[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[David M]

Platt

Well it is lovely to have nice quality clothes, food, shelter,
entertainment, art, etc. It is wasteful to have to throw all
your clothes away because consumerism via fashion tells
you to, it is also wasteful to build a car that is built to race
and you never race it but enjoy the status of owning it, etc, etc.
Waste is only bad in the context or there being others who
suffer greatly for shortages of basic commodities. No problem
with people being paid for producing these commodities,
not really sure why we have to organise into companies
where the capital is privately owned and this is used as
a way to justify removing some of the workers pay and calling
it profits. Also don't understand why people are allowed to
pass capital on to their children so that these children never
have to work. I take consumerism as driven by the need
to generate profits, & as encouraging us to spend and consume
in an addictive manner to maximise these. Clearly not a good
thing. I think could spend more of our time not working & not
shopping and not consuming. We could spend time doing more
of those things that cost nothing.

DM



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Platt Holden" <pholden at davtv.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Where have all the values gone?


> Hi Erin, Khaled: 
> 
> Khaled comments on my post about the loss of immigrant values:
> 
>> Oh Platt you are coming to our side.
>> It's really hard to keep the values you are speaking of AND succumb to
>> Madison avenue at the same time. The consumerism that drives this
>> country is the same evil that is eroding these values. ( before you
>> put words in my mouth, NO ONE is asking for government intervention )
>> As long as the populous is like sheep, easily manipulated to spend and
>> buy, they have sold their souls to repay those credit cards.
> 
> Erin makes I what I think is a very valid point.
> 
>>   Just watch the movie I just mentioned.  Anti-consumerism are just as
>>   capable of eroding values. What is "our side" by the way?  
> 
> Here between Khaled and Erin is a typical moral argument that maybe 
> Pirsig's metaphysics of morality can help us analyze if not 
> completely solve. For starters I would offer that threatened violence 
> of any kind against the social order is a resort to biological 
> morality which society has every moral right to put down. As for the 
> populous being "like sheep" perhaps it's because SOM intellect which 
> dominates thought today considers values to be relative and "merely 
> an artificial social code that has nothing to do with the real nature 
> of the world." (Lila, 12)
> 
> In any case, I would like to see Khaled and Erin continue this 
> conversation because at heart is the question we all must answer --
> " What is good?" Or, to ask the question raised in the example Khaled 
> used,  why is consumerism "bad?" 
> 
> Platt
>  
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