Roger,
Nice essay. Watching the debate betweem socialism and capitalism reminds me of
Scott's differentiation of differential and centric mystic.
SCOTT: A quick sense of the difference
between a differential mystic from a centric one is that the latter
emphasizes something like meditating on God's Love (John of the Cross is
a typical example), while the former is more concerned with removing
one's limiting beliefs, for example in one's own self-existence, or in
the idea of an independent, objective reality. Neither -- as paths --
should be considered superior to the other, unless they fall into their
respective traps: the differential into nihilism, the centric into idolatry.
ERIN: substitute the two traps: capitalism into greed and socialism
into dogma----
I have the same response as to our two party system---does
it have to be this way?
It reminds me of a Simpson episode where aliens kidnapped the
presidential candidates and posed as them during the election.
When their identity was revealed they said "you have to vote for
one of us it is a two-party system"
The crowd oh that's right and voted one in.
Having to force to choose between socialism and capitalism seems
like a lose-lose situation.
Erin
>Hi Platt and David
>
>NEWS FLASH! I am actually writing a post that discusses Pirsig for a change!
>
>DMB:
>> Pirsig puts socialism at
>> the intellectual level, but you call it fundamentalism and thereby put it
>> at the social level.
>
>PLATT:
>Perhaps I failed to make myself clear. I agree that according to the
>MOQ socialism fits in the intellectual level. I have no argument with
>Pirsig's placement. I call it" fundamentalism" because the proponents of
>the Principles of International Socialism are often just as rabid in the
>defense of their beliefs as Christian fundamentalists, and, if given half a
>chance, would be willing to impose their beliefs on others via a police
>state. Never forget that what the majority of Germans voted into power in
>the 1930s was the National SOCIALIST German Workers party.
>
>ROG:
>Allow me to quibble with both views a bit (you can each decide how much). My
>knowledge of socialism is that if it is indeed intellectual at all, it is
>very, very low grade intellectual thought (unlike Platt, I am quite willing
>to flat out disagree with Pirsig, though I may not be here-- again, you all
>decide). My understanding of socialism/marxism:
>
>It was an outcome of mixing French Enlightenment philosophy and the idealism
>of EQUALITY with Hegelian concepts of the German idealism of some kind of
>inevitable perfectabilty of man.
>
>A central hypothesis of "scientific socialism" was that capitalism would
>inevitably lead to concenteration of wealth into a very few hands,
>eliminating the middle class and impoverishing the poor and increasing their
>number and plight to the point that revolution would be certain. Marxism was
>kind of like Malthusianism. Both start with a common assumption and project
>the assumption out over time with the further assumption that nothing changes
>due to the movement until it self destructs. Malthus projected endless
>geometric growth in population and linear growth in food, Marx projected
>endless concentration of wealth due to competition.
>
>If this was the extent of socialism, I would probably agree that it was just
>a bad hypothesis. And, bad hypotheses are scientific if approached in a
>scientific pattern. However, marxism also involved the ascendency of man
>from "the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom." Although i can't
>prove it, one can certainly see elements of 19th century atheists replacing
>their need in belief in the bible with belief in Marx's deep, philosophical
>brand of manifest earthly bliss.
>
>In addition, the concept proved extremely resistant to empirical evaluation.
>It became dogma. The heir to Marx and Engel -- Eduard Bernstein -- was one
>of the first to encounter this resistance. He noted that in the 50 years
>since the ideas were first drafted that the exact opposite was actually
>occuring. Capitalism was leading to more wealthy rather than fewer, more
>middle class and to better standards of living for the poor. Subsequent data
>shows that per capita incomes doubled in Germany and England during this
>phase. Bernstein noticed that the liberal tradition in Britain led more to
>empowerment of workers than the opposite and that even in Germany that
>workers were granted social insurance and that the Bismark would often side
>with trade unions.
>
>The response of the Socialist movement was to oppose any revision to the
>theory though. When Bernstein pointed out pragmatically that if the goal was
>to improve the lives of workers that the best thing socialists could do was
>to support unions and democracy and such, his suggestions were rejected.
>Socialism depended upon capitalism being hopelessly flawed for socialism to
>be manifest destiny. Lenin and others saw that revolution was the whole
>point of socialism.
>
>Further, Socialism never payed any heed to how it actually worked. Robert
>Owen's experimental communes ended in failure, but were widely ignored or
>dismissed. The same pattern was repeated hundreds of times across as much as
>60% of the earths population, but it never once delivered the results people
>wanted absent modifications that looked uncannily like...CAPITALISM!
>
>So, I suggest that socialism wasn't even close to scientific. It was
>certainly philosophical, but in a dogmatic way that was the antithesis of
>objectivity or empiricism or experimentation and theoretical testing and
>revision. The goal was some kind of ill defined utopia (with the leader of
>the revolution as the stand in for God).
>
>Personally, I think I am saying about the same thing as Platt above, but that
>I think that this negates Pirsig's compliment of the semi-religious movement
>that led to 100 million deaths.
>
>
>PIRSIG:
>> Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over society,
>> were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the
>> social control of intellect. ... The gigantic power of socialism and
>> fascism, which have overwhelmed this century, is explained by a conflict of
>> levels of evolution.
>
>ROG:
>Again I am not sure I agree with Pirsig. Fascism was a pro-war leftist
>philosophy adpoted by Mussolini and Hitler. Both versions included most of
>socialist thought overlayed with nationalistic and racial superiority. In
>Germany and Italy, these were basically versions of socialism advocating
>worker and peasant empowerment, expropriation of land and factories,
>confiscation of profits. Mussolini jumped back and forth as the head of both
>socialist and fascist movements depending upon his ability to be in charge.
>If anything, it seems that Hitler and Musslini were just trying to find the
>right combo of social, religious and intellectual dogma to incite popular
>revolution to set them in charge. Lenin was only different in that he
>implemented the concept with less revision (with the notable exception that
>russia wasn't even a capitalist country and hence skipped the supposedly
>critical capitalist stage).
>
>To characterize the fascist and socialist movements as a battle between
>society and intellect seems to be a gross distortion. I would suggest that
>both were attempts to establish control of society. One leaned more toward
>national pride and rascism (complete with colored uniforms, roman salutes and
>neat ways of marching) and the other leaned more toward deep Hegelian
>philosophical banalities and pseudoscientific teleological mysticism.
>Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and gang were not intellectuals.
>
>I guess my point here is that if socialism was pseudo-intellectual, then this
>struggle was at best a social struggle between pseudo-intellectual
>totalitarians and nationalistic totalitarians.
>
>Pirsig:
>"What makes the free-enterprise system superior is that the socialists,
>reasoning intelligently and objectively, have inadvertently closed the
>door to Dynamic Quality in the buying and selling of things. They closed
>it because the metaphysical structure of their objectivity never told them
>Dynamic Quality exists."
>
>ROG:
>I find very little evidence that the early socialists ever reasoned
>intelligently and objectively. The problem wasn't just that they missed the
>dynamicness of capitalism and democracy, it was that they built a dogmatic
>theory that rejected any concept of dynamism as its core. And Pirsig goes on
>to state that what makes intellect so moral is its dynamicness.
>
>My point here is that Pirsig again overstates the morality of socialism. It
>was at best, a very low grade intellectual pattern that rejected dynamicness
>at its core.
>
>To now loop back to the title of the post, creationism is another low grade,
>non dynamic, pseudo-scientific social idea dressed up as science. Socialism
>and creationism are both science gone bad. Both are immoral, and if Pirsig
>states otherwise, I think he is... (no, don't say it)... wrong.
>
>Let me know your thoughts....As usual, trhere is a good chance I AM WRONG!
>
>Rog
>
>
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