From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 23:48:04 GMT
All:
I hope everyone is aware that a more fair and balanced version of
Pirsig's views about the Victorians would include the following:
"What we tend to forget is that, unlike the European aristocrats they
aped, the American Victorians were a very creative people. The
telephone, the telegraph, the railroad, the transatlantic cable, the
light bulb, the radio, the phonograph, the motion pictures, and the
techniques of mass production—almost all the great technological
changes that are associated with the twentieth century are, in fact,
American Victorian inventions. This city is composed of their value
patterns! It was their optimism, their belief in the future, their
codes of craftsmanship and labor and thrift and self-discipline that
really built twentieth-century America. Since the Victorians
disappeared the entire drift of this century has been toward a
dissipation of these values. (Lila, chp. 17)
If you're seeking the reasons for whatever social crisis you think is
sweeping civilization down the tubes, you may want to take a second
look at the "dissipation" of the above Victorian values -- work,
savings, self-discipline and a host of other virtues built around the
ideals of individual freedom, individual responsibility and self-
respect. (It used to be shameful to be on the dole.) But government
transfers of wealth from the producers to the moochers continues apace.
A conservative President has set new spending records, even while
liberals complain it's not enough.(For them, it's never enough.)
When at last the socialist dream is reached and everyone has equal
worth, then everything will be equally worthless.
Platt
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