From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 27 2004 - 16:58:24 BST
Hi all,
Been lurking for a while, if I can diverge from the racial hooha, I'd like to
pose a question regarding "social Marxism" and Pirsig's ideas.
Make no mistake, I don't claim to be an expert on either Marx or Pirsig. I'm
moderately familiar with Marxist philosophy, although admittedly not so with
post-Marxist critical theory. As for Pirsig, I had read his books repeatedly,
and am in the process of assimilation (I hope).
First, to view Marx as being reducible to simply "social egalitarianism" misses
many aspects of Marxist theory that are primarily concerned with (1) alienation
and labor, and (2) the effects of unequal distributions of wealth, and how that
relates to power and subjugation. My questions to the group are broken along
these two ideas.
(1) It seems to me in ZMM, Pirsig at the very least sympathizes with the way
post-Fordist work has removed the object of labor from the activity of labor.
The "dull, gray deathforce" Pirsig describes as the result of the seperation of
technology and Quality, becomes relatable to Marx in instance where Pirsig
talks of the Quality of work of laborers (the mechanic and the welder who fixes
his chainguard) and how these compare to current situations where no Quality
resides in the labor (the initial mechanic Pirsig took his bike to). The
alienation Marx wrote of, and alienation of Quality Pirsig wrote of, seem to be
be analogous ways of describing the same phenomenon. In both cases, the
solution is to re-acquaint the laborer to the activity of his or her labor.
Thoughts?
(2) Nothing I've read in Marx suggests a belief that in a capital-based economy
power and wealth could be equally distributed. What he promoted (rightfully so
or not) was a hierarchical shift of power into the hands of the laborers and
out of the hands of the capitalists (again, as I've read it). Platt, I believe
that you made the statement that a laissez-faire economy is superior in
Pirsig's view. While my reading of Pirsig supports this, I also question
whether Pirsig would agree that consumerism (as currently practiced in most of
the Western world) and the gross materialism it promotes is of higher quality
than a socially-focused approached on using resources to enrich (indeed, to
meet) the basic needs of one's fellow man. Here I am not talking about top-down
governmental programs, but a bottom-up reaction to "doing good" in one's own
mini-world (Pirsig, I think said something along these lines). To rephrase, it
is (I would agree) poor Quality to use force to control economies, is it not
high Quality to criticize the gross excess and focus on materialism in our
post-Fordist culture? What I am asking, is whether or not the MOQ offers any
valid criticism of the current economic marketplace, not its theoretical (and
perhaps idealized) aspects, but its practical and instantiated existance?
As you can tell, I have many leanings towards certain of Marx's ideas. But I
also disagree with him on many others. Your thoughts on these two ideas are
greatly appreciated.
Arlo
PS: As a more personal introduction for you all, I work for a foreign language
resource center doing technology development. And I ride Harleys, as Paul Vogel
will no doubt find when he does a web search on me.
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