From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jan 06 2003 - 15:52:57 GMT
Hi Matt, DMB:
> Platt said:
> According to Pirsig "evolution of life" requires both liberals (Dynamic)
> and conservatives (static). "Without Dynamic Quality the organism cannot
> grow. Without static quality the organism cannot last. Both are needed."
> (11)
>
> Matt:
> Wouldn't disagree. Though I wouldn't argue this way (I wouldn't want to
> link liberal with Dynamic and conservative to static, though its a useful
> analogy). But notice that the liberal element (Dynamic) is priveleged over
> the conservative in Pirsig's system.
Please explain what you mean by "privileged." Pirsig in the above quote
says dynamic and static are equally important. Privileged suggests not
equal, and has a pejorative ring to it.
>This is consistent with what DMB
> said. On this analogy, I agree because the liberals have to keep pulling
> the conservatives forward. Also on this analogy, the insight comes out
> that yesterdays liberals are todays conservatives.
Yes. The freedom-loving classical liberals who created the U.S. are
indeed today's conservatives.
> There's nothing in classical liberalism about cruelty, that's a new spin
> added by a New Liberal (Shklar). Like I said, I hope conservatives have
> the sense to co-opt it, 'cuz the slogan's good.
Like so many words in the liberal lexicon, "cruelty" is another ingredient
in Pirsig's "soup of sentiments" that you're "supposed to cheer for, like
"justice" and "compassion." Is abortion cruel? Is encouraging bastardy
cruel? Is moral ruthlessness cruel? Consider the following:
"Intellectuals must find biological behavior no matter what its ethnic
connection and limit or destroy biological patterns with complete moral
ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys germs . . ." (24)
What about the value in certain circumstances of Hamlet's insistence, "I
must be cruel, only to be kind."? Apparently Pirsig would agree--hardly
a contemporary liberal attitude. Like words in all slogans, "cruel" needs
elaboration to have intellectual meaning.
> So, the reason DMB and I seem to reach two different answers to "Is Pirsig
> a liberal?" is because I read liberal as ends and your rendering of DMB has
> him reading liberal as means. I've answered what I think about the ends,
> and in this sense we all seem to be in agreement that Pirsig is a good
> liberal. The means-orientated stuff I leave to you and DMB.
I read "liberal as ends" the same as you, " . . we should stay as much
as possible out of each other's private business." (For a marvelous
description of how government interference in education really screws
things up, read Anthony McWatt's latest essay in the MOQ Forum.)
DMB says:
The claim was that certain ideologies were more moral than others. Platt
asked for back up. I provided it and as usual, that was lost and the topic
was shifted so as to ignore the obvious. Here again is the back up...
Pirsig:
"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. Its
a higher form of evolution. Its an intellectually guided society, not just
a society that is guided by mindless traditions."
Platt:
Again, here is what DMB omits. "But what the socialists left out and
what all but killed their whole undertaking is the absence of a a concept
of indefinite Dynamic Quality." (Again, note DMB's connection of
socialism with contemporary liberalism.)
DMB also tries to bolster his case that Pirsig is a liberal by quoting from
Chap. 24, " . . . liberal intellectuals like myself . . ." Again, what he
omits quashes his evidence. Not only does Pirsig put himself as a
liberal intellectual back in "fifties and sixties," but goes on to explain
how those liberals, in cheering for the "soup of sentiments" of human
rights and thinking that police were "stooges of the social system,"
were incredibly naive. For icing on the cake, add the ZMM quote that
Matt alluded to: "God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big
programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave
individual Quality out."
My guess would be that Pirsig is neither a liberal nor a conservative as
those terms are widely used today, but rather someone who would
encourage individuals to, as Joe Campbell liked to say, "follow your
bliss." That's what the brujo did, and saved Pueblo society.
Platt
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