From: edeads (edeads@prodigy.net)
Date: Sun Jul 10 2005 - 20:48:50 BST
msh
> > So, if we are sincere in our belief in the principles of democracy,
> > we must also be sincere in our efforts to eliminate the obstacles to
> > democracy. This means we must work toward an environment where
> > everyone has an equal chance to survive and be nourished both
> > physically and intellectually; and we must eliminate the influence of
> > wealth on social policy.
>> I'm anxious to hear what others think.
Platt
> I find no support in the MOQ for your ideas of limits on personal wealth
> or eliminating the influence of wealth on politicians. The MOQ principles
> for a moral society are based on intellectual values over the social order
> -- democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
> freedom of assembly, of travel, habeas corpus, and free markets.
> The the thrust of the MOQ is toward dynamic freedom, not static limits.
Ed
You best reread Chapter 13. Your comments suggest there is no bound to
personal pursuit of wealth despite the cost to others or to society. The MOQ
does support limits on personal wealth when such activity becomes a
detriment to society.
Pirsig noted:
Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at war with society,
seeking to subjugate society, to put society under lock and key. An
evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to do so, but it also
contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens its people's physical
health endangers its own stability, so does an intellectual pattern that
weakens and destroys the health of its social base also endanger[s] its own
stability.
Better to say "has endangered." It's already happened. this has been a
century of fantastic intellectual growth and fantastic social destruction.
The only question is how long this process can keep on.
Ed
It is essential to look at effects. Imbalances will always exist, but gross
imbalances will get you into trouble. We have seen the effects of gross
imbalances -- for example inability to access health care. Taking this
example, there remains the personal responsibility to personal health, but
when I was at the emergency room I saw two young kids who were at the
finance window in tears and this brought on there fighting with eachother
over money. They didn't understand the greater forces at play, they thought
it was their "fault" for not having enough money, so blamed eachother. It
was sad to see. Right here in my affluent little town. One can enter the
debates on the effects by looking at the statistics etc, and such is
important to do. When I price out insurance, it is prohibitive. And when I
learn that one of the largest incomes was the prize of a health insurance
tycoon I understood a little better. One schmuck gets inordinate wealth
while young kids cry and scream. We need to pay this schmuck handsomely
because, at least to some, his services are important. But when he and his
industry force insurance to be out of reach and cause kids to cry for
financial reasons, not personal hardship, the impact upon society is
evident. The effects are visible. Well, perhaps not quite visible enough; we
need to study this more. As MSH asks, is the percentage of uninsured not yet
quite high enough, does it need to go up another 5 percentage points, or
perhaps will you be satisfied at an additional 7 percentage points because
that will enable the additional trust fund for our mogul's great
grandaughter, a dynamic pursuit. There is no check on an individual that is
pursuing dynamic quality at the inordinate cost of others? His service is
essential to some greater good? It must be OK if it is dynamic, is that the
sole measure? To me, a defense of the dynamic pursuit of this mogul and
those he represents is simply an intellectual level argument against society
that has run amok. Clever perhaps in its legalistic views and justification,
but it fails to consider the larger picture. It is not consistent with the
MOQ. It is a blind fight for freedom.
I'd rather see personal responsibility for personal health be taught to
preclude, for example, the increase in childhood obesity. But this would
preclude the inordinate profits to pharmaceuticals and insurance and the
health industry, and those involved in junk food. But the information does
exist to enhance one's own health and live longer. I personally like this
road, enhanced health is dynamic and everyone can make healthier choices.
Problem is, vested interests don't want people to take better care of
themselves, otherwise they would be littering the media with far more
information on how to do this, and stop suppressing the mal impact of junk
food and medication, rather than promoting these items. So, we adapt, and we
buy larger clothes for the kids, and spend more on their hospital bills when
they get older, and more on their medications now. All for our dynamic mogul
friends. High quality freedom indeed.
More generally on the topic of Morality and Society, I'll set forth two
quotes. One from Joseph Campbell and one from Pirsig. Both provide support
in looking at the larger picture and synthesizing our activities with
greater awareness. I found them similar and thought they not only hedge
against the static codes of morality in which our society is now embedded,
but also force a look at the foundation upon which our morality is based:
From Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth
The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural
is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned
the world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living
inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the
supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a
wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but
have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer. The
twelfth-century troubadour poetry of courtly love was a protest against this
supernaturally justified violation of life's joy in truth. So too the
Tristan legend and at least one of the great versions of the legend of the
Grail, that of Wolfram von Eschenback. The spirit is really the bouquet of
life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is
one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the
world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't
something ruling over and above a fallen nature. There was something of this
spirit in the medieval cult of the Virgin, out of which all the beautiful
thirteenth-century french cathedrals arose.
However, our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and
that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as
corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get
a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living
according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature
is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation
of the divinity that is inherent in nature.
From Pirsig in ZMM
At the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even perception, at the
moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is no object. There is
only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness of subjects and
objects. At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical.
...
What really counts in the end is peace of mind, nothing else. The reason for
this is that peace of mind is a prerequisite for a perception of Quality
which is beyond romantic Quality and classic Quality and which unites the
two, and which must accompany the work as it proceeds. The way to see what
looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with
this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a
peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.
...
So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to
cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's
surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows
naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right
thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce
that which will be a reflection for others to see of the serenity at the
center of it all.
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