[MD] On Indian Values (Part I?)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[DMB]
Makes me wonder how many fusions there have been and what mixtures may come.
Somehow, it makes culture and history seem more fluid and... well, dynamic.

[Arlo]
Yes, it does. I'm hoping the historical-collision with Latino culture gives the
Euro-dominant among us "some beat". Eh? If nothing else, maybe it'll "flair up"
our national menus. I've been to the Yuccatan several times, the cuisine
(habaneros in candy!) is delicious. Tex-Mex, one result of the hybridity, is
one of the best American culinary regions, with Cajun and BBQ rounding out the
top three. Although I admit, the German in me still loves his Wiernerschitzel
und Spaetzle (und doch Bier!).

I think, and this is a fun, moring "coffee hasn't kicked in" yet thought, that
another sad result of the Victorian dominance has been that "peasent European
culture" was as repressed as "Indian culture". In my travels in Europe (abeit,
only the continent), I find little of the Aristocratic, "social superiority",
haughtiness found in Victorianism. Pirsig writes, "That superiority Rigel
asserted this morning was exactly the pose they would have affected. You can
duplicate it perfectly by pretending you're a king of some European country,
preferably England or Germany. Your subjects are devoted and demanding of you.
You must show respect to your own "station in life." It is not permitted that
your inner personal feelings be publicly displayed. Your whole Victorian
purpose in life is to capture and maintain that pose."

Victorianism is, of course, "the New Aristocracy". More Pirsig, "For them the
pose was quality. Quality was the social corset, the ornamental cast iron. It
was a "quality" of manners and egotism and suppression of human decency. When
Victorians were being moral, kindness wasn't anywhere in sight. They approved
whatever was socially fashionable and suppressed or ignored anything that was
not." Were the Party Jesters calling for a return to European peasent values,
hell, I've been to enough Biergartens and smorgasbords and festivals from
northern Italy through Denmark that I wouldn't wholly object. But they deny
these values too, in favor of strict adherence to Aristocratic Culture. Which
is why, I'd say, its so alluring to those wishing to propose that it is through
economic success that one's worth is measured.

[DMB]
I'd be more amused if there weren't so many people with the same attitudes. I
don't know. Maybe I'm just a "party jester"...

[Arlo]
Stop right there. A Party Jester is one who uses deceptive rhetorical tactics to
combat any challenges to Party Ideology (generally through; fear, distortion,
ad hominems, Wurlitzers and the "Pee Wee"). We may disagree on some issues, but
I have no sense you are a Jester. Nor do I get this sense from Craig, who is
obviously a conservative, and has not once resorted to the Heritage Foundation
adopted tactics mentioned. 

[DMB]
... but I can't help but believe the USA is in the midst of a rather serious
political crisis and our obtuse friend is a prime example of the problem.

[Arlo]
You are speaking of the trends in fascism, and I agree. Although (and if Platt
would have read my response, he'd have seen this) I'd argue that both political
parties are part of this. The devaluing of human life, for example, evident in
the torture of prisoners and capital punishment, is also evident in abortive
procedures such as "Intact dilation and extraction" (commonly called
"partial-birth). Corporate collusion with the goverment is not unique to
Republican Party members. Scapegoating is also a tactic used by the Democratic
Party, and the Clinton administration was a rife with cronyism as the Bush
Court.

One of my longterm challenges has been for people in this country to wake up and
see that the "war" between "democrats and republicans" is mere rhetorical
distraction, where each side is concerned only with power, and where each side
is about a hundredths of a millimeter apart on the political spectrum. In the
vast array of complex issues that we face, that either side can claim to have
"all the answers for every problem", while the other sides is "always wrong",
is pure lunacy. But you'll never, ever see ceding, even when they might KNOW
the other party is right, because ceding even a hair means losing power. Okay.
That was my rant.

[DMB]
Right. Platt ain't got no Elvis in him. To be polite about it, he's 
anti-liberal, anti-intellectual and otherwise exhibits the attitudes of the
current neo-Victorians, theocons, crypto-fascists, quasi-fasicits,
semi-theocrats or whatever else we want to call it. It is what it is and if you
want to know what it is, just listen to Platt or Rush or Hannity or Horowitz.
They all echo of the same voice.

[Arlo]
Of course, hence the term Party Jester. :-) Platt with some Elvis in him.
Although I'm guessing Lila was more fiction than not (unlike ZMM), seeing
Pirsig get drunk, dance and make it with a bar whore in the opening of Lila was
brilliant! His intent was, I'm sure, to "place" the books as "just one person
talking from one place in time and space and circumstance", but it showed that
Pirsig got some Elvis in him (even if he tries to portray Phaedrus as a boring,
old smokestack).

[DMB]
Anyway, I like Pirsig's analysis because it explains why America has always had
trouble living up to her ideals about freedom and equality. Unlike the Indians,
for whom it was NOT just a doctrine but a lived reality, the European part of
the American personality has a certain aversion to these values, isn't really
very comfortable with freedom and equality when the rubber hits the road.

[Arlo]
Spot on, as our over-the-pond cousins say. I think Pirsig chose to end Lila the
way he did for a reason. "The Indians didn't see man as an object to whom the
adjective "good" mayor may not be applied." The Victorians, in their New
Aristocracy, did. 

Early in Lila, Pirsig says this, " The idea that "all men are created equal" is
a gift to the world from the American Indian. Europeans who settled here only
transmitted it as a doctrine that they sometimes followed and sometimes did
not. The real source was someone for whom social equality was no mere doctrine,
who had equality built into his bones. To him it was inconceivable that the
world could be any other way. For him there was no other way of life. That's
what Ten Bears was trying to tell them.

Phaedrus thought the Indians haven't yet lost this one. They haven't yet won it
either, he realized; the fight isn't over. It's still the central internal
conflict in America today. It's a fault line, a discontinuity that runs through
the center of the American cultural personality. It's dominated American
history from the beginning and continues to be a source of both national
strength and weakness today. And as Phaedrus' studies got deeper and deeper he
saw that it was to this conflict between European and Indian values, between
freedom and order, that his study should be directed."

This is an important point, one Pirsig devoted much space to. And I think
critical to understand the "new way of seeing" Pirsig was advancing. Those who
want us to think that Pirsig's message was simply "embrace conservatism"
actively dismiss all this, but like ZMM, its foundational for understanding
what Pirsig was saying.

[DMB]
We see this tension today when mere mention of the word "equality" can touch off
an anti-communist rant.

[Arlo]
Yes we do. Quite telling too, I'd say.

[DMB]
Interesting that conservatives like Platt see equality as necessarily entailing
a tyrannical social order instead seeing it as a necessary feature of freedom. 

[Arlo]
Because Victorianism, Platt's ideal, is aristocratic. Some people ARE worth more
than others, and money measures this worth. In all his comments on the "poor",
you see either references to laziness or stupidness. They are sloths. Bottom
feeders. Horrid little creatures, like the "liberals" who care about them.

[DMB]
Speaking of rants... [All good points, but this is getting long so I'm only
gonna comment on two -Arlo]

And their prude, prude attitude about birth control has lead to how many
AIDS-related deaths in Africa?

[Arlo]
Don't even get me started. We've shown our true "altruism" and "heroic desire to
end tyranny" in our abject neglect of Africa while lasering in oil-producing
Middle East countries. Africa is the dirty underbelly of the world, spit on and
neglected. We should all be ashamed.

[DMB]
Tony Snow as press secretary. That's just perfect.

[Arlo]
Its part of the idiotic disconnect this dichotomy has created and nurtures. As a
Party Jester, Snow can do little more than parrot whatever apologies are
sanctioned by the Heritage Foundation. His interest is spin, and nothing but
spin. The two sides in this ficticious dichotomy have to learn to dialogue. We
have to have an interest in more than "Party", and that ain't gonna happen any
time soon. We've bought the message, "Our Party is Grand and Glorious and All
That is Good, and Your Party is made up of deceitful, vile, little creatures
with black-teeth who are at once and everywhere plotting to enslave you and
take away everything you love". Until we see the message for what it is,
nothin's gonna change.

[DMB]
Sorry about all the digressions, but if you guys can talk about the Marxist
features of a motorcycle tax in this thread "on indian values", then I guess
you'll cut me some slack there. I'm just having fun.

[DMB]
No apologies ever needed, DMB. Fun is the name of the game.

Arlo