[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
You seem to suggest that cancer victims are partially to blame for 
their condition. I pray you do not become one through no fault of your own. The
causes of many cancers are unknown.

[Arlo]
No such implication. And "blame" is such a loaded word. There are, however, many
risk indicators that have been correlated with cancer (such as smoking and lung
cancer). Even with the best of prevention, there may be genetic origins that
man has no control over (which is another interesting metaphor, some conflict-
as Joseph points out- may be invaluable to break static containment). However,
the goal of health should be on prevention, not on treatment. That was my only
meaning.

[Platt]
As for the hippie road to peace and prosperity, I and I'm sure others 
here are all ears. Perhaps you and Anthony will join forces to come up 
with a Hippie Manifesto that will be so Dynamic that Al-Qaeda will lay 
down their body bombs and become the Arab Salvation Army. We all 
earnestly hope so.

[Arlo]
A "hippie manifesto" would be somewhat oxymoronic, since "hippieness" as
mentioned by Pirsig was movement towards Dynamic Quality.

There may be something to Ant's notion of a pendulum-like societal swing between
movements towards Dynamic and static qualities. Even in Ancient Greece, one
could consider the Cyrenaic sect, which practiced hedonism (sensational
pleasure), and the Epicurian sect which advocated pleasure but directed at (in
MOQ terms) societal and intellectual pleasure to be "hippies" of a sort.

I would also earnestly like to see a secular, liberal "hippie" movement in the
Middle East. But, I would also earnestly like to see it here too. But given the
recent "redefinition" of patriot to be one of "blind, uncritical allegience to
the state", any such movement, here or there, will meet with so much right-wing
resistence as being "unpatriotic" or "traitorous" that it will have to really
dig deep to find strength. My hope is that it can. But these days I am more a
cynic. Maybe in the next generation, which will see the devastating results of
this piss-off. There is where my real hope lies.

Arlo