From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 09:18:19 BST
Mark SH,
Scott prev:
I'm not actually against activism, rather it is a matter that working on
oneself is more important. It is in fact impossible to literally do nothing
socially unless one becomes a complete hermit. And what one does can help or
it can hurt, and helping is better -- all else being equal. The trouble
typically arises when one helps out of principle, and the history of statist
communism shows this. The do-gooders got power, but power attracts the
corruptible. Meanwhile, principle has come to dominate both American
political parties, to the detriment of the nation.
msh 08-05-2005:
I don't see how acting on "principles" automatically translates to
low-quality action. And your rejection of communist principles just
because some brutal guys called themselves communists places you
squarely in Platt's camp, shown a hundred times to be made up of
leaky tents. I'm a little surprised.
Scott:
I didn't say I reject communist principles. I object to brutal guys using
them as a cover to be brutal, which seems to happen when communists get
power. Nor is it just bad guys who do bad things. Some things done for
strictly communist reasons turned out badly, such as the Great Leap Forward,
which resulted in a huge famine.
More generally, the problem with acting on principle is that it makes it a
second-order action. Such action is not necessarily low quality, but it has
more potential for being so as opposed to wei wu wei (I'm talking mystical
theory here, not out of experience.)
msh:
As for principle dominating both American parties, if you mean the
principle of subjugation to the bidding of power and wealth, then I
couldn't agree more. Is that the principle you're talking about?
Scott:
No. I'm referring to the more ideologically motivated of the Democrats and
Republicans dominating their respective parties.
Scott prev:
Pirsig and I were referring to the hippies. You are referring to others of
that era, such as the New Left. Each camp (broadly speaking) didn't have
much use for the other. They both had their good and bad points.
msh 08-05-2005:
What bad ideas came form the New Left, in your opinion?
Scott:
Supporting the Maoist Cultural Revolution. Espousing violence, as in "you
can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." I recommend reading Doris
Lessing's novel *The Sentimental Agents*.
msh:
There was a lot of overlap between "hippies" and the New Left, as a
matter of fact. The fact that Pirsig didn't mention the New Left in
his one-sided disparagement of the 60's only supports my point that
he was going to the wrong parties. Rather than setting up the straw-
man stoners and cop-haters, he could have attended parties with so-
called "hippies" and people like Rap Brown, Robert Lowell, Tom
Hayden, Eldredge Cleaver, Norman Mailer, the Berrigan brothers,
Chomsky, Zinn, Parenti, et al.
Scott:
Like I said, there were good and bad points. The analysis of the problems
had some legitimate points. What to do about it was largely bad (that's
where you got the cop-hating and so forth.)
Scott prev:
For the sake of argument, let's say you're correct in saying "nor is there
anything anti-intellectual about the current movements against so called
"free trade" globilization efforts, and against the current war in Iraq."
Would you agree in saying there is nothing anti-intellectual in current
movements for free trade, and for the war? Just curious.
msh 8-05-2005:
Fair enough. There is nothing completely anti-intellectual in
anything humans do. All people have ideas, but, at this point in our
evolution, it seems clear to me that most people are Bio-Dominant or
Social-Dominant. So the useful question is, how do the various B-D,
S-D, and I-D ideas compare on the quality scale?
But this useful question is one that BD-SD people in positions of
power are not interested in answering. This is why so much of what
power does is done in secret or extremely low-profile: Economic and
imperialist war plans, trade talks, corporate strategy meetings.
There is no dearth of intelligent, knowledgeable people who could
intellectually challenge these powerful planners; but such people are
rarely heard from in the corporate-government (BD-SD) dominated
media. Why do you suppose that is?
Scott:
Somebody's got to fill those roles in the Giant. In return, the Giant
provides us with a good standard of living, which is what defeated the New
Left and continues to defeat people like you. Most people are willing to put
up with being led by the power-hungry as long as that standard of living is
kept up. So if you really want to defeat all those imperialists, encourage
people to be true Christians and Buddhists, simple-living enthusiasts, and
so forth.
Scott prev:
What about the position that there isn't enough data to decide which
side to come down on?
msh 08-05-2005:
There's plenty of current and historical data to decide. The reason
you and most others don't have this data is directly related to my
answer above. And, sometimes, really smart people spend a lot of
time assiduously counting angels on pinheads.
Scott:
That's not the data I'm talking about. On the Iraq war, the question was:
will invading Iraq make the world better off or worse off. Now the folks who
actually made the decision may have done so for the basest of motives (or a
mix of good and bad motives), but whether one supports that decision depends
on whether one thinks that overall, the world will be better off in, say,
ten years. Nobody has that data. Now if you object that by that reasoning,
no one could act at all, I agree. That is why I am not political. I do not
know how Giants should be run. I'd rather encourage people to work on their
own intellect so that gradually the Giant will wither away.
msh:
But you can get the data. Why not start with the Understanding Power
thread from December of last year? Better yet, read the book itself,
and download the free 500 pages of notes, references, and other
documentation. Or read Profits Over People. Or, if Chomsky's not
your cup of tea, read Zinn's People's History, or absolutely anything
written by Michael Parenti. Or check the Information Clearing House
web site; or TruthOut.org, or DemocracyNow,org, or MediaLens.org.
Scott:
I've read a couple of Chomsky's political books, but that was a while ago. I
recall being more or less convinced by them. But I gradually came to see all
that as being of little interest. The deeper problem is, as David Harding
said, we are all ego-bound, and until that is solved, we will just swap one
set of social ills for another.
- Scott
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