[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Arlo]
I'm sorry you see "chit chat" as lower quality than "intimate" conversation.
It's not. 

[Erin]
That's your opinion.  If you find more value in one, it has higher quality.  If
you find just as much quality in talking about what I got at the grocery store
than a deeper conversation (e.g) that is fine but I don't.   Every conversation
isn't equal Arlo...and if I look at my conversations the ones I value most
weren't chit-chats so there is nothing wrong with judging them as higher
quality.

[Arlo]
"Chit chats", as I've said, are highly phatic, and valuable for social bonding,
establishing presence, building collaboration, solidarity and emotional
collusion. No, every conversation is not equal, but to dismiss "chit chat" as
inherently "low quality" is blind to the good things chit chat does for social
discourse. 

My entire intial premise was that the public-private modes of engagement was
being lopsided towards private by a cultural normacy in language that
overvalues "private" space, both material and metaphorical, and how this is
part of the pervasive consumerist doctrine presented to us as the norm by
specific ideological interests.

I never said public was more valuable than private, and yet this was initial
complaint. You took exception to this, saying that castles of solitude aren't
so haunting. I simply repeated what I had been saying all along, that such a
statement is fine, but its the excessive retreat, the self-imposed
imprisonment, that's my concern.

Do you have anything to say to this other than condescending remarks about an
"imaginary audience"?

[Arlo previously]
I realize, too, that the identity you present on the forum is of the emotionally
driven and anti-intellectual Lila to the smokestack intellectuals, and I do see
value in that, really. So, I'll cede. You win. You shot me down. Lila 1,
Smokestack 0.

[Erin]
More crap by somebody that can only boost his ideas by attacking the person. 
Conversation isn't a point-scoring game to me.

[Arlo]
I'm not sure what conversation is to you, other than bitter and anger
condescending remarks. Maybe you should step back and see how Erin examplifies
everything she condemns in others. What constructively have you offered in
counter to my argument, for example, other than repeated slights and attacks?
When have I ridiculed your position? I even told you I find great value in your
"chit-chat/intimate" analysis. All you have done in return is ridicule me. 


[Arlo previously]
In Platt's most recent post he says, "Without profits there's little incentive
to produce." 

[Erin]
Well first I would distinguish business and culture.  Maybe your quickness to
equate them is by your Marxist attitude of "money is the measure of man".

[Arlo]
First, culture includes business. How could it not? Business, advertising and
the marketplace are HUGE areas of cultural activity. Second, "money is the
measure of man" is not a Marxist attitude. What do you base such a statement? I
have made my argument that it is a derivative of mercantilian language,
emerging in modern culture with the "Wealth of Nations". How would you argue
that it is Marxist?

[Erin]
I find Platt talks a lot about this thing about beauty.  It's you Arlo who seems
so obsessed with money, money, money which is why you want to turn everything
into conversations about it.

[Arlo]
Yes, Platt talks a lot about beauty. But this conversation started with a
examination of consumerism. Why do you feel talking about "money" in a thread
on consumerism is obsessive? And I have already admitted that my interest in
the MOQ lies in it application to daily activity, of which money and the market
and consumerism are a large part. My interest in aesthetics and mysticism is
peripheral. I enjoy the posts of others, but don't feel able, or qualified, to
participate.

[Erin]
Sometimes its funny you don't see how hypocritical, arrogant, and obnoxious you
are and sometimes...its not so funny.

[Arlo]
Hm. I could say the same thing about you.

Arlo