Re: MD WORLDS WORST APOLOGY

From: C.L. Everett (seaelle@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 27 2005 - 18:07:02 BST

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    Platt,

    You are exasperating. Frustrating. Infuriating. Is that your sole intent?

    On 8/26/05, Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:
    > C.L.
    >
    > Well, at least we know where you stand in regards to the "stuff" in the
    > MOQ.

    That is not what I said. What I said was:

    > > . . . *or* where ever *you* keep pulling this stuff up from.

    Which is not in Lila that I read. Pirsig doesn't come across as
    hardcore as you try to make him out to be. He may have been in a bad
    mood for a minute but chapter 24 does not sum up Pirsig for me. That
    would be like saying the books of law in the Bible sum up Christianity
    or even Judaism. A lot of people try to make that so. That doesn't
    work. It's the whole of it, it's the art of it, the history of it ALL
    of IT that makes for the REALITY of anything we might discuss. Pirsig
    taught (or articulated what we already knew) that you can't chop it
    all up and end up with anything. It's all connected. You can't
    "other" the terrorist and survive Platt. You have to ask, like Dario,
    did: How did we bring this onto ourselves.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Forever and always Pirsig is in context to his two books, not the MD
    and certainly not Platt Holden's interpretations. Maybe someday that
    will be different but not today. The world does not yet see Pirsig as
    backdropped by anything but his own work. I do think tho, that there
    are some fine illuminations of his work going on in these
    forums--spotlights being shown on certain aspects of his most
    excellent work, taken as a whole. And friends, his work has to be
    taken as a whole, I think. Otherwise, it's like cutting off one of
    his arms or legs, or maybe even his pee-pee to ignore the impossible
    to be explained ZMM in your myopic focus on ch. 24. I'm going to
    start calling it the Leviticus chapter.

    > It's hard to believe that you would
    > welcome someone into your home who you knew wanted to kill you and your
    > family and consider his act as morally equal to your resistance.
    >
    > Platt

    Platt, Platt, Platt

    I never said anywhere that I would welcome anyone into my home. The
    twin towers are not my home, neither is Iraq, Iran, Jordon, Israel,
    Palestine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Peru or Guatemala or even most of
    the entire continent of North America. All those places BELONG to
    other people, some who have agreements with one another to live in
    certain ways, other who do not. It's not my business. My city
    council raising my (non-drinkable) water bill $5 bucks a month--now,
    that's my business.

    Do you live in any of those places? There's a key point here Platt:
    Just what exactly is the second gulf war defending? I was in the
    military, my friend. I know what it is defending, and it ain't your
    way of life--it ain't even the American Way of life, whatever that is.
     That's what the rubes think, tho. And a lot of the fodder that being
    tossed at it from all sides.

    (I always thought how much more effective the US military would be if
    it focused on protecting its own threshold, what I would call the
    doorway to my own home. I'm happy to defend that, Platt. Is that
    what you mean? Not a problem. Have shotgun. Will defend. I am not
    at all in fear of a hijacked plane targeting my house. Perhaps the US
    thinks its threshold has no borders? Perhaps that's the problem, not
    the "terrorist".)

    +++++++++++++++

    And finally, Platt,

    The cutting edge, where dynamic quality truly lives, on the front edge
    of the train is the PROGRESSIVE, not the regressive of our world.
    Riding on that train of the NEW, the what is yet to come, are the
    punks and the ravers and the hackers and the queers and the Pirsig's
    of the new generations. They all just got here and they're going to
    do what they want, just like you and I did. Thousands of young men
    and women are no longer drawing the lines in the sand that you or I
    have drawn.

    For example, being bisexual and/or "queer" is a reality for many of
    our youth, not an orientation, not a choice, it is who our culture has
    evoved them to be. They are as bisexual, transsexual and every other
    kind of sexual as you are heterosexual and you're not going to stop
    them by wagging your finger at them. You didn't stop abortion in the
    60s--the morning after pill is about to be sold over the counter
    without a prescription (we are a drug culture after all).

    They are some of the modern day Brujos. Like it or not, as Rene
    Richards was in her day.

    Some of them will try to bring some of what they value of the past
    with them, some of the "classical" of the world as we've known it but
    many, most I'm guessing, will leave much behind as they go on to live
    in a much faster paced, blended global landscape I don't think you are
    able (or willing) to fathom. Do you really want them to take grandpa's
    anger, bitterness, hatred and prejudices with them? What Quality good
    will it do them? That is, after all the story of the Middle East,
    generations of grudges.

    I know you don't, not really, not in your heart. You're a guy who
    reads and thinks but this 911 thing's really got you stuck in a rut.
    Let it go. It's ancient history. Maybe you can get back to showing
    what I and others have missed in the MOQ that is positive and
    life-affirming? Try not to look at politics for a while. Look at the
    MOQ instead. Come on, old man, teach me something good before I walk
    away in disgust.

    C.L.

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