From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 05 2003 - 04:10:16 GMT
Platt, DMB,
Platt said:
According to Pirsig "evolution of life" requires both liberals (Dynamic)
and conservatives (static). "Without Dynamic Quality the organism
cannot grow. Without static quality the organism cannot last. Both are
needed." (11)
Matt:
Wouldn't disagree. Though I wouldn't argue this way (I wouldn't want to
link liberal with Dynamic and conservative to static, though its a useful
analogy). But notice that the liberal element (Dynamic) is priveleged over
the conservative in Pirsig's system. This is consistent with what DMB
said. On this analogy, I agree because the liberals have to keep pulling
the conservatives forward. Also on this analogy, the insight comes out
that yesterdays liberals are todays conservatives.
Platt said:
the argument between liberals and
conservations is about means. Below you make the conservative case
in nutshell.
Matt:
Ah, see I never said anything about means, as you rightly pointed out. If
we're trying to place what Pirsig thinks about various means towards the
liberal ends (that, pace Steve, everyone agrees to) then its more
complicated and is part of the ongoing political debate that I have
successfully stayed out of for a year and a half, and I will continue to
dodge away from. The only thing I will point out to you Platt (and DMB,
for that matter) is to not assume ends and means are always agreed on when
labels are used. You've been trying to pin me as a crypto-totalitarian,
socialist for a long time and, I'm sorry, I'm just not talking about means.
And, if you want my opinion, you'd have to do a lot of pulling, wriggling,
ripping, and reading into Pirsig ("violence" as you might call it DMB) to
find any evidence of means suggestions. Evidence against trying this is
found in ZMM: "God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big
programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave
individual Quality out." (Ch 29) If anything, this supports Platt's
position, but I would like to suggest that Pirsig is saying he won't be
suggesting any means-orientated ideas, only suggestions about Quality. I
think he continues this in Lila and I think its why we can easily input our
own political dispositions into his philosophy. His philosophy isn't
designed to only make one political position an option (other than things
we all already agree about, like democracy). Its designed to help us think
about Quality.
And as you say, I make the "conservative case" in a nutshell, except that I
think that only the part labeled "classical liberalism" would be commonly
called conservative, though I hope most conservative's would agree with
Shklar's rendering of liberal. The reason I say this is because classical
liberalism is what turned into conservatism (see the above analogy).
There's nothing in classical liberalism about cruelty, that's a new spin
added by a New Liberal (Shklar). Like I said, I hope conservatives have
the sense to co-opt it, 'cuz the slogan's good.
So, the reason DMB and I seem to reach two different answers to "Is Pirsig
a liberal?" is because I read liberal as ends and your rendering of DMB has
him reading liberal as means. I've answered what I think about the ends,
and in this sense we all seem to be in agreement that Pirsig is a good
liberal. The means-orientated stuff I leave to you and DMB.
Matt
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