From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 17 2005 - 22:19:27 BST
[Arlo previously]
Why play the game that without "profit" no one would do anything. It's quite
obvious that we would.
[Platt]
Not obvious at all, as we've seen in communist countries where profit has
been eliminated. True, people still do things, but under the gun. Not the
way I want to live, thank you.
[Arlo]
And yet Pirsig still authored and published ZMM/Lila. Hardly doing so "under the
gun", and yet obviously not for any "profit motive" either. So, why is what
motivated him so different from what would motivate anyone else? Is he some
super-human who aspires to things the rest of us would not?
[Platt on my use of "foregrounding"]
As Pirsig might say, "That's some lead balloon."
[Arlo]
Sorry, its a common word in my normal circles. I'll refrain from using it with
you.
[Platt]
Those who work 50-60 hours a week are just as likely to be top executives.
[Arlo]
Never said otherwise. What I said was that anyone who works 50-60 hours per week
would hardly say their labor is not a large part of the Quality of their lives.
When that labor is invested with personal meaning and significance, those 50-60
hours (no matter how strenuous and intensive) are much higher Quality than
those same 50-60 hours being spent doing dull, repetitive, meaningless work.
[Arlo previously]
I identify with it. I am stunned that a self-professed conservative would even
say such as thing. I thought the whole "entrepreneurial class" was foundational
to your party's platform? Is Bush now professing we'd be better off abandoning
owning our own small businesses and becoming clerks at Walmart?
[Platt]
No. But we conservatives don't look down on Walmart clerks as somehow
lesser people having lesser jobs.
[Arlo]
And nor do I, although you seem to repeat this for some reason. They are
certainly not "lesser people", that's my whole point. As for the jobs being
"lesser", are you saying that owning one's own business is no greater quality
(in labor) than working as a retail clerk at Box-Mart? If you'd reread ZMM, I
think you'd see that Pirsig would agree that those jobs (any jobs) that remove
the individual from identification with the whole are low quality. All his
examples focused on the craftsman, who was able to make decisions, respond to
the materials, be "in charge" of the activity, not a cog in a wheel doing stuff
that has no personal meaning to them.
What's funny, though, is how you say "conservatives don't look down on... as
lesser people". And yet that's exactly what your market commoditization of
individuals does. My "value" as a person is measure by the capital I am able to
earn. The "better" I am, the "more" I earn. If anyone thinks poor people are
"lesser" it is those with the mentality that accumulating wealth is a measure
of value. Just like you did, when you implied that Sam Walton was ipso facto a
culturally enriching person by virtue of having created a financial empire.
[Platt]
Pirsig never indicated he would change people by expanding government
welfare programs like you seem to favor.
[Arlo]
What he said was there is a place for them, but they have to built on a
foundation of Quality. But what Pirsig did argue for was that people are
motivated by Quality, which is not synomous with captial profit or fame.
Capitalists tell us that the only motivator is money. You tell us that without
money as a reward, no one would pursue Quality, or to use the ZMM parlance,
Arete, Excellence, Dharma. I am arguing that we highlight this aspect, the
pursuit of Quality, over the pursuit of wealth. It was this pursuit that got
ZMM written, not rewards of money or prospects of fame.
If we were truly motivated by Quality, and not profit, "doing Good" would be far
more important than "getting money". We got ZMM because Pirsig felt it was
"Good", not because of the need for money, or fame.
Either Pirsig is the rare odd-ball, or we'd all aspire to this if we could stop
the cultural fixation on "money", and the belief that it is the natural state
of affairs it is only "for money" that people do things.
[Platt]
I hope "free markets" never become old and tedious. They are constantly
under assault from the left.
[Arlo]
You see, Erin. This is type of "junk" the dichotomy brings to the dialogue.
Arlo
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