From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Sun Aug 21 2005 - 14:54:04 BST
Ham stated August 21st 2005:
Mati Palm-Leis, evidently a Wisconsin school administrator, had this to say
about Anthony’s “supposed” leftist intellectual guidance:
>“Intellectual guidance” is a strange word but I will work with it and
>suggest that it means using reason to guide ones decisions. I would
>suspect that either side would and could claim to provide the intellectual
>guidance. For one party to claim sole possession of Intellectual guidance
>would be like Conservatives claiming God is Republican...
Ant McWatt comments:
Ham, MSH, Platt & Mati,
When I stated that the MOQ’s political position “is an attempt to take both
the better strands of the left and the right i.e. combine the left’s social
compassion & intellectual guidance with the right’s (supposed) promotion of
genuine free economic markets” I was thinking of the two paragraphs in
chapter 17 of LILA where Pirsig states:
“From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. It’s a
higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just
a society that is guided by mindless traditions. That’s what gives
socialism its drive. But what the socialists left out and what has all but
killed their whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite
Dynamic Quality. You go to any socialist city and it’s always a dull place
because there’s little Dynamic Quality.”
“On the other hand the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues
of free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest.
They are just doing the usual cover-up for the rich in their age-old
exploitation of the poor. Some of them seem to sense there is also
something mysteriously virtuous in a free enterprise system and you can see
them struggling to put it into words but they don’t have the metaphysical
vocabulary for it any more than the socialists do.”
Firstly, note Pirsig’s comment that a socialist system is “an intellectually
guided society” in the first paragraph to understand where my “strange”
phrase of “intellectual guidance” derives from. It’s a matter of emphasis
though. Pirsig is not saying that the political right lack any intellectual
guidance in controlling the economy etc but only a moment’s thought
indicates that a free market economy that was completely intellectually
guided (if that was possible) wouldn’t be a free market anymore! You can’t
have it both ways! This inane issue reminds me of Pirsig’s (1991, p.165)
description of Lila as being ‘intellectually nowhere’ didn’t mean that this
character was lying on the floor unconscious but rather making the
observation that: ‘As an intellectual, she is nowhere.’!!!
That the MOQ might appeal to more people of liberal bent shouldn’t be too
much of a surprize as it is an intellectually driven system but unlike
socialism it recognises the value of free markets. Moreover, I think that
the MOQ implies that these should only be limited when social patterns
attempt to take moral precedence over intellectual and artistic values (e.g.
building a school on chemically polluted land just because it’s cheaper than
the non-contaminated ground half a mile away). Hence, my summary from August
18th where I state:
“In LILA, Pirsig argues that the Eastern bloc “communists” completely threw
the (free market) baby out with the bath water while – on the other extreme
- the capitalists didn’t understand why the child they nurtured was so
valuable. The MOQ recognises the value of the child and nurtures it but
doesn’t let it run the household.”
And Mati’s response (from August 20th) to Platt:
Yes [free markets] have the capacity to be dynamic, but those same markets
systems left unchecked will serve their own social purposes, and not the
greater good. Again it is a balance issue.
Ham continued on August 21st by first quoting Platt:
>The junk coming out of universities today from the liberal arts crowd, like
>deconstruction and political correctness, is Orwellian.
I fully agree, despite the fact that I’ve been identified with [SOM’s
sweatshops, polluted lakes and] third-rate schools…
Ant McWatt comments:
Ham, I’m sorry to hear that you agree with Platt’s sentiment - without
reservation - that the “liberal arts crowd” are providing deconstructivist
and politically correct “junk”. As such, which institutions, departments
and/or lecturers do you think are providing such “junk”?
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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