From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Jun 13 2004 - 23:42:24 BST
Hi All:
> dmb quotes:
> "A man with no doubt is a monster." Garrison Keillor 6/12/04 (He was
> refering to Bush, but applies more widely than than.)
Keillor is a monster by his own definition. He professes no doubt about
his statement, and is thereby hoisted on his own petard.
dmb continues:
> Despite the fact that I posted a Pirsig quote that directly contradicts
> Platt's assertion, first in February of 2002 and probably a dozen times
> since then, he persists in making this conspicuously incorrect point.
> "It's not that Victorian social economic patterns are more moral than
> socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite. They are LESS
> moral as static patterns go." P221
Every time DMB has quoted this passage to show that Pirsig supports the
morality of socialism, I have had to respond to show that instead Pirsig
supports the morality of the free enterprise system. Why DMB persists in
leaving out the passage below is symptomatic of his penchant to revise
history by omission of salient facts, like millions slaughtered under
socialist regimes. (In case anyone missed it in my previous post, "Nazi"
stands for National SOCIALIST German Worker's Party.)
Pirsig writes in Lila, Chap. 17:
"When they call it freedom, that's not right. "Freedom" doesn't mean
anything. Freedom's just an escape from something negative. The real
reason it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean
Dynamic Quality.
"That's what neither the socialists nor the capitalists ever got figured
out. From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism.
It's a higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society,
not just a society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what
gives socialism its drive. But what the socialists left out and what has
all but killed their whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of
indefinite Dynamic Quality. You go to any socialist city and it's always a
dull place because there's little Dynamic Quality.
"On the other hand the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues
of free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest.
They are just doing the usual cover-up for the rich in their age-old
exploitation of the poor. Some of them seem to sense there is also
something mysteriously virtuous in a free enterprise system and you can
see them struggling to put it into words but they don't have the
metaphysical vocabulary for it any more than the socialists do.
"The Metaphysics of Quality provides the vocabulary. A free market is a
Dynamic institution. What people buy and what people sell, in other words
what people valve, can never be contained by any intellectual formula.
What makes the marketplace work is Dynamic Quality. The market is always
changing and the direction of that change can never be predetermined.
"The Metaphysics of Quality says the free market makes everybody richer-by
preventing static economic patterns from setting in and stagnating
economic growth. That is the reason the major capitalist economies of the
world have done so much better since World War II than the major socialist
economies. It is not that Victorian social economic patterns are more
moral than socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite.
They are less moral as static patterns go. What makes the free-enterprise
system superior is that the socialists, reasoning intelligently and
objectively, have inadvertently closed the door to Dynamic Quality in the
buying and selling of things. They closed it because the metaphysical
structure of their objectivity never told them Dynamic Quality exists."
Note Pirsig's reasons why free markets are more moral than socialism. "A
free market is a Dynamic institution." "What makes the marketplace work is
Dynamic Quality." "What makes the free enterprise system SUPERIOR is that
the socialists, reasoning intelligently and objectively, have
inadvertently closed the door to Dynamic Quality in the buying and selling
of things." (emphasis added).
The message is clear. If you want to stick to a status quo system, go with
the socialists, i.e. liberals. But if you want have a dynamic, creative,
beneficent system, become an advocate for free markets, i.e.,
conservative.
dmb resumes:
> And this is what is under
> attack from Platt. He never met an intellectual or a liberal for whom he
> did not have utter contempt.
I love the way liberals like to join "intellectual" and "liberal" together
as if the two couldn't possibly be thought about separately, like the Lone
Ranger and Tonto. I think they really believe that if you don't agree with
their static ideas, you're just too dumb to know any better. Elitism
anyone?
Best,
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jun 13 2004 - 23:41:08 BST