and pluralism and
internationalism, on the other hand, rests on the idea of equality of rights
regardless of all those other loyalties, but in terms of individual rights
and the rights of nations.
Platt stated May 11th:
>Et tu, Ant? Another self-appointed fully-realized human? Ah, the arrogance
>of you liberals never ceases to amaze. You guys are the embodiment of the
>phrase, “Pin a rose on me”….
Ant McWatt comments:
Not sure that’s a fair generalisation of liberals but anyway I’ve moved on
from these old-fashioned liberal and conservative ideologies to the MOQ.
Again, I’ll let Northrop (1947, p.276) explain the thinking behind this:
“It is when the philosophies defining the different ideologies of two
cultures are contradictory that the real difficulty arises. In this case the
procedure of logicians and theoretical natural scientists provides a clue.
It often happens in mathematical physics that the experimental evidence
leads the physicist to two theories, both of which are required, yet the two
theories are contradictory. The logician and theoretical physicist know that
when such a situation arises, the problem can be met only by passing to a
new set of assumptions which takes care of the data leading to the two
traditional theories, without contradiction. This means that in the case of
conflicting ideologies in the social sciences, such as exists at present
between the ideologies of the traditional democracies and communist Russia,
no real solution can be achieved without an analysis which passes to a new
set of philosophical assumptions [such as the MOQ].”
>Ant follows along along the path blazed by MSH and DMB of invective,
>slander, and personal attack.
Ant McWatt comments:
As far as MSH and DMB are concerned, I think they can be very funny guys as
well as being relatively well-informed about the MOQ and world affairs. As
their targets are often the arrogant, the obscure, the dogmatic and the
half-witted (and occasionally, a mixture of all four of these!), I think
their send-ups are usually justified. I wouldn’t bother much with this
Discussion group without such contributors.
Platt stated May 9th:
Pirsig attempted to “combine” capitalism and socialism and proposed
intellectual control of the economy in the name of “fairness?.” That's news
to me. Can you supply some quotes to support that conclusion?
Ant McWatt commented May 10th:
Yes, I can. For instance, see the following paragraphs from Chapter 17 of
LILA:
Platt stated May 11th:
Ant then quotes at length from Chap. 17 in which the words “fair” or
“fairness” are conspicuous by their absence, followed by a lame attempt
to connect the idea that Pirsig is keen on fairness to the obvious fact
that both static and dynamic patterns are necessary.
Ant McWatt comments:
This mention of fairness was stated in reference to Buddhism rather than any
literal statement found in Pirsig’s text. That the MOQ supports “fairness”
rather than “unfairness” is a safe inference given the MOQ’s basis in Zen
Buddhism and the latter’s concern for all living creatures. Moreover, as
DMB states “What kind of person objects to fairness? Don't we all, from the
time we are toddlers, know the feeling of outrage that occurs when
confronted with unfairness? Isn't that something we all know intimately and
constantly? I don't understand the attitude that would mock the ‘bleeding
hearts’ or endorse social Darwinism. I think these people had brutal fathers
or something. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that fairness
is a good thing and anyone who is against it is one sick puppy.”
This spot-on assertion of DMB’s reminds me of a piece of wisdom that one of
my supervisors (Prof. Stephen Clark) once gave me. This is that all the
conflicts in the world nearly always have an injustice of some sort
underlying them.
Moreover, I also don’t like the idea that Pirsig’s texts (which are Zen
koans) should be read literally as the Bible might be read by a
Fundamentalist Christian. Pirsig has stated that he thinks people should
build on the MOQ so to read Platt’s assertion of May 11th that he has “no
problem on this site sticking to the MOQ of Robert Pirsig, using [just] the
textual evidence of his writings” strikes me as a very un-MOQ attitude.
Platt continued May 11th:
>Ant then claims that intellectual control can prevent social degeneracy:
>
> > “This creates the problem of getting maximum freedom for the emergence
>of
> > Dynamic Quality while prohibiting degeneracy from destroying the
> > evolutionary gains of the past. [THIS MEANS USING INTELLECTUAL >
>CONTROL TO PREVENT DEGENERACY]
>
>But Pirsig says intellect is, at best, unreliable: “The mechanisms by
>which a balanced society grows and does not degenerate are difficult, if
>not impossible, to define.”
Ant McWatt comments:
Pirsig doesn’t state that intellect is unreliable (does that mean the MOQ
should be discarded because it was created by intellectual patterns?) but
rather that the static-Dynamic balance (between freedom and degeneracy) can
often be a difficult to one assess. That seems to me to require more
thinking, not less.
Platt stated May 11th:
>Finally, Ant suggests I read books about Buddhism. Thanks, but I have no
>problem >on this site sticking to the MOQ of Robert Pirsig, using the
>textual evidence of his >writings. If you want to get into Buddhism, I
>presume there are plenty of other sites >that will welcome you into the
>monastery. :-)
Ant McWatt comments:
Platt, thank you very much for the advice. However, why should I look
elsewhere (as a Westerner) when I’m already a contributor in a Discussion
group concerned with probably the best Western version of Zen Buddhism to
have appeared in the late twentieth century? Or have you got MOQ Discuss
confused with "GCC (Golf Cart Conservative) Discuss" again? :-)
Best wishes,
Anthony.
www.anthonymcwatt.co.uk
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