From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun May 09 2004 - 20:18:33 BST
Mark, Platt and all:
DMB had said:
It strikes me as a rather crude formulation to equate terrorists and
criminals with the biological level and then assert that we ought to kill
them like germs. This sentiment echoes Hitler, not Pirsig.
Platt replied with a quote from Pirsig:
"Phaedrus had had no answer at the time, but he had one now. The idea that
biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone, that you can talk crime
to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns cannot directly control
biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological patterns,
and the instrument of conversation between society and biology is not
words. The instrument of conversation between society and biology has
always been a policeman or a soldier and his gun." (Lila, 24)
And Platt asked:
Would you like to rephrase what you said about not echoing Pirsig and
comparing him to Hitler?
dmb answers:
This is a particularly spectacular example of the selective reading fallacy
I complained about earlier today. This is the kind of thing Mark has also
pointed to, saying that Platt's presentations leave us "hanging", but that
we can complete the thought by turning to the text. And I say this is a
prime example becasue Platt has simply chopped the paragraph in half. After
"a soldier and his gun", Pirsig writes...
"All the laws of history, all the arguments, all the Constitutions and the
Bills of Rights and Declarations of Independence are nothing more than
instructions to the military and police. If the military and police don't
follow these instructions properly they might as well have never been
written."
And two or three pages prior, he writes...
"...these human rights are all intellect vs society issues. According to the
MOQ these human rights have not just a sentimental basis, but a rational,
metaphysical basis. They are essential to the evolution of a higher level of
life from a lower level of life. They are for real.
But what the MOQ also makes clear is that this intellect vs society
code of morals is not at all the same as the society vs biology codes of
morals that go back to a prehistoric time. They are completely separate
levels of morals. They should never be confused."
And one page after the "conversation" quote, he writes...
"A culture that supports the dominance of social values over biological
values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does not, and a culture
that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social values is
absolutely superior to one that does not."
dmb concludes:
So the answer is "no". I do not care to re-phrase. Instead, I'd ask Platt if
he would like to find an interpretation that does NOT make Pirsig into a
self-contradictory fool who is obsessed with killing criminals and sinners.
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