In a message dated 7/23/02 2:46:33 PM GMT Daylight Time, pholden@sc.rr.com
writes:
> Andy:
>
> > My point is that the "patina of
> > quality slapped on the surface," is not American culture. Scrape away
> the
> > surface and you can still find "tasteful" aspects of American culture
> that
> > are firmly rooted and deeply entrenched in our Psyche.
>
> I hate being the bearer of bad news, but the "tastefuf" culture "firmly
> rooted" in the American psyche that you lavishly praise has seen better
> days. To understand why, read Chapter 24 of LILA in which Pirsig sums
> up the demise of the beat generation like this:
>
> "Back in the fifties and sixties Phaedrus had shared this confusion of
> biological quality and Dynamic Quality, but the Metaphysics of Quality
> seemed to help clear it up, When biological quality and Dynamic
> Quality are confused the result isn't an increase in Dynamic Quality. It's
> an extremely destructive form of degeneracy of the sort seen in the
> Manson murders, the Jonestown madness, and the increase of crime
> and drug addiction throughout the country. In the early seventies, as
> people began to see this, they dropped away from the movement, and
> the Hippie revolution, like the intellectual revolution of the twenties,
> became a moral rebellion that failed."
>
> Get it? Failed.
>
> Platt
>
Deep entrenchment. Get it?
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