[MD] Is Quality Value?

[Platt Holden]

Hi Rebecca, 

> Firstly, I think the term "consensus" might be replaced with "convention."
> Mostly because convention has less feel that it has been actively
> considered.  Consensus, on the other hand, could be construed to mean that
> people have actively agreed on a certain attitude or practice.

Excellent point.

> Social morality IS imposed on us by consensus, and society is by large part
> defined by the institutions (formal and informal) that it consists of.
> Aristotle's argument was that the better your institutions are then the
> better your society will be.  While institutions don't change quickly, they
> do change and the moral sentiments that were embedded as convention in
> those systems are set adrift.  Take for instance Platt's example of slavery
> and lynch mobs.  Lynch mobs didn't exist at the same time as slavery. 
> Under the system of slavery, everyone - slaves and owners alike -
> understood whose position was where and how one was supposed to act.  Lynch
> mobs started to take place because the morality that was attached to the
> the institution of slavery was set adrift and that complex set of moral
> conventions was completely overturned.  People didn't know how to react so
> they clung to their old sentiments.  Lynch mobs happened during this period
> of high freedom and institutional limbo when one system was on the way out
> and another has not yet taken its place.  I believe that freedom can cause
> beauty but it can also degrade into destruction and horror - the difference
> between the degenerate and the saviour...

Excellent historical analysis. 

> Secondly, what exactly is the problem of aiming at perfection?  Is
> perfection not the highest form of Quality? Is that not what we should
> always aim at, even while knowing that we may never attain it? As has been
> pointed out on another thread, just because you might never achieve your
> goal does not mean that you shouldn't try.

Agree whole-heartedly.

> And I don't think that we should put the perfectibility of man strictly
> under Marx's camp either.  How about going back a couple of thousand years
> to Plato and Aristotle, before the notion of original sin hit the stage.
> They both believed in the perfectibility of man, which is where Marx
> undoubtedly got his ideas from.

Plato believed in an oligarchy. So did Marx though he tried to hide it by 
appealing to the masses. Liberals today follow in their footsteps, 
advocating a perfect society where everyone is equal, excluding themselves 
of course.    

Have a merry Christmas-New Years break from college chores,

Platt