[MD] U.S. Values: the Jones

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

Ant, Platt,

Of course Platt has to rely on mischaracterization, and utter dismissal of over
70% (all of ZMM and everything in LILA about Indians) of Pirsig's work, to
support his views. The "free market" has absolutely nothing to do with what I
said, and Pirsig's support of the free market in Lila holds no contradiction
with his statements in ZMM, that a "market" is only as good as the
"metaphysics" players come to it with.

Consider this... in 1850 if I criticized slavery, was I "anti-free market"?

I mean, at the time the "market" was "free". Its just that the underlying
cultural values held that blacks were inferior beings. Thus, they could be
traded like chattle.

It was not the "market", it was the "values" held and advanced by the culture.
And so a criticism of "slavery" was a criticism of foundations and outcomes of
those foundations. Pirsig's condemnation of commodity fetishism in ZMM is
similar. And still very relevent today.

In ZMM, Pirsig brings a strong condemnation of the modern SOMist dichotomy that
causes, among other maladies, the commodity fetishism described by Marx. Pirsig
wasn't saying (and neither am I) that the solution is to make the market "not
free", but to criticize and condemn the values people were bring TO the market.

Let's not forget too, that Pirsig recently called ZMM "the path to enlightment",
and LILA "the path back". Hardly a dismissal of his earlier work. Like most
authors, he covers new ground once he has thoroughly covered older ground.