[MD] Unreality of Equality

[Platt Holden]

Arlo -

I would be interested to know if you think the following passage from 
Pirsig indicates an inequality in value of different kinds of people.

"It's this intellectual pattern of amoral "objectivity" that is to 
blame for the social deterioration of America, because it has 
undermined the static social values necessary to prevent deterioration. 
In its condemnation of social repression as the enemy of liberty, it 
has never come forth with a single moral principle that distinguishes a 
Galileo fitting social repression from a common criminal fighting 
social repression. It has, as a result, been the champion of both. 
That's the root of the problem.

"Phaedrus remembered parties in the fifties and sixties full of liberal 
intellectuals like himself who actually admired the criminal types that 
sometimes showed up. "Here we are," they seemed to believe, "drug 
pushers, flower children, anarchists, civil rights workers, college 
professors-we're all just comrades-in-arms against the cruel and 
corrupt social system that is really the enemy of us all."

It seems clear that Pirsig regards "criminal types" of less value as 
people than intellectuals like Galileo, or in modern terms, Einstein 
and others of accomplishment. He mocks the idea that everyone has equal 
value morally. I agree. Do you? 

Platt