[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, Arlo, All

David Halberstam, noted American author, recently wrote a book about Bill
Belichick, coach of  the New England Patriots, Super Bowl champions. 
Belichick's background was that of an immigrant family from Croatia.
Halberstam described their values:

"The values of that era and that particular culture were basic. You worked
hard. You saved, You did not waste anything. If possible, you grew your own
food.  You did not complain. You did not expect anyone to do anything for
you.  Discipline was not so much taught as lived, as an essential part of
life of which there was no alternative." 

Even today  immigrants from Asia and Mexico exhibit similar values.  In
fact, those were the values of most Americans up until the end of World War
I when, as Pirsig points out, the intellectuals took over society.  While
the upper classes drank and danced their way through the 20's, the country
was largely sustained by immigrant values.

In Chapters 22 and 24 of Lila, Pirsig  explains the moral decline of America
from the values of the Belichick family to the values of today's hedonistic
society where the biological forces of sex and violence have invaded the
culture which, because morality is considered subjective and relative, is
helpless to mount a rational defense. 

Pirsig's analysis of that decline should be required reading for every
college student.  For unless tomorrow's leaders understand society's role in
upholding the moral values that keep biological forces at bay, America and
the Western world will continue it's downward slide towards what Pirsig
described simply as "disaster."

Or maybe not. What do you think?

Platt





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