[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Platt Holden]

A few more thoughts . . .

> [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.

I fail to see the connection between profits and alcoholism unless you're 
saying there's something wrong with being obsessed about making money. 

> "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."

I don't seem Bill Gates suffering from lack of guidelines on how to spend his 
billions. As for gracelessness, take a look at grunge, the style of the young 
today. Victorians had a sense of grace and manners far surpassing the clods 
filling the malls today.

> [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.

As I suggested, our culture provides more free time to pursue activity one 
cares about than any culture in history. 

> 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.

I never claimed material things were responsible for craftsmanship, just that 
they made craftsmanship possible. I see no evidence that focusing on profit 
kills craftsmanship. Sure there's a lot of junk on the market. Always has been. 
But there's a lot of great stuff out there too that makes a tidy profit for the 
producers. By and large, the quality of today's products is higher than ever 
before. Only the arts have deteriorated.

> 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.
> 
> You 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?

Why? Because the market determines whether Wally will make a profit or not. If 
the product he makes doesn't sell because of his shoddy workmanship, he'll be 
out of a job.

> [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.

I did? I've forgotten when. Can you refer to the post where I bemoaned 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."

Sense of identity with a product is required for it to have Quality? I don't 
think so. I admire many  things that I neither possess nor had any part in 
making, yet I recognize their quality instantly. 

> 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.

Obsession with making money is hardly static. It's an exciting occupation where 
you can make and lose fortunes overnight. And it supports intellectual pursuits 
in that schools and colleges who depend on endowments from wealthy benefactors 
to survive, not to mention the taxes taken solely from profits. No, making lots 
of money is not immoral unless you can show how it is detrimental to one of the 
moral levels. 

> [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.
 
I think its the profit-hungry types you rail against who have built the 
machinery that has automated turning screws and freed labor from such tasks. 
Such "normative production practices" have given people the gift of time to 
craft quality lives, i.e. time to pursue excellence and follow their bliss.

Platt