From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Oct 17 2005 - 14:44:47 BST
> [Arlo]
> Then why do you push the profit-motive as something intrinsic to all labor
> motivations? The point is that many may be, and are, guided by something
> greater than wealth or fame. And yet that's all we hear about. Why not talk
> openly about "enriching the social and Intellectual levels" (which was
> likely Pirsig's motive) as a strong, positive goal in one's life. Why play
> the game that without "profit" no one would do anything. It's quite obvious
> that we would.
Not obvious at all, as we've seen in communist countries where profit has
been eliminated. True, people still do things, but under the gun. Not the
way I want to live, thank you.
> [Platt]
> "Foregrounding?" That's a new one on me. Did you invent it?
>
> [Arlo]
> Here's a link to dictionary.com
> (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=foregrounding)
"The execution of a program that preempts the use of of the processing
system. [syn: foreground processing]
As Pirsig might say, "That's some lead balloon."
> [Platt]
> One's job, after all, is not the end all and be all of life's quality.
>
> [Arlo]
> Interesting sentiment. When you're working 50-60 hours a week to make ends
> meet, how is that not a HUGE factor in your life's quality? Should we be
> content with a few hours on the weekend to do something meaningful?
Those who work 50-60 hours a week are just as likely to be top executives.
> [Platt]
> Why do you consider retail clerks and cashiers of lesser value than
> entrepreneurs and small business owners?
>
> [Arlo]
> I don't consider "them" lesser value (what a strange thing to say)]. I
> consider the jobs "lesser quality" because the are (1) creating wealth for
> distant corporations while receiving only minimum wage, and (2) they have
> no identification or personal investiture in how they labor.
Quality=value=morality. That's what I learned from Pirsig.
> A shop owner is certainly hard, labor intensive work. But its "mine", its
> not to make someone else wealthy, it matters to "me". I identify with it. I
> am stunned that a self-professed conservative would even say such as thing.
> I thought the whole "entrepreneurial class" was foundational to your
> party's platform? Is Bush now professing we'd be better off abandoning
> owning our own small businesses and becoming clerks at Walmart?
No. But we conservatives don't look down on Walmart clerks as somehow
lesser people having lesser jobs.
> [Platt]
> As said above, what's quality for you isn't necessarily quality for me.
> Personally I know some high quality retail clerks who have been extremely
> helpful to me. Hardly "meaningless activity" as you describe it.
>
> [Arlo]
> What? Being "helpful to you" gives their labor "meaning"? When they go home
> at the end of a long day, and open their paychecks with their accumulated
> minimum wage pay, and realize they are spending the great majority of time
> enriching someone else's bank account doing work that means nothing to them
> personally, they'd stop and go, "But wait, I was helpful to that guy who
> bought a Panasonic TV. My work does have meaning to me!"
I thought you of all people would think that helping others is very
meaningful.
> [Platt]
> Yes, I think they are stupid peons. But, unlike you who would like to
> change people to be motivated by something other than profits or spend
> their money on more "worthwhile" things, I'm for free markets, free
> elections and free choices where individual decisions are given free reign,
> unrestricted by those like you or me who think we "know better." All I ask
> is that those who are free to make poor decisions be left alone to suffer
> and learn from the consequences.
>
> [Arlo]
> Back to the gulag fear, eh? When you say "unlike you who would like to
> change people to be motivated by something other than ...", I'm assuming
> you really mean "unlike you *and Pirsig* who would like to change people to
> be motivated by something other than ..." You see, Pirsig too felt that
> expanding the dialogue would "change people", to see Quality, to appreciate
> craftsmanship in labor, to endeavor to recognize the Buddha in the
> motorcycle, all things people were NOT doing.
Pirsig never indicated he would change people by expanding government
welfare programs like you seem to favor.
> As for the "free market" tactic, which is old and tedious, but I'll answer
> the charge again. I am no more against "free markets" than Pirsig. Pirsig
> did not want to control the market, but felt that by enriching the
> dialogue, expanding the dialogue, the market would naturally move towards
> Higher Quality. I feel that way too. In materials production and politics.
I hope "free markets" never become old and tedious. They are constantly
under assault from the left.
"Expanding the dialogue" sounds good. But what precisely does it mean?
With all the blogs out there and the cacophony of news sources, it seems
to me the dialogue if anything is expanding greatly.
> "Freedom" is no less a Grail to me, I think we are mutually appreciative of
> that. But, freedom is often constrained by an inadequate cultural dialogue,
> as was the case Pirsig wrote about in ZMM. Certainly, Pirsig felt that
> people should have the "freedom" to continue making junk, and consuming
> junk, but he felt compelled to say the system could be "better". Not by
> restricting freedom, but by expanding it by attempting to free it from a
> restrictive, maladious dialogue.
Again, what's restrictive about the dialogue? When it was just ABC, CBS
and NBC, that was restrictive. Today, how many channels are there?
Hundreds. Even Europeans can be enlightened by Fox News. :-)
Platt
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