Hi Rog, David B., Glenn, All:
I agree with you Rog (not surprisingly) that socialism is very low grade
intellectualism and only makes it into the intellectual level, if it makes it
all, by the skin of its teeth. I think Pirsig may have placed it there for the
following reasons:
Socialism is atheistic but claims the moral high ground (economic
equality, social justice). To differentiate it from religion which had a lock
on moral questions for centuries, Pirsig raised socialism to the
intellectual level to reflect the triumph of “humanistic” morality over
religious morality in the early part of the last century.
Socialism is pseudo-scientific. Pirsig saw that socialism, like science,
interprets experience through the lens of collectives, groups, masses,
generalities, stereotypes, theories, statistics and other universal
abstractions ignoring for the most part exceptions, anomalies,
singularities and most of all, individuals. Thus socialism cannot
intellectually deal with the concept that people are ends in themselves,
not means to the ends of others. Result: Socialists must resort to
reactionary authoritarian police state methods to accomplish their ends.
Socialism is the darling of college professors. During Pirsig’s
experience as a teacher he couldn’t help but notice that most who
inhabit the halls of ivy are leftists, eager to dominate the social level with
their Utopian visions of a perfect society--a major theme of LILA..
Throughout the book, Pirsig inhabits his intellectual level with
representatives from the education industry (Boas, Benedict, Mead,
Wilson, etc.) pointing out that the Ph.D has become the ultimate status
symbol. In fact, the intellectual level is almost defined in LILA by
socialist professors and their fellow travelers who hold sway at that level.
Of course, I’m guessing why Pirsig placed socialism at the intellectual
level. But perhaps these reasons may have had something to do with
his decision. At least I put them out for your consideration with the full
realization that I could be wrong.
I am sure, however, that every time David names several European
countries as examples of the marvels of socialism, I think of Sweden
and how under socialism’s guidance it has deteriorated in the past 30
years to a lower standard of living than Afro-Americans in the U.S., and
that between 1980 and 1999, the gross income of Sweden’s poorest
households increased by just over six percent while the poorest in the
U.S. enjoyed a three times bigger increase. These statistics from the
Swedish Research Institute of Trade.
Platt
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