From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 14 2005 - 17:04:06 BST
Before I go further into this, I want to put back upfront my original
question. If "the point of a book like [ZMM]" was not profit (either
financial or symbolic), and yet writing it "seemed to have a higher quality
than not writing it", what was the nature of that quality?
We are told every day, in endless repetition, that "money" is the Great
Motivator. That without the profit-motive, culture would end, people
wouldn't labor, the whole world would fall apart. And yet the profit-motive
played no part in Pirsig's decision to author and publish ZMM. So, what
did? And, more importantly, why aren't we foregrounding THAT motive as a
greater motive than financial profit?
Now, back to the tangental dialogue....
[Platt]
IMO the invention of the assembly line improved the quality of life for
millions around the world, not only because it multiplied the amount of
goods that could be produced, but because it furnished workers with the
means to buy those goods.
[Arlo]
Like I said in other posts, yes, it brought with it great leaps in quantity
of production, but at a cost, and that cost was the core of the low quality
Pirsig gets at in ZMM. In all the examples of Quality (as related to labor)
Pirsig always describes a "connection to the whole" in process, whereas
Fordian production removes the individual from the whole. This is a bit of
precursor to what I'm working on for a later time, but start with this:
"The real ugliness lies in the relationship between the people who produce
the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar
relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they
use."
[Platt]
Walmart provides goods from all over the world at low prices, benefiting
millions who, by their free choice as consumers, have made the Walton
family wealthy and deservedly so. I don't know how much money I've saved by
shopping at Walmart, but just the other day I bought a pound of hamburger
there for $1 cheaper than at the local food market. Of course, the money I
saved will be either spent or invested elsewhere to benefit other employers.
[Arlo]
Which proves only the short-sightedness and need for immediate small
rewards rather than a long-term view of benefits, and a delaying of small,
immediate gratification for eventual, larger rewards. You call this healthy?
What Walmart does is funnel capital out of local communities, turn people
who would otherwise be your entrepreneurs and small business owners into
retail clerks and cashiers. I'd say that a community with a dozen small
locally-owned small businesses creates a better situation for more than one
Walmart and minimum wage income. Not to mention that those same people who
would otherwise own and operate their own small shops, and have meaningful
labor therein, are reduced to meaningless activity that creates great
wealth for others (the Walton family) while reducing themselves to wage slaves.
So, yes, Walmart can sell at lower costs because it can buy at quantity
discounts. But your little $1 savings just turned your local butcher (a
rewarding, viable employment) into a minimum wage deli-clerk at Walmart.
Again you reveal that for you the only Quality is financial capital. That
$1 in your pocket is more important than a community with meaningful, real
employment for everyone. Not me, I avoid those box-stores like the plague.
I would rather pay more money to someone locally than watch all that money
go off to Sam Walton while everyone around me turns into retail clerks.
[Arlo previously]
Eminem and Larry Flynt are both millionaires, but I doubt their market
success ipso facto would make you think they enriched culture, despite all
those purchases that made these guys millionaires suggesting otherwise.
[Platt]
Well now there you go. I don't think Eminem and Larry Flynt enriched
culture, but then I don't think any purveyors of sex and rock and roll
enrich culture. But, you'll recall the great debate we had about rock and
roll that many here considered high quality while to me it represented a
throwback to primitive jungle rituals. From this I reach three conclusions:
1) biological quality is a constant threat to cultural evolution, 2)
there's no accounting for taste, and 3) if we want a free society, the
consumer must remain king.
[Arlo]
Good, that was the only point I was trying to make. That success in the
market, that selling millions of products, doesn't make for enriching the
culture. Indeed, market success can occur even when someone is de-riching
culture, yes? You seemed to imply earlier that the combined "value
judgement" of consumers was an indicator of whether or not someone enriched
the culture. Glad to see you deny this.
So, let me ask you, are you saying that all those people who buy Eminem and
Larry Flynt's products are "stupid peons"? Why do you think they see these
products as having "high value"? Is it because they are incapable of the
high level of thought that you are? I'm not asking this simply to be
sarcastic, I'm asking this because everytime I challenge the "consumer's
decision" (whether in the market or in politics), you counter that I am
accusing everyone of being a "stupid peon", unable to make decisions for
themselves. Is that what you are saying about all the millions of people
who buy Eminem's CDs and Larry Flynt's magazines?
Arlo
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