From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 09 2004 - 18:19:35 BST
Platt,
> Agree. We've had ample opportunity to freely express our views. Thanks for
> a lively conversation without descending to name-calling.
>
Ditto. Much as we may disagree, I am grateful for the dialogue.
> This is the nub of our disagreement. For you, earning money isn't good.
> For me, earning money means you have done good for somebody who values the
> the product of service you provide. I hope Pirsig and his publisher earn
> lots of money, the more the better.
>
As do I. I never said "earning money" isn't good. I just don't believe it is the
unassailable highest good (as it is in modern capitalism). When "earning money"
is done at the expense of treating people as meaningless objests it to be
rethought. For example, if slightly more money for Pirsig meant treating a
Tijuanese population like slave labor, or putting people to work doing
meaningless, alienating activities, then I think a better balance can be had.
In the current dialogue it is impossible to say anything more than "whatever
brings Pirsig more money is justifiable". This "whatever" is what is
structurating the market to favor alienating labor, dependance on poor, slave
labor, and a general regard for employees and "the enemy" to wealth
accumulation.
You mention Joseph Campbell in another post. He also blamed much of the
degeneration of modern society and individual psychoses to "the absence of an
effective general mythology" (in Hero with 1000 Faces). That is, without a
mythology to describe the Good (as Pirsig argued is the only way to approach
it- "it's all an analogy, it has to be" ZMM) all sorts of degenerative maladies
fall into being, derived from the individual trying to construct individual,
personal mythologies. From his description of the Monomyth, I don't think he
felt that any one particular mythology was "right", but that it is important
for a culture to have a shared mythological reference for discussion of the
Good. In the end, the Monomyth is an elevated view because it demonstrates the
falsity of individual names, a common problem with the adoption of any given
mythology, and focuses on the "analogy".
I mention this because it is the core of my criticisms. Capitalism exists now
without referent to anything beyond money. It's not that money is bad, or
unnecessary, but that actions in the marketplace should come secondary to a
greater understanding (or dialogue) of what is Good. Perhaps, since
Christianity is the majority religion in this country, if more business owners
would actually ask themselves the cliched "WWJD?" before engaging in market
activites, much of this discussion could be eliminated. I doubt, for example,
that Jesus would justify the conditions in Tijuana because it increases profit
margins for the Coke executives. Or that he would approve of the dumping of
tons of poisonous lead into groundwater to save money "just because we can get
away with it". But not just Jesus; the Buddha, Mohammed, White Buffalo Calf
Woman, Avolokiteshvara, name your Prophet or Messiah,... and my point with the
MOQ, Quality, for Quality (as Pirsig indicates) is what causes us to
continually create the world, and thus invent religion as a response to
Quality.
The individual names differ, but as Joseph Campell argues with the Monomyth, the
fundamental meanings and realizations revealed through religious practices are
universal. They have to be, since they are all constructed as a response to
Quality. And it is these "truths", the monomythic constructions, which must
supercede the pursuit of wealth. Modern capitalism disallows this, saying that
there is nothing that is immoral in the pursuit of wealth. We can have free
markets, and still focus on "doing good", if we are guided by Quality and not
capital as the primary, all-important force in life. In short, the individual
mythological referent "WWJD", could be very simply mapped (via the Monomyth)
onto the statement "What would Quality do?". Indeed, it has been when Pirsig
paraphrased Plato "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good, need we
ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Now, having said this, this is what I mean when I say the dialogue should be
about "doing good" and not "earning money".
Arlo
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 : Fri Jul 09 2004 - 18:37:42 BST