From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Nov 20 2003 - 15:16:50 GMT
DMB, All:
> dmb ays:
> . . . if you're sincerely
> interested in the way pre-historic people looked at things, there is no
> shortage of scholarship. I would also suggest Peter Kingsley's "ANCIENT
> PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY, AND MAGIC: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition" or
> anything by Joseph Cambpell.
Taking your advice, I went to the local library and got a copy of "The
Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell. To my amazement I found Campbell
saying to Bill Moyer of PBS:
"This is the first nation (the U.S.) that was ever established on the
basis of reason instead of simply warfare."
That was a new one on me, but then I recalled what Pirsig said about
when the intellectual level became dominant.:
"Phaedrus thought that if he had to pick one day when the shift from
social domination of intellect to intellectual domination of society
took place, he would pick November II, 1918, Armistice Day, the end of
World War 1. And if he had to pick one person who symbolized this shift
more than any other, he would have picked President Woodrow Wilson."
(Lila, chp 22)
DMB made a point:
> The point being that (ancient Egypt) serves as an example of what
> Pirsig means when he says they had intellect, but that their culture
> was not intellectual.
I'm led to the conclusion that in both Pirsig's and Campbell's eyes the
U.S. is an intellectual culture. Which will no doubt come as quite a
surprise to our European friends. :-)
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 : Thu Nov 20 2003 - 15:22:52 GMT