[MD] On Indian Values (Part I?)

[Platt Holden]

Hi Scott,

> Arlo (Platt mentioned),
> 
> Arlo said:
> I believe Pirsig's (and William Sidis') argument was not that the actual
> phrase "all men are created equal" came from the Indians, but the value
> of this belief. Europeans formalized it, but the premise came from the
> Indian.
> 
> Scott:
> Then they're wrong. It came from social unrest in Europe, such as the
> Peasant's Rebellion in the 14th century (whence the famous phrase "When
> Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"), and the English
> Civil War. Locke was followed by the Enlightenment philosophers,
> challenging authority in various ways, attacking such assumptions as the
> Divine Right of Kings, and in general, the aristocracy. All culminating
> (in Europe) with the French Revolution ("Liberty, *Equality*,
> Fraternity"). There was input from Indian culture in the formation of
> American democratic government (the Iroquois Confederacy, in
> particular), but the idea of human equality came from Europe. This
> doesn't mean it was absent in Indian culture, just that the source for
> Jefferson and his cohorts came from Europe. See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal.

I agree. However, the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the 
formation of the American republic continues to be debatable among 
historians. 

See:  http://www.campton.sau48.k12.nh.us/iroqconf.htm

Pirsig's ideas about Indian influence on American speech and ethics are 
highly speculative. They make for interesting reading but are hardly 
germane to his central thesis, namely that Quality is reality, and that 
today's intellectuals, who are in charge of society, are making a holy 
mess of things. Any relation of Pirsig's ideas about Indians to current 
political debates, like comparing Indian temperate behavior to liberals 
and white men's rapacious conduct to conservatives, is ludicrous.

> Furthermore, I mostly agree with you in what you are saying to Platt, 
> the Newspeak is a fault of *all* sides. That Platt focuses only on
> one side, and in general reduces complex problems to simple us/them
> categories, results in him losing credibility, in my opinion.

Since social problems in a democracy eventually come to an up or down 
vote, from the local town council all the way up to the Supreme Court,  
I think marshalling arguments on one side or the other, as Pirsig does, 
is the correct course of intellectual action. Reporting all sides of an 
issue is what journalists are supposed to do. 

Best,
Platt