[MD] On Indian Values (Part I?)

[Platt Holden]

[Arlo]
> So, in the interest of fairnesss, I offer this. You accuse me
> (constantly) of being a "socialist", and yet I've repeatedly stated I
> favor and value a free market.

What you've repeatedly stated is that you favor and value a regulated 
market, and that you favor using the tax code to transfer wealth from 
each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. That, 
my friend, is pure Marx.  

> Can you tell me ONE THING that you accept
> from Pirsig that IS OPPOSED to your "conservative agenda"? One thing?
> You have a lot to choose from here, since you dismiss outright around
> 7/10 of his writings for their "contrary to conservatismness".

Nonsense. The bulk of Pirsig's ideas I agree with. What you constantly  
duck, evade, deny and otherwise ignore is his explanation of why the 
country is it's present sorry state. The intellectuals who have take 
over society with their various "scientific" socialist programs have 
screwed things up royally. The humanist, materialist, secularist elite 
who consider men as nothing more than Darwinian naked apes and all  ape 
cultures of equal value are in command. Result: "Sometime after the 
twenties a secret loneliness, so penetrating and so encompassing that 
we are only beginning to realize the extent of it, descended upon the 
land. This scientific, psychiatric isolation and futility had become a 
far worse prison of the spirit than the old Victorian "virtue" ever 
was." (Lila, 22)  

All of Pirsig's writing is directed to correcting this slide into a  
"prison of the spirit" brought about by the intellectual prevailing 
subject-object worldview. You can spin your way around ZMM all you 
want, but until you address the core of Pirsig's thesis in Lila, you 
dodge the significance of the problem he exposes and the solution he 
proposes.   

And a regulated market is not his answer.

Platt