From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 15:37:22 BST
Hi Johnny,
> Why do you assume that DQ and the Giant are opposed to each other? A
> cohesive force is another name for a static moral pattern, the Giant is an
> intellectual level pattern (not merely the conception of it is
> intellectual, but it itself is born on top the lower levels). The giant
> respons to DQ in however way that strengthens and reinforces it as a
> pattern. Yes, the Giant loves free market forces and loves the biological
> energy of human bodies.
The Giant, a social pattern, can't respond to DQ. Pirsig says only an
individual human being can do that.
> Yeah, consumerism is what I'm talking about, sure. How is it
> anti-capitalist?
Consumerism is the societal effort to protect consumers by putting legal,
moral, and economic pressure on business.
> But I don't want the Giant to turn my children into
> manufactured eudaimonic cogs, either. I'm just saying that media is
> liberal (and immoral) in general, because only the anomolies and
> transgressions get written about.
In the US, the media is a capitalist institution, except for national
public radio and TV which are ultra left-wing.
> >The Giant's power is that of totalitarianism, "devouring human bodies."
> Not so literally, though, right? It devours by marketing, by turning me
> into computer user and consumer. You still haven't explained why in NYC
> it's so loud. THere's no totalitarianism there, is there?
It devours human energy to maintain the structure that holds a society
together. If you want to live in society, you have no choice but to be
used by the Giant to suit its purposes. Or, you can drop out and live by
yourself in shack in the woods like the Unabomber who also railed against
technology and consumerism (not that you would take such drastic
measures).
> >The Giant need us to be subservient to its needs and could care less how
> >we go about our individual lives.
>
> The giant can't do anything without us doing it for it, agreed. Our
> freedom serves its needs. BY giving it a free market and flowing capital,
> and a meritocracy and equality and freedom, it grows much faster, like a
> plant in a lush rainforest.
Yes. But by protecting the individual from the Giant through laws
guaranteeing individual rights and freedoms, responses to DQ are
encouraged. Thus in the the US, the Giant flourishes by default, but it's
totalitarian tendencies are always present, ready at any time to take over
by restricting liberty in the name of "the public good."
> No, I think most intellectual ideas are bogus, and every idea is a step or
> two away from direct experience of truth, of knowing. (An inorganic idea
> is one step away from knowing of truth, a biological idea is two steps
> away, a social idea at least three, and an intellectual idea at least four)
I agree that a plate of food to a hungry person is better than a menu. But
how do you tell a bogus idea from a good idea? I mean, your ideas are good
are they not? I also wonder what an inorganic or a biological idea is
like. Can you give some examples? I think I know what you mean by a social
idea, like your idea that the Giant turned you into a computer user and
consumer. Right? In the MoQ, all ideas (collections and manipulations of
symbols) are at the intellectual level.
Platt
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