Andreas and Marco (primarily) and Group
Andreas wrote:
> I read the ' New York Song ' of Big P and fell over the following. ( I
> did not hurt myself )
What's the "New York Song" and who is Big P?
This post of yours gives me an opportunity to raise the question of
where communism belongs. Democracy is an Intellectual pattern
we all agree on, but what is communism ...or socialism
(communism "light").
(NB This was written before Marco's last and I see that he treats
the same question - as does Roger!!!)
> In chap. 17 (on page 224 bantam ed. 1991) Mr. Pirsig writes.
> " When they call it freedom, that's not right. ' Freedom' doesn't mean
> anything. Freedom's just an escape from somenthing negative. The real
> reason it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean
> Dynamic Quality. That's what neither the the socialists nor the
> capitalists ever got figured out. From a static point of view
> socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a higher form of
> evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a society
> that is guided by mindless traditions.
Here Pirsig says that socialism is an "intellectually guided
society"..."a higher form of evolution", consequently communism
which is an even purer form must be SUPER-intellectual, so
elevated that it is impossible to sustain and quickly collapses into
a totalitarianism not to be distinguished from the "ordinary" kind. In
other words the highest/best (stable) political system is Social-
Democracy.
> That's what gives socialism its
> drive. But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed
> their whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite
> Dynamic Quality. You go to any socialist city and it's always a dull
> place because there's little Dynamic Quality."
Yes, communism is all but killed yet the Western democracies
have inherited the solidarity strain. Whatever parties or programs
the welfare system can't be dropped, democracy is transformed by
the "socialist" idea.
Re. the dynamic/static question I am uncertain when DQ is used
this way, for instance New York more dynamic than - say - Oslo or
capitalism more dynamic than communism, but MARCO has
something to say here.
MARCO:
> Andreas Deppner wrote:
> > What does Mr. Pirsig mean by ' an absence of a concept of indefinite
> Dynamic
> > Quality' ?
> A friend of mine in the eighties went to Berlin, as tourist. Of course
> he visited the Wall, ad also he had the chance for a one day visit to
> East Berlin. When he came back home, he told me "that wall is too
> absurd. It will not last". In those years it was not very easy to
> believe. Rationally, that wall was there to divide two different
> worlds, and only a terrible war was considered necessary to destroy
> it. But he told me he felt it. "The difference is indescribable, West
> Berlin is a beautiful city, full of sounds, colors, people. East
> Berlin seems an old silent black-and-white movie".
> When after two or three years the wall has been tore down, he just
> told me "did you see?"
> The 'absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality' is not only
> the cause of a boring black-and-white everyday life. On a larger
> scale, it creates the impossibility to develop new ideas, new
> technologies. Sooner or later, the dynamic breakthrough happens and,
> like an earthquake, the effects are as strong as the situation has
> been static.
> Is just this the big mistake of Eastern European communism? Pirsig
> seem to say that its blindness to the individual's rights is just the
> impossibility to understand rationally the intellectual value of
> different opinions. An intellectual system which pretends to plan
> everything, and defends its point by all the means, excluding all the
> different ideas: the intellectual way to totalitarianism.
Communism, the intellectual way to totalitarianism. I agree!
> Diversely Fascism is the social way to totalitarianism, the absolute
> defense of Q-society values against any intellectual value.
Fascism/Nazism the social one. Right!
> Two ways, similar results. (there's a difference: the blindness of the
> q-society is inherent and incurable. At the intellectual level,
> communism with its static and rational objectivity
Exactly. Communism is Intellect's brainchild at its most rational,
objective (and thin air) summit.
> has been immoral,
> but it doesn't mean that the whole intellect is lost forever).
Uh? This is Marco's and mine (my? How is it?) bone of contest. I
always wonder what part of intellect surveys intellect? This is
SOM's illusion of "selfconsciousness".
> The capitalistic democracies have been able to give a better answer.
The early capitalist democracies were economically "better", but
callous regarding the poor, but then the Marxist Revolution
changed most of Europe in a social direction .... the most deeply
effected one - Germany which was on the verge of communist
revolution in the twenties - was scared into a (Q-social)
counterrevolution.
> What I fear is the current lack of a strong different point of view.
> After the second world war, the presence of communism just behind the
> frontier has been a constant input for many European nations to create
> a system in which many rights were granted: the welfare state has been
> the western answer to many socialist instances, especially in those
> countries just on the eastern frontier, or with a strong socialist
> party inside. Now that the cold war is over, the welfare state
> isn't anymore so important. All Europe is full of statesmen (left or
> right is the same) talking about competitiveness, public expenditure
> cutting, free trade.
I don't think there's a way back from the welfare model of
democracy ......if only Intellect could relax a little. In Norway here
is a political party that has stronger measurement against crime in
its program, but the "intellectuals" make it sound as if voting for
that party means lynching in the streets to-morrow. This is
complete silliness: admittedly a pattern of Intellec is "leninence",
but the central thing is the juridicial system that Richard Budd
spoke so much about. No political party - even in majority -could or
would dream of cancelling these rights.
> I think this is the source of my fears. It's not exactly about
> democracy, it's about the lack of chances. Democracy, capitalism, free
> market... they have been more dynamic than the Russian communism,
> but now there's the risk they don't need anymore to be dynamic. In
> this sort of intellectual stagnation, the result could be another
> boring movie. In technicolor, full of lights and sounds, but poor of
> contents.
> > Could there be an intellectually guided society with an inherent
> > concept
> of
> > indefinite Dynamic Quality ?
> This is a very difficult question. I'd be glad that our societies
> would follow these intellectual principles:
> "Actually, these last two piles, junk and tough, were the piles that
> gave him the most concern. The whole thrust of the organizing effort
> was to have as few of these as possible. When they appeared HE HAD TO
> FIGHT THE TENDENCY TO SLIGHT THEM, SHOVE THEM UNDER THE CARPET, THROW
> THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW, BELITTLE THEM, AND FORGET THEM. These were the
> underdogs, the outsiders, the pariahs, the sinners of his system. But
> the reason he was so concerned about them was that HE FELT THE QUALITY
> AND STRENGTH OF HIS ENTIRE SYSTEM OF ORGANIZATION DEPENDED ON HOW HE
> TREATED THEM. IF HE TREATED THE PARIAHS WELL HE WOULD HAVE A GOOD
> SYSTEM. IF HE TREATED THEM BADLY HE WOULD HAVE A WEAK ONE. They could
> not be allowed to destroy all efforts at organization but he couldn't
> allow himself to forget them either. They just stood there, accusing,
> and HE HAD TO LISTEN". (Lila chapter 2, my emphasis).
> Who are today the pariahs of the system? Communists? Religious?
> Intellectuals? Idealists? No. The pariahs, the sinners are usually
> poor people which have not been able to ride this crazy horse that is
> the western model. Is there someone listening to them? Are we fighting
> the tendency to throw them out of the window?
Not to pick nits, but who are the poor in our welfare states? The
bag ladies and gentlemen who sleep out may die loaded with
money.The married couples with kids who demand fashionable
clothes pay deerly for that, but is this poverty? These and many
other groups may not be the market profiteurs who drive Ferraris
and Porsches, but poor? There are truly beggars in the former
Communist states, grotesquely compared to the conspicously rich.
Perhaps this is what you have in mind Marco? In which case I
agree.
But have I - or anyone else - said anything about Marco's opening
assertion about DREAMS?
Bo
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