[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Arlo Bensinger]

Just some thoughts to add...

[Platt]
Glad to know you don't think making a "profit" is in any sense immoral.

[Arlo]
No, I don't. Nor do I think drinking beer is immoral. Alcoholism, on the 
other hand, is immoral. This is where I think we are at, in the 
mercantile-driven language. There is no regulation whatsoever in the idea 
of pursuing wealth. And by "regulation", I don't mean "government", I mean 
internally-regulated activity, such as suggested by Pirsig.

"Victorians in America, she explained, were nouveau riche who had no 
guidelines for what to do with all their sudden wealth and growth. What was 
depressing about them was their ugly gracelessness: the gracelessness of 
someone who has outgrown his own codes of self­regulation.They didn't know 
how to relate to money. That was the problem. It was partly the new 
post-Civil War industrial revolution. Fortunes were being made in steel, 
lumber, cattle, machinery, railroads, and land. Everywhere one looked new 
innovations were creating fortunes where there was nothing before. Cheap 
labor was pouring in from Europe. No income taxes and no social codes 
really forced a sharing of the wealth. After scrambling for their lives to 
get it, they couldn't just give it away. And so the whole thing became 
involuted."

[Platt]
In my proposal that "profit makes possible quality things" I meant "profit" 
solely in terms of financial remuneration in a free market whereby the 
basic materials needed to produce quality things are produced.

[Arlo]
Yes, I understand that this is a money-economy. And that money is needed to 
obtain basic materials in our society. So our economy uses money, I don't 
think it is "profit" that makes possible "quality things". I think quality 
things are the result of craftsmanship, care and "identity". And I think it 
is the overfixation on profit that has undercut "craftsmanship" in our 
culture. Just because a saw is required to cut down a tree, do we say the 
saw is what makes possible great literature? If so, what about "ink"? What 
about binder's glue? What about the screws holding together the printing 
press? You could say, really, that ALL these things "makes possible great 
literature", and such a systems approach is really what I proposed a while 
back with the "ecological" metaphor. Saying, for example, that "great 
literature" depends on an ecology of saws, and ink, and binder's glue, and 
screws, and money, but what is the "keystone species"? I propose it is the 
individual, enabled by cultural to pursue activity that s/he cares about 
and identifies with, with artistic freedom to pursue DQ in the moments it 
exists between labor and object.

Money, profit, maybe a necessary part of our cultural ecology to obtain 
basic materials, but it is no more responsible for craftsmanship (quality 
things) than is the saw or the ink. Indeed, when all we focus on in profit 
as "money", and make that the primary enabler of Quality, craftsmanship is 
killed.

This brings me back to the "Wally Compensation Equilibrium Project", where 
the goal of the individual is the lower the quality of his work until it is 
consistent with his salary. I had said, "If material profit, or money, is 
what "makes possible quality things", then Wally's statement is 
unchallengable, and indeed, a logic and natural statement that all should 
embrace.

Your replied, "I doubt it."

I'm wondering if you could explain this. If people labor for profit, 
defined above by you as "solely in terms of financial remuneration", why 
shouldn't Wally's primary goal be to maximize his profit through minimizing 
his effort? Why should anyone do anything above the bare minimum required 
in the labor contract? Doesn't it make sense, in profit-language, for 
someone to do as little as possible for the greatest profit possible?

[Arlo previously]
Now, is the solution to "just go ahead and identify" with every tedious, 
monotonous, mundane task that is given us? Maybe? What do you think?

[Platt]
Well, to tell you the truth, I don't see the problem. So calling for a 
solution begs the question. "What do you mean by identifying with the 
product of your labor and why is that something you should seek?" More 
important to me, "What's immoral about needing money as a motive to work?"

[Arlo]
You don't see the problem? You are the one who raised the issue of the loss 
of craftsmanship. As for what I mean by "identifying with the product of 
your labor", I mean exactly what Pirsig says in these quotes (provided 
again) from ZMM. I think these quotes also demonstrate "why" we should seek 
identification with our labor.

 > "But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard
 > to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing...and uninvolved. They
 > were like spectators. You had the feeling they had just wandered in
 > there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no
 > identification with the job. No saying, "I am a mechanic." At 5 P.M.
 > or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off
 > and not have another thought about their work. They were already
 > trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job. In their
 > own way they were achieving the same thing John and Sylvia were,
 > living with technology without really having anything to do with it.
 > Or rather, they had something to do with it, but their own selves were
 > outside of it, detached, removed. They were involved in it but not in
 > such a way as to care."
 >
 > "It is this identity that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the
 > technical arts. And it is this identity that modern, dualistically
 > conceived technology lacks. The creator of it feels no particular
 > sense of identity with it. The owner of it feels no particular sense
 > of identity with it. The user of it feels no particular sense of
 > identity with it. Hence, by Phædrus’ definition, it has no Quality.
 > ... It was beautiful because the people who worked on it had a way of
 > looking at things that made them do it right unselfconsciously. They
 > didn’t separate themselves from the work in such a way as to do it
 > wrong. There is the center of the whole solution."

Your final question, "what's immoral about needing money as a motive to 
work", I'd answer that this is the same as saying, "what's immoral about 
wanting to drink a beer after work". Nothing. But, alcoholism is immoral, 
and so is the obsession with static-social level wealth.

[Platt]
See, for me craftsmanship simply means pursuing  excellence which means 
seeking betterness (DQ). If you can't do that in your job, find another job 
or continue the pursuit on your own time. As Joe Campbell advised, "Follow 
your bliss." Chances are that's the most moral thing you can do. I thank 
God -- and all those profit-making businesses --for all the modern 
conveniences that have given us more freedom to follow our blisses than 
ever before in history.

[Arlo]
This is a very "full" paragraph. I agree with the start, and I think that's 
what I've been proposing. For people to demand labor that allows them to 
pursue excellence, seeking betterness. I think that if on a mass scale 
people actually did this, we'd see significant changes in normative 
production practices. This is the grass roots, bubbling up, type revolution 
that I think we need. "Follow your bliss", I can't argue with that. I 
wonder, though, if we all did this, how many people would "follow their 
bliss" to an assembly line job where they turn a screw 10 hours a day? I am 
also reminded of Marsha Sinetar's "Do What You Love, the Money Will 
Follow". Sage advice. But counter to the notion that the only reason we 
labor is for material profit.

Arlo