[MD] Unreality of Equality

[Heather Perella]

Platt,

     Platt said:  "I don't know about you but my
experience tells me that it's a lot harder to put a
man on the moon than put a bone in your nose, and that
a culture more accomplished in science, technology and
longevity is more worthy of study than a culture
deficient in those things."

     Platt that is my point exactly.  You don't know
about the cultural experience of the bone in the nose
and all that goes with it.  Yes, if I did experience
that culture I would talk about it with you, and might
find it worthless, yet, for some valued reason these
people with the bone in the nose - put- the bone in
the nose.  Maybe it is just that for us, an enigma,
something to make us think, an intellectual exercise
for the bone in the nose people who of us on the MOQ
knows?

     Platt your point about what Pirsig stated in so
many words as the Noble Savage myth is done and over
with is understood.  Yes, tribes have ambushed and
killed each other.  My point is their are some that
have been participated with and observed to not
display such unruly behaviors.  Sometimes I wonder if
you are jumping to judgmental conclusions and thinking
all people who do not value material items and thus
have less of them and have not pursued such measures
are bad.  My point is some bone in the nose are
culturally intellectual, just not as materialistic.  I
definitely think there is a difference between
materialism and intellectualism.  Many of the great
writers, painters, and maybe thinkers of the past,
even within Western civilization where dirt poor or
did not have much material items within their
possession.  Yet, because the surrounding community
does have a lot of material possession in Western
culture still does not mean that this powerful
materialism rubbed off on these thinkers and some how
they were able to have better intellect because more
materialism is around them.  I just am thinking you
are making a blanket statement about all tribal people
thinking they are bad, very bad.  If that is your
opinion, then so be it, but if you want to kill them
because of it, then that is another whole other
situation.

     This is what I meant by inequality in reality. 
Some tribes hold well to intellect, some are cannibals
and I wonder about their intellect.  Yet, I still
believe value can be found from a people that live in
the woods.  I live in the woods.  I don't have a bone
in my nose, but I really think by putting a bone in
ones' nose something intellectual is going on.  That
intellect behind the bone in the nose could still be
present even if the person took out the bone in the
nose and the bone in the nose doesn't even have to
have been the trigger for the intellect gained, but
there is a reason, don't you think, for that kind of
act of putting the bone in the nose?  
     Sure there is maybe a lot more reasoning skills
in the mind of the rocket scientist, but yet how do
you weigh things like this?  For instance, the bone in
the nose is a political statement.  It is a sign of
chiefly power.  I put a bone in my nose in this
culture and achieve no such status, our culture is not
tuned to such a thing.  Or the bone in the nose is a
warriors status, and thus the families reputation
increases with this display, the females gather in his
presence, and so forth.   The rocket scientists could
become a political person, he/she could gain
reputation as well as the family may, females gather
in his presence, etc...  Yet, the bone in the nose
person had to perform didn't skills and simply have
the bone in the nose.  The rocket scientist has to
perform other skills and has to more complexly build
rockets.  
     I am not saying one is better than the other,
personally I find astronomy very interesting and took
a high level course in the university on astronomy. 
The bone in the nose person might not ever see or know
of the things the rocket scientist has brought back to
this cultural knowledge.  If the issue is the violence
and ambushing you mentioned in Pirsig's quote then the
bone in the nose culture (especially since we don't
even know what kind of bone and what species the bone
comes from), and the rocket scientists culture have
their faults.  I don't want to get into a Barbarian
Attack discussion with you at the moment.  The
inequality of reality is where I as well want to keep
the discussion flowing. 

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